Balancing the Budget

The excuse given by Bill Ritchie at a meeting during his tour was that the increased charges were necessary to balance the budget after the Socialists had proved that only a Socred government could run British Columbia. (Where have we heard that sort of argument before? The sense of deja vu was amazing at every Socred meeting I attended while the Canadians were on tour). The interesting thing, to me was that each time Ritchie made such a statement the local Socreders thought that such policies were to be commended. A reasonable assumption would be that Socred (NZ) would be firm advocates of similar fiscal policies given they ever got into government!

On the labour legislation front Socred (BC) has proven itself to be as right wing as the National Party here in New Zealand -probably even more so. Ritchie advocates giving the right to decide if a union should strike to the wives of the union members, in the belief that women don't want their men to strike in any circumstance.

What has the Socred (BC) government done to assist or help the trade union movement? The answer is simple. Since 1975 three major pieces of legislation have been introduced.

(1)	Bill 46 - The West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act - denied thousands of workers in British Columbia the right to withdraw their labour, by extending the definition of "essential service" to include school janitors, college ground keepers, and anyone else who worked in the education system.
(2)	Bill 28, which attempted to unilaterally change the government employees' pension plan. Ritchie actually claimed, at his Whangarei meeting, this was necessary because the pension plan was costing the taxpayer money and needed to be axed to balance the budget. Bill 28 was stopped by the government employees' union, from becoming law.
(3)	The Mines Act 1980 removes health and safety regulations from legislation governing mines and mining. This piece of legislation is no doubt in response to overseas pressure in the mining field, as Socred (BC) has hocked off much of its mineral resources to overseas firms in an effort to "balance the budget".