BC's Staggering job losses

[Sapper]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/05/bc-unemployment-stats-can.html

The latest jobs figures from Statistics Canada show a spike in unemployment in B.C.

The rate jumped to 7 per cent in March, up from 6.3 per cent in February — the biggest rise in the country. B.C. lost around 22,000 jobs and gained roughly 7,000, for a net loss of more than 15,000 full-time jobs.

Vancouver's jobless rate jumped nearly half a point to 6.8 per cent while unemployment in Kelowna, Abbotsford and Victoria remained almost static between February and March.

B.C. lost more than 22,000 full-time jobs in March. (iStock)

However, B.C.'s employment figures are virtually the same as they were a year ago, and the unemployment rate overall is slightly lower than the national average.

It is, however, still far higher than the other three western provinces.

Across the country, Statistics Canada says more than 54,000 jobs vanished last month, pushing the national unemployment rate up two-tenths of a point to 7.2 per cent.

******* They did say that the overall losses dropped from 22,000 to 15,000 when you factor in the part time jobs created. That in itself should be scarring the heck out of folks - When the only new real job creation is massive numbers of part time jobs we as a province are heading for a massive financial disaster - no matter who forms next goverment *************

With the job numbers which show nearly 40% of the entire countries job losses from BC alone is the signs that BC is heading for a massive deficit

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/04/bc-ndp-budget-deficit.html?autoplay=true

The B.C. NDP says the B.C. Liberal government is deliberately hiding a deficit close to $800 million this fiscal year.

In February, Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong tabled a lean budget, forecasting a $197-million surplus in 2013/14, and a $211-million surplus in 2014/15, including speculative revenues from natural gas royalties and asset sales.

But at a news conference on Thursday, NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston said he estimates the actual deficit to be $790 million for the 2013/14 fiscal year and $847 million for 2014/15.

"It's the real Liberal deficit, it's their refusal to be honest and open about expenditure growth and asset sales in this budget," he said. "Neither number is a real number."

Ralston said he rejects the Liberals' projections for expenditure growth and the prospects of asset sales.

"The Liberal budget projects only 0.8 per cent growth in expenditures for the coming year," said Ralston, in a statement released on Thursday.

"But average growth over the Liberals’ term in office has been 3.2 per cent. Either the Liberals have understated expenditures dramatically, or they are planning a massive wave of secret post-election cuts to critical services for British Columbians."

Ralston also questioned why the Liberals booked $475 million this year and a further $150 million next year for the sale of public assets, even though not a single sale has been confirmed.

"They’re counting on the sale of more assets in one year than the government has sold in the last ten years combined, and they’re booking the money before the sales have been made," said Ralston.

"It's not realistic, and it’s not prudent fiscal planning."

Liberals call NDP claims propaganda

B.C.'s Finance Minister Mike de Jong dismissed Ralstons's claims as "political propaganda," saying if the NDP have a plan, they should present it to British Columbians.

"The NDP, as always, wants to spend more," he said, which will lead to higher taxes, worsening credit and higher borrowing costs for B.C.

"I know the notion of fiscal discipline is extraordinarily foreign to the NDP — and it's always the taxpayers who pay for that — but to suggest that it can't be done is really to reveal how unprepared and unwilling the NDP are to bring that kind of fiscal discipline on behalf of taxpayers."

The Liberals said in a statement the last New Democrat government delivered eight consecutive deficit budgets, and the province received six consecutive credit-rating downgrades.

By 1999, the statement said B.C. had the highest top marginal personal income tax rate of 54 per cent for those earning in excess of $80,000 at the time.

The provincial Finance Ministry weighed in with a fact sheet pointing out that Moody's credit rating agency reaffirmed B.C.'s triple-A rating on Wednesday, citing the province's strong track record for meeting budget targets.

"After trailing the national average in real economic growth through the latter half of the 1990s and the early part of the 2000s, the British Columbia economy outperformed the Canadian economy in recent years," the ministry quoted Moody's as saying.

NDP will run a deficit

If the New Democrats form the next government, Ralston said they would likely table a new budget in the fall with a plan to balance the books in four years.

Ralston said the New Democrats will lay out a fiscal framework next week and it will be in the red, due to the deficit the next government will inherit.

"Our goal is to balance the budget within four years," he said. Liberal expenditure growth is unrealistic unless there are massive cuts, he said, so the NDP plan will have higher expenditures. Those will be "fully costed" with new revenues, he said.

"Our proposals will be balanced, but we're starting from a point where the Liberals — if there is a change in government — will have left a real deficit," Ralston said.

Beside him, Carole James said the increases will be modest and fiscally responsible.

