Moe Sihota Says NDP Need To Talk Economy

By 250 News

Dancers from the Punjabi Social Club perform at PG NDP 'Presidential' dinner

Prince George, B.C. - The President of the B.C. New Democrats, Moe Sihota, says it's time for party members to "stop looking at their shoes" when asked about economic policy...

Speaking to approximately 90 people at a 'Presidential' dinner organized by the Prince George New Democrats last night, Sihota says the NDP has lost eight out of the last 11 elections.  He says there are a number of reasons, but he wants to deal with one, specifically.  "We, for some reason, don't talk about the economy."

Sihota says NDP MLAs can talk about a whole range of social issues, but they should, and have to, start talking about the economy if the party is to make gains.  He says the HST has brought about the biggest tax shift in history -- taking it from the large corporations and placing it directly on individuals -- and it's fractured Liberal support. 

The party president says there's no doubt the tax has benefited large corporations in forestry and mining, but it's had a punitive effect on small businesses and the average taxpayer.  "And I do think that there's a political opportunity for us as New Democrats to reach out to that sector, the small business sector, and try to get them to take a look at us as a political alternative because I don't think that there's anything that we could bring about that would be as injurious as the HST."

He says he has no doubt the tax will be gone, if not through the change in Liberal leadership, then as a result of next September's referendum.  And Sihota says the party must have a firm economic strategy in place to reach out to the disenfranchised with -- he says there are five things the NDP must do:

1. change attitudes:  Sihota says business, labour, and First Nations can't be put in seperate rooms -- they must unite and find a common framework to build on
2. invest in education:  explain and argue with people that the economy is predicated on investments in education
3. resolve aboriginal land claims to remove uncertainty
4. do better at marketing the province
5. design policy that benefits both jobs and the environment

"I think we have enough to say to people that we can say with a level of pride as New Democrats that, 'Look, we have a framework for the economy that will allow for jobs and for growth.'  Sihota adds, "And we should also not look at our shoes anymore when people criticize as the 'dark, doom, dismal decade of the 1990s' because, you know, by any objective measurement that simply wasn't the case."

Sihota offers a comparison between stats between the decade the New Democrats were in office through the 1990s, to the past decade with the Liberals in power:

                                              NDP                                       Liberals

new jobs created:                   344,000                                    394,000

GDP growth:                              3%                                         2.8%

UE rate:                                   6.6%                                        7.3%

Debt:                                     up $14b                                    up $11b

deficit budgets:  same number for both governments

"We have nothing to apologize for, in the 10-years we looked after the economy, it performed precisely as it should," says the former NDP MLA.  "In the 10-years, these guys have had, it's performed no better than what it did under the NDP, so we should stop taking it on the chin and look people in the eye and stop apologizing."

The now-Party President says it's time to develop an economic platform that engages and motivates people and it's time to put an end to all the sniping and fully back leader Carole James -- he says if the New Democrats can do that, they can win the next election.

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