B.C. politics is never short of irony. Take, for example, Premier Christy Clark's recent action to hike political staffers' wages, and then after feeling the heat, deciding to backtrack on the decision.
She gets brownie points for taking full responsibility for the utter stupidