04) MASS ACTION IS NEEDED TO DEFEAT THE BC LIBERAL BUDGET

Communist Party of BC statement on the February 16 provincial budget

            On the crucial economic issues of the minimum wage, social assistance and disability rates, MSP premiums, and housing costs, the Feb. 16 budget introduced by Christy Clark’s BC Liberals fails to address the needs of working people. The Communist Party of BC condemns this budget as nothing more than the latest in a long series of gifts to the wealthy and the corporations, and we urge the labour and people’s movements to mobilize against it.

            While pretending to defend the interests of BC families, the Premier continues the longstanding Liberal strategy of billion-dollar giveaways for the wealthy and the corporations, a few boutique tax credits for middle-income earners, and nothing for unemployed and low-income British Columbians. The rich are still riding the endless BC Liberal gravy train, while the poor are condemned to hunger and homelessness.

            Soon after Gordon Campbell was elected, the BC Liberals went on a rampage, slashing social programs, illegally ripping up public sector collective agreements, and freezing social assistance and disability rates at the abysmal levels set by the previous NDP government. At the same time, Campbell announced massive tax breaks for the benefit of upper-income earners and corporations. This giveaway has cost the BC treasury over $2 billion annually over the past 15 years, for an accumulated total of well over $30 billion. Looked at another way, the wealthiest ten percent of BC’s population (about half a million people) have been given over $50,000 each by the BC Liberals, while single unemployed people on social assistance have less than $200 per month (after rent) for food, clothing and other essentials.

            The Liberals are also helping increase corporate profits with their minimum wage policy. After a small increase when Clark became premier, the Liberals instituted annual increases linked to inflation. Their claim that this would move BC up to the middle of the pack for minimum wage rates was soon exposed as a shabby lie. BC’s current minimum wage of $10.45 per hour is 12^th out of 13 provinces and territories, and will soon fall to dead last. Since most other jurisdictions also tie the minimum wage to inflation, British Columbia will still trail the rest of the country after the next paltry increase of 20 cents per hour in September 2016, and indefinitely into the future.

            Some economists propose a “one time” boost of another 20 to 30 cents per hour to bring BC’s minimum wage to the middle of the range. For full-time minimum wage workers who pay over half of their $1600 monthly wages on rent, such an increase of $30-40 per month would soon be eaten up by rising rents, food, and other costs. The Communist Party of BC gives full support to the campaign by the labour movement for an immediate increase to $15 per hour, and we demand a $20/hour minimum wage as the best way to ensure that workers in British Columbia can live with some measure of dignity and security.

            Typical of the BC Liberals, the 2016-17 budget adds to the huge increases in Medical Service Plan premiums imposed on working people in recent years. This regressive flat taxis a blatant violation of the principles of affordability and universality contained in the Canada Health Act which established Medicare. The MSP is just a pittance to upper-income earners, but eats up a huge share of take-home pay for hundreds of thousands of low- to middle-income families in the $30,000-plus range. In response to a massive online petition campaign to replace MSP premiums with a more progressive income tax system, the Liberals instead announced minor tinkering such as reductions for some single-parent families, a shameful attempt to dodge the issue.

            We also condemn the government’s strategy of offering a few breaks to first-time home buyers. As welcome as these reductions will be for families facing inflated million-dollar prices to purchase a detached home, this policy does nothing to provide housing for renters priced out of the market. Rents in the Metro Vancouver region now average about $1200 for one-bedroom units, and $1500 for two-bedrooms. But instead of acting to build tens of thousands of desperately needed low-cost and social housing units, the provincial government ignores the emergency of skyrocketing housing costs for renters.

            Perhaps most appalling, this budget contains no increase for people on social assistance, and a miserly $11-25 per month for those in the disability category.

            Mass action is needed to defeat the new Liberal budget, and to demand urgent progressive changes: a $20/hour minimum wage; an immediate 50% increase in social assistance and disability rates; scrap the MSP premiums; launch an emergency plan to build 100,000 social and low-income housing units. Such a People’s Alternative economic policy should be paid for by restoring the pre-Liberal tax rates on upper-income earners and corporations. Waiting and hoping for an NDP victory in 2017 will do nothing for working people and the poor, especially since the NDP has given little indication of running on a platform of significant progressive change. The Communist Party of BC urges the trade union movement to launch a Common Front to campaign for these pro-working class reforms!

(The above article is from the March 1-15, 2016, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)