Hey, Victoria, raise THIS 15%!

Members of the BC Legislature have voted themselves a 15% pay increase, as well as a new pension plan.

Gordon Campbell (whose own salary increases by 21%) told reporters "there's never a good time to do this." After five years of practice, the Premier is getting better at lying. Tomorrow's civic elections not only act as a smokescreen for the raises, but will motivate the least tuned in of voters to cast a ballot for the most knee-jerk and reactionary of choices, who are more likely to play ball with the right-wingers in Victoria.

Also, the raises don't come into effect until April 1, when public sector unions start bargaining in earnest. While George Heyman and Barry O'Neil say that they have a pretty conspicuous benchmark for BCGEU and CUPE BC Members, watch that benchmark fade as the Liberals fabricate another economic crisis like they did in tagging the former NDP government with a "structural deficit". Falling commodity prices anyone? How about Olympic cost overruns? Come this spring, MLAs will still have theirs, while everyone else will be making do with strike pay.

This page got a sniff of how a once-again bare cupboard will play out in four months when he saw Global TV's Keith Baldrey harp about how much pay increases could end up costing taxpayers. With whatever respect is due, Mr. Baldrey, either take an Economics class or shut the fuck up. Unlike MLAs, of which there are only 79, there are thousands of public sector workers in BC who in the course of working, raising families, and participating in their communities, buy stuff and pay taxes. That not only creates jobs which strengthen the tax base, public sector workers, in reality, remit a portion of their salary back to governments in the form of the taxes they pay themselves.

As for Carole James and the NDP caucus, wow, do you ever have some serious explaining to do, especially after how your new piggy bank buddies across the floor slapped around some of your closest allies in the BCTF a few weeks ago, denying teachers a raise. In the meantime, I guess this little windfall means you won't miss the fact I didn't buy banquet tickets for next week's convention.