The next six months might prove critical for our province’s future. Finance Minister Carole James has that long to come up with a budget that is more than a bouquet of flowers to the Greens and the unions.
It’s become a truism that B.C. has done well over the past decade, and compared to the Canadian average, that’s correct.
Yet in real terms, median incomes in B.C. grew by only 12 per cent between 2005 and 2015, according to the latest census. By contrast, Saskatchewan’s median income surged 36.5 per cent, as did Nunavut’s. Newfoundland grew 30 per cent, Alberta and NWT 24 per cent each, and Manitoba and Yukon, 20 per cent.
So why do we think we did well? Because Ontario and Quebec, which together represent 60 per cent of Canada’s GDP, went in the toilet and dragged down the national average. Ontario turned in a miserable 3.8 per cent growth rate, and Quebec, 8.9.
So yes, we outperformed the centre of the country, but more due to its weakness than our strengths. A 12-per-cent lift in incomes over 10 years is hardly something to write home about.
There is, however, a lesson to be learned here. The Prairie provinces, with their oil and gas deposits, prospered, as did Newfoundland, for the same reason.
Ontario and Quebec took a hammering when their principal industries — manufacturing and textiles — departed for low-income countries. Ontario responded by raising its wage rates. So much for competitive pricing.
And both provinces erected shibboleths to “renewable energy” — the modern equivalent of throwing maidens down wells in hope of a good harvest.
Isn’t there here at least the inkling of a policy? First, stop this poisonous war on pipelines, tankers and dams. The resource sector remains the heart of our economy, and nothing in the Green prayer book is going to change that.
Forget abandoning the Site C dam — that would be a body blow to communities in the Interior already ravaged by fire.
Punt the promised lift in minimum wages well down the road — a job killer if ever there was one.
Zap the carbon tax. With gas prices well over a dollar a litre, hiking them further is pure virtue signalling.
Restore the tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges — another bouquet, this time to the NDP’s Vancouver base — and use the $480 million to build infrastructure.
Forget wiping out ocean-based salmon farms up-Island. I know, they have less than a sterling reputation. But they bring in $540 million a year.
And above all, understand the possible consequences before embracing the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as the NDP and Greens have promised to do.
This would give all 198 First Nations a veto on any economic development project in their regions — pretty much the entire province.
Consultation and co-operation, yes. But if a veto were granted, and used on a regular basis, it could make an economic desert out of the B.C. hinterland.
Aboriginal leaders make a compelling case when they speak of the desperate circumstances on their reserves: High unemployment, alcoholism, spousal and child abuse, poor housing, lousy transportation, shocking teenage suicide rates and much more.
Resource projects offer the only hope of a wage economy in many remote locations, and the best hope of easing the dreadful conditions on their reserves.
I understand James’s desire to turn the corner from too many years of Liberal stinginess. But we are far more vulnerable than the bustle around Vancouver suggests.
We need an economic policy that builds on our strengths — the real ones, not the hope-and-a-prayer variety. There are hard years ahead. We need an NDP administration with equally hard-headed policies.
