Dear editor:
The NDP in B.C. has become synonymous with big labour.
Examples abound all across the province in communities small and large, and NDP leader Adrian Dix is a case in point. But if ever there was a case proving the NDP is synonymous with big labour, it’s the NDP’s recently appointed candidate in New Westminster, Judy Darcy.
Fresh off a plumb post as chief negotiator at the Hospital Employee’s Union, Darcy glided in effortlessly to fill the NDP candidate vacancy in the Royal City, as if she’d simply been transferred by her bosses to a cozy new position within the exact same organization.
Then, right on cue, her shrewd negotiation and media skills were put to work crowing about healthcare and the “appalling” Royal Columbian Hospital situation, demanding taxpayers essentially get out their cheque books without “further delays” and take care of “staffing issues,” i.e., more money for her people. It’s a blatant conflict of interest that voters should not stand for.
Why should voters anywhere in this province, simply hand over comfy seats in Victoria as baubles to labour leaders, as if they have a divine right to them?
Don’t get me wrong. It’s perfectly legitimate in our free country to have a Labour Union Party like the NDP, whose aim is to make union members their top priority, with other stakeholders like taxpayers, employers, patients, customers, business owners and rank-and-file citizens taking a back seat.
Union members pay dues. Those dues help elect NDP politicians who then try to get their benefactors better pay, perks, pensions, benefits, time-off, etc.
It’s that simple.
But since the vast majority of voters in B.C. are not in unions, the NDP needs to use fuzzy terms like “families” and “working families” to woo the people who are not really their top priority. It’s a crafty PR spin, but getting pretty tiresome.
The real solutions for our healthcare woes will likely be found in technological and organizational innovations that require less labour, not more. Innovation requires change and often huge investments of intellectual and financial capital.
The entrenched “unions good/management bad” worldview of the NDP breeds cynicism and an entitlement culture that is toxic to the visionary innovation and change we need to save our precious healthcare system.
Change is hard. For example, it will be hard for many B.C. communities to reject the NDP and its big labour agenda and send candidates to Victoria who will represent the average citizen.
But we can do it, if we work together and remain wary of big labour’s self-serving healthcare solutions.
And I believe we have no choice..
The mere idea of big labour signing healthcare cheques and targeting the cheque books of B.C. taxpayers without any regard for cost is enough to give anyone a heart attack.
David Brett
New Westminster