"This is being up front with the voters," James said, citing the 2009 Liberal budget.

"They were not up front with the voters and we believe it is critical to be honest and up front with the voters. That's what you see in these numbers."

James said additional spending on community living, health and post-secondary will be NDP priorities, but there were no other financial plans forthcoming.

Leader Adrian Dix has already said the party would increase income tax for high-income earners taking in more than $150,000 a year, and boost the general corporate tax to 12 per cent from 11 per cent.

They would also institute a capital tax on financial institutions to pay for non-refundable student grants.

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It is time for the partisan and polarized politics to stop in BC. Unlike the first 2 terms in office this term of the BC Liberals has been arguably the worst in our provinces history. The job losses of Full time jobs is stunning in its enormous numbers and implications for BC. It is a stunning when you factor in the damage long term it will have on our province - no matter who wins the next election. No longer can anyone point to the NDP and the 90's and claim it was the darkest times - this by far is a more staggering job loss ( 22 THOUSAND full time jobs ) coupled with a budget that far exceeds the claimed NDP Fudget budget for deficit numbers.

BC's job creation plan and constant commercial adds at our expense has been a complete failure.

The BC Liberals and their supporters are running to deflect blame with lots of excuses and bringing out supporting Economists to proclaim there innocence.

I would like to remind folks that when the NDP tried to blame the asian market flue for job losses that the right wing and their supports called bunk and would not accept that as playing any role - So thankfully it means that we won't see any posters supporting the cries of "not our fault" here - Unless they want to reverse their positions.

Even if you consider every job at minimum wage - 15000x ( 10.25 x 40 x 52 ) = 21320. 21320 x 15000 = 319 MILLION dollars in lost yearly wages alone. If you use stats cans average wages for BC of $24.06 then you have 750 MILLION in lost yearly wages last month alone. The truth is the number is somewhere between the 2 totals - still a staggering loss.

You know - not a peep out of concerned citizens or the right wing supporters. One remembers when job losses hit under the NDP and the yelling was deafening.

No matter which side one is on - no matter which party wins the next election it is clear that BC is in trouble. It is clear that the current path the BC Liberals have us on is the wrong path. The challenge for the right wing is will they now acknowledge the problems and at the very lest start demanding changes within their party? Will the NDP supporters ensure they push their party if elected to be financially responsible and accept cuts and freezes as BC begins to dig out of this mess?

The time for fingerpointing is past - the time for defending the current politic path is over - Concerned citizens of BC need to start pushing all politicians no matter which party they are from to do better and to make sure workers of BC are not just stat foot notes in the job loss category but are actually part of the real planning of goverment.

[Harbinger]

Time to tax the rich foreigners who have driven up the real estate markets.

[MoneypuckOverlord]

HST was helping the province. OH wait!!!!!! LOL. Just love these articles. It really shuts the hell up for those favoring the HST

Time to tax the rich foreigners who have driven up the real estate markets.

[UFTcan]

HST was helping the province. OH wait!!!!!! LOL. Just love these articles. It really shuts the hell up for those favoring the HST

they are already being taxed more. Not sure what the frack your talking about.

[Gross-Misconduct]

B.C. lost more than 22,000 jobs in March? How can that be?

I just saw a 15 million dollar Liberal ad saying their jobs plan is working.

[MoneypuckOverlord]

China requires many conditions if you want to buy a house there X visa, Y visa, minimum stay requirements, must be working for a year obtain Z visa. Can only buy one property and must be living in said property.

Rule was to prevent foreigners from buying properties and then selling them a little later to take advantage of the capital gain, without moving in between. All nice little rules that help control foreign investment, and control property prices as to not price out and disenfranchise their own citizens.

If Canada was smart they would adopt similar protection controls to ensure a stable housing climate for its own citizens. But it seems Canada today would rather educate a foreigner, give your job to a foreigner and have a foreigner buy a home and inflate the housing market even more.

We let in 250,000 immigrants every year plus 250,000 temporary foreign workers every year, regardless of unemployment conditions and economic indicators, its irresponsible to our country and our citizens.

[Electro Rock]

Wait until they really start making a dent in the underground economy, it'll be a bloodbath.

[nobbiep]

Wait till the NDP get ahold of the province...Dippers raised the PST from 5% to 7%....ya cant wait for them to tax me more to give nice raises to union buddies...

[Pouria]

China requires many conditions if you want to buy a house there X visa, Y visa, minimum stay requirements, must be working for a year obtain Z visa. Can only buy one property and must be living in said property.

Rule was to prevent foreigners from buying properties and then selling them a little later to take advantage of the capital gain, without moving in between. All nice little rules that help control foreign investment, and control property prices as to not price out and disenfranchise their own citizens.

