A Letter to BC Premier Christy Clark Regarding the BC Job Plan

Novamber 2, 2011

Dear Christy Clark,

In an effort to better understand your job strategy for BC, I recently read your government’s online pamphlet, Canada Starts Here: The BC Jobs Plan (no longer made available on the government website).

I still have no idea what your damn plan is. Not really.

Canada Starts Here is a repetitive document, with empty phrasing and a whole lot of de-regulation and murky ethics lurking between the lines.

Despite including a point-form list of “things to do,” the document doesn’t actually explain how your government is going to do anything. For example:

“As part of this plan, the government is committed to reducing the turnaround time for permits by reducing the backlog for ‘notices of work’ for mining by 80 percent by August 31, 2012 and for water and land act tenures by 50 percent by December 31, 2012.

These projects will still require a stringent environmental review and obtain all permits and approvals required.”

The document explains that this is a step your government is going to take to “enable job creation,” but doesn’t explain how your government plans to speed up this process. There’s the assurance that environmental review and permits, etc. will still be required, but I fail to understand how your government plans to solve this problem without de-regulation.

The document also offers no clear goals for the number of jobs that will be created. There is a list of deadlines at the end of the document—what tasks your government would like to accomplish and when they’d like to accomplish them by—but nothing that gives BC residents a clear sense of where they can expect the job market to be in two years.

And more importantly, at no point does the document mention how much BC residents can expect your government to spend. I’m sure there is a figure kicking around the Internet somewhere, but it wasn’t included in Canada Starts Here, and I haven’t heard of any kind of cost breakdown existing at all.

And then there was this lovely inclusion:

“Finally, we must recognize the significant strategic asset we have in BC Hydro. Competitively priced clean, renewable, reliable power has been the lifeblood of our industries for the past 50 years and today, the Crown corporation is refocusing and working hard to ensure that this remains a B.C. advantage.”

I would like to know how BC Hydro awarding the bulk of a $1 billion dollar job to two Alberta companies, both subsidiaries of a company in Texas, is part of your BC job strategy.

What I did learn from reading through Canada Starts Here is that:

• BC is Asia Pacific’s new bitch;
• your government has no plan for a self-sustaining economy;
• after failing to convince BC residents that the HST was a good thing, your government is desperately trying to give the impression that it can accomplish something of value before it has to face an election in May, 2013.

Best of luck until then,

Chelsea Novak