As she discovered while a failed leader, whining and wishing longingly for other people’s earnings is not a solution many find palatable.
What she fails to mention in her scree is, cutbacks combined with ballooning under-funded gold-plated pension payments to lazy public sector unions are a real budget crisis going forwarded. But continue to think any increase in funding should go directly into the union’s pockets, rather than improving the lot of their pawns.
Talk about bait and switch, it is the cornerstone of health and education union negotiating tactics.

Bang on Jimmy. It’s the bloated, inefficient public sector unions that are sucking much needed funding away from healthcare and education in this province. Every time our fiscally responsible government asks those unions to do more with less the bottom-feeders whinge and moan. It’s our money, god damn it – stop treating ‘the government’ like a cookie jar for your own self interests.

Jimmy Hughes.. You should read Bill 11.. You always have to wonder about the bills brought in so quietly.. School boards make decisions about their area schools.. They are slowly losing any say to the government.. Do you really think someone in Victoria cares about anyone outside the lower mainland.. The more power the government takes the more we lose as a province.

Nonsense…as long as one tiny school district is embroiled in labour turmoil, the entire BCTF walks the picket lines. School boards used to be little fiefdoms where the local public sector unions would supply the candidates and instruct the lemmings who to vote for. Low voter turnout and indifference are organized labour’s best friends.
No I prefer the elected government in Victoria to keep a lid on BCTF’s anti-education tactics.

OMG where did some of these people get their education , Jimmy and VOR have no idea what they are talking about .

Actually Fedup I know exactly what I’m talking about. I just refuse to drink the Kool-Aid that the BCTF, CUPE, BCGEU, etc. offer. Think about running the healthcare and education systems like running a pulp mill or other complicated industrial process. You don’t fix difficult problems by simply throwing money at them – you have to identify the inefficiencies and bottlenecks and make targeted improvements to the system. And if your boiler, or evaporator, or blow tank isn’t doing its job properly, you fix or replace it. There are legions of BCTF, BCGEU and CUPE slackers that should be fixed or replaced if there’s any hope that the healthcare and education systems in this province will improve.

OMG, what a typically clueless response from the left. When you begin your reasoned response with OMG, you have become irrelevant to me. Next.

VOR the Pulpmills don’t fix their problems by adding more and more managers.. They have shareholders to answer to.. This government is supposed to answer to us but they ignore us.. Have you not read about the new hydro rates will cost the schools 50 million a year.. I am sure it’s the unions fault for that somehow in your mind.

P Val the government has taxpayers to answer to, in lieu of shareholders. That’s why the current government was elected, period. They’re doing exactly what they said they were going to do, and what we want them to do – control public sector spending and reduce inefficiencies across the board. The majority of British Columbians support that approach – if the unions and their political mouthpiece the NDP don’t like it, too bad. Come up with a better plan before the next provincial election and try to form a government.

Often people will point to the “business” does it better model, vs bureaucrats and government. When the latter make a mistake, there’s general hand wringing and comments like – “that would never happen in business” Well, it sure would. Target Canada was a decision made by business people. Business people make bad decisions all the time they just don’t end up in the media because they are generally not public knowledge.

I actually think our civil service does a pretty decent job. I think politicians are regular people who won a popularity contest, and if it wasn’t for the civil service putting the brakes to some of the dumber ideas, it would be much worse.

And don’t for a moment believe politicians aren’t in it for self-interest. Maybe half a century ago people saw it as a calling, but now it’s a job, with a sweet pension, and an ability to do things for friends and feather your bed in the future with said friends.

The real problem we have, is it doesn’t matter which political party is in power. The only thing that changes, is the beneficiary of the political power – Liberals – business, NDP – Labour, but it’s the taxpayer who loses every time.

And yet for all this, pretty much everyone in B.C. who wants a roof over there head and a full belly, can have one.

BTW – I enjoy PVal’s comments. Fact is, if he didn’t post a contrary opinion we’d have nothing to talk about. And contrary opinion’s create discussion, and I have to admit, I am rethinking some of my positions as well. Especially public finding of private schools. New essay to follow :)

Imagine if the Muslim community in town decided to build their own hospital with their own money. And after it was built, they went to the government and said – give us half of the money you give the public hospital, and we’ll treat our own people making up the shortfall by charging them a user fee. And anyone can use our hospital, as long as they can afford the fee. And to make matters worse, because they are such a healthy bunch, and nice to deal with, doctors stop working at the public hospital, and start working at the Muslim hospital. I’ll bet most of us would be pretty angry at them getting tax money, even though it truly is helping the public system by their patients paying half.

Methinks this is PVal and other’s problem with private schools. If you see education in the light of universal access, like we do medicine, public funding of private schools actually violates that principle – and PVal and gang are correct to be concerned. Essentially, anyone who can afford the extra cash, gets preferred access to education.