If Canada was smart they would adopt similar protection controls to ensure a stable housing climate for its own citizens. But it seems Canada today would rather educate a foreigner, give your job to a foreigner and have a foreigner buy a home and inflate the housing market even more.

We let in 250,000 immigrants every year plus 250,000 temporary foreign workers every year, regardless of unemployment conditions and economic indicators, its irresponsible to our country and our citizens.

[kurtis]

lmfao ^

[Harbinger]

Wait till the NDP get ahold of the province...Dippers raised the PST from 5% to 7%....ya cant wait for them to tax me more to give nice raises to union buddies...

[Gross-Misconduct]

Wait till the NDP get ahold of the province...Dippers raised the PST from 5% to 7%....ya cant wait for them to tax me more to give nice raises to union buddies...

[Ghostsof1915]

China requires many conditions if you want to buy a house there X visa, Y visa, minimum stay requirements, must be working for a year obtain Z visa. Can only buy one property and must be living in said property.

Rule was to prevent foreigners from buying properties and then selling them a little later to take advantage of the capital gain, without moving in between. All nice little rules that help control foreign investment, and control property prices as to not price out and disenfranchise their own citizens.

If Canada was smart they would adopt similar protection controls to ensure a stable housing climate for its own citizens. But it seems Canada today would rather educate a foreigner, give your job to a foreigner and have a foreigner buy a home and inflate the housing market even more.

We let in 250,000 immigrants every year plus 250,000 temporary foreign workers every year, regardless of unemployment conditions and economic indicators, its irresponsible to our country and our citizens.

[Sapper]

Wait till the NDP get ahold of the province...Dippers raised the PST from 5% to 7%....ya cant wait for them to tax me more to give nice raises to union buddies...

[Sapper]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/05/bc-rbc-foreign-workers.html

This may be federal vs -provincial but it shows the absolute contempt our right wing parties have for working Canadians. It is a lengthy read so I won't copy paste the article - have a read if you wish.

But the problems in that story also exisit here in BC - Contracting flipping in the public sector to foriegn companies - Temp foriegn workers being permitted where there is workers here that could do it - just the wages are so low no one can live off them.

Both Provincially and Federal goverments can legislate and enforce back to work orders in mere days - yet this can happen and they take a "well see" approach?

[Gross-Misconduct]

I notice a couple of resident Liberal supporters are avoiding this thread.

Can't say I blame them.

[Sapper]

It's kind of like Iraqi information Minister who was on TV proclaiming that no americans where in Bagdad .... as US tanks drove behind him. - The BC Liberal supporters are in a very uncomfortable position. It is no different than NDP supporters in 2001 who eventually had to admit their party had zero chance of winning and in fact where heading for disaster. Some of our more fringe right wingers here are still moving onwards with the party banner and party line despite the fact that no one is buying it anymore.

When you look at right wing propaganda groups like the concerned citizens of BC group who focus only on attacking the NPD and not one ounce of effort to hold this current goverment to task on things like these job losses - it really makes it clear that BC has 2 types of voters - those that want change and progress and those that blindly follow what they are told no matter what happens. It's no wonder the BC Liberals have no leadership - one can't be a leader if one can't accept ones own faults and limitations.

[Gross-Misconduct]

Concerned Citizens for BC

Call them what they really are, Concerned Liberals for BC.

Jim Shepard is so full of it...

I have been asked many times over the past weeks why I have decided to take the lead in forming the Concerned Citizens for British Columbia. Some speculate that my involvement is simply a function of my past career as a business leader and the partisan view that comes with it. Others suggest that my past professional relationship with the current Premier has lead me to this point. While both points have no doubt had some impact on my thinking, the reality is that I love our province and am deeply concerned about it’s future in a world so full of uncertainty. I feel this as a business-person and as a father and as a grandfather.

[Common sense]

I notice a couple of resident Liberal supporters are avoiding this thread.

Can't say I blame them.

[-DLC-]

well those rules were in place for a specific reason. Correct?

These foreingers are buying property because they have intentions of actually living here, and not doing it for property investment.

To be honest if Canada was smart, they adopt a justice system more like China's. You can't get away with murder of even theft in that matter. Everyone has different rules. If your a home owner, your askinig price is 800 000 for a house, but then a Chinese gives you an offer of 1.2 million, ( and yes, at times, people were being offered 50% above asking price,) are you going to turn this down?

In many cases, absolutely not. See what's happening in Coal Harbour right now...these are investments, not homes. And it's problematic, as it is driving up prices and many properties just sit empty.

http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/605511/up-to-a-quarter-of-coal-harbour-condos-sitting-empty-or-foreign-owned/