Dear Editor: With less than a week left in the provincial campaign, we need to start considering the stakes of this election. With the governing party apparently surging in the polls, let's look at some of the crowning achievements of the B.C. Liberals.
In eight of the past nine years, B.C. has had the worst record on child poverty in all of Canada. This government steadfastly refuses to create any kind of strategy to fix the issue, often ignoring the advice of the children and youth representative whose position they created while in office.
This government has been taken to court twice for violating the rights of our teachers, and by extension harming our children and their ability to learn. Having lost both court challenges, the Liberals still refuse to fund our education system.
As a conservative government, the B.C. Liberals often talk about how they will balance the budget, and how they balanced this year's budget. The last time the Liberals promised a balanced budget during a campaign, it was more than a billion dollars in deficit and directly led to the introduction of the harmonized sales tax. We have had deficit budgets going back to 2008, nothing has changed and we should not be fooled by another election promise.
It's time for a government that delivers on the issues that matter; one we can trust to keep its word. Vote for change on May 14th.
Trevor Ritchie, Burnaby