If you see education in the light of choices, and not a universal access issue, then you see it as people just paying for their choices, and the government cash is a carrot to make sure they teach the kids the BC Curriculum or equivalent. Because keep in mind, if the government withdraws the cash, they can teach the kids pretty much anything they want with minimal oversight.

Oh please: Typical left debating tactic is to take a measure of the supposed education within a room or thread, and anoint themselves the expert, and proceed to lecture the great unwashed.
I might be tempted to vote other than conservative, if the left wasn’t polluted with such hypocrites. At least with the right you know what you are getting. Progressives have no problem prostituting their ethics if it will further utopia dreams. Read: Pay no taxes, enjoy universal benefits financed by nasty-wasty big business and all the 1%ers not paying their fair share.

Well put Ski51. And jimmy boy . When I went to collage there was no such thing as student loans . So calling me snotty is a little presumptuous , kid . The whole industrial eduction complex is an afront to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights ,which canada is a signatory too. this and many other reasons is why harper the Harperettes and their useful idiots are so against the UN and rule of international law . Heck they are even are against the Palestinians joining the international court of justice .

I agree ski51.. If we all had the same opinion life would be rather boring.. I do rethink some of my opinions at times due to what people post here.

VOR they should have the tax payers to answer to, but they don’t..they say what they want to get elected then do what they want.. The leasing of bc rail is a perfect example..they said it wasn’t a election issue as it was remaining the same then 6 months later after they won the election it was leased for 999 years.. They didn’t ask the tax payers if it was okay to take 900 million from ICBC. But now we all get to pay more for vehicle insurance to cover this..

The liberals don’t have the majority of BC’s support..they only had approx %38 of the population vote for,them.. Why didn’t evryone vote that could.? People hate politicians, don’t trust politicians and know politicians do what ever they want..so,why even vote..

Albatross and her three day late response. Try and keep up sparky. Next.

No..the electorate despises the NDP and is stuck with the liberals, because the quixotic voters in the 604 are clueless.

Jimmie , now you assume that I am a woman . What colour is the sky in your world ? Never assume .

Well Albatross, your slip was showing, so I made the mistake of assuming. Sorry ’bout that.

“Jimmy Hughes” and “VOR” In response to your extremely ignorant comments re teacher’s pensions fACT: Teachers pay over 80% of their salaries to a pension pot account which,because of these very substantial monthly deductions becomes a pre paid pension. Interest on these invested deductions earn the full pension at the end of a career. Teachers and other public servants are not allowed to contribute $22000.00 a year as private employees are. I saw stock brokers and other business types brag about their earnings and spending flagrantly on bi_yearly trips to Mexico etc. And now whine because they can’t retire or didn’t save a pension….so they blame people who do. So tired of these whiners!!!

maxima, can you please clarify your statement?
I’m sure that teachers do not pay “over 80% of their salaries” toward their future pension.

What did you mean to say? I am interested.

metalman.

Maxima – your comment regarding 80% of teachers’ salaries going toward their pensions is beyond bizarre. Ditto for the comment about ‘stock brokers and other business types who brag about their earning, etc.’. Of course there are braggart a-holes who talk up their self worth but that’s completely unrepresentative of the broader ‘business community’ in this province. Business owners take risks, invest their own money, struggle to succeed and employ other people – the ridiculous cliché of the fat ‘monopoly’ guy lighting his cigar with a $100 bill is just that, ridiculous. Small and medium sized business keeps this province solvent.

Maxima, your number are completely ridiculous! Hope that you aren’t a teacher!

You failed to mention that while teachers and other public sector workers do make contributions to their pensions plans, the employer (the Government) also makes contributions to the pensions. In case you haven’t yet made the connection yet, the contributions that the Government makes comes out of the taxes that we all pay!

Must be nice to make contributions to a pension plan, only to have your contributions matched or exceeded by the taxpayer!

You also failed to mention that most private sector workers do not have a pension plan. Our contributions go into things like RRSPs and TFSAs. We take on all of the investment risk of our portfolio. Most Public Sector workers take on absolutely no risk with their pension plan, because in most cases they are part of a defined benefit pension plan! Any shortfalls are covered by Government, once again that would be the taxpayers at large!

And once again, you failed to mention some thing else! Public sector workers such as teachers have the right to contribute to RRSPs, over and above their pension plan contributions, however the amount that they are able to contribute will be reduced by their “pension adjustment”!

So Maxima, if you want to get the maximum response to your post, perhaps you should check your fACTS!!

Ski51, there in lies the problem, pure and simple.

You and others say private schools are “preferred access” or somehow better than public schools. If this is in fact the case then we have a huge problem with waste in the public system as the private one works with way less money per student EVEN after the “user fee”. There are many reasons for someone to choose private over public – bullying and others – not just the “value” or “level” of the education.