Dear Editor,
B.C. Liberal MLA John Yap’s recent full page ad in the Richmond News (paid for with taxpayers’ dollars?) extolling the virtues of the recent provincial budget is yet another example of the Liberal penchant for not presenting the full story.
He rightly extols the increased funding for items such as healthcare and education (though this increase is not due to the Liberals concern about public education but rather by court order) and the (alleged) reduction in MSP premiums.
The budget indicates that spending will increase 1.6 per cent per year over the next three years. If healthcare is excluded, then spending will increase by 0.6 per cent per year. At this level, spending increases will be less than inflation and population growth, resulting in even more spending cuts.
Perhaps, in the next issue of the Richmond News, Mr. Yap can place a full page ad informing us who will be affected by the cuts. If Liberal history is any indication, the cuts will fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable in society (perhaps they will, again, claw back bus passes from the disabled or child support payments from single mothers).
We can be reasonably sure the cuts will not affect the massive amounts of corporate welfare the Liberals spend or B.C. Liberal donors.
The possible reduction of MSP is long overdue and must have brought a tear to Christy Clark’s eye, as this type of regressive tax (hydro, ICBC, tolls…) is the type she prefers.
However, the main beneficiary of this quasi payroll tax may not be individuals.
Millions of British Columbians have their premiums paid for by their employer. As this is a taxable benefit, for the individual their savings is equal to their marginal tax rate times the reduction, the employer receives the benefit of the full reduction.
Perhaps Yap, in his next ad, will tell us the how much of the reduction will go to the individual and how much to the employer.
To justify the reduction in PST on electricity for businesses, Yap implies that some of the savings could result in increased wages. Yap, clearly, does not live in the real world. As Clark repeats ad nauseam, we are a free enterprise province and, as such, it is unrealistic to expect that if a company’s profits increase, they will return the profit to the employees in the form of wage increases. The big five banks made profits of $9.9 billion last quarter, I don’t recall them announcing wage increases. In fact, they are laying off people.
The budget is also shy on what direct investments are being made in Richmond (hospital, schools, transportation). In fact, there is no mention of Richmond at all in the budget (which covers three years), other than as a footnote to a survey criticizing Richmond for their development application procedures.
John Yap, may believe the budget deserves unending platitudes, but the fact is for many it represents more cuts to services and further highlights how, he along with his two other Liberal MLA’s, Linda Reid and Teresa Wat, are unwilling or incapable of delivering anything of substance to Richmond.
Al Williams
Richmond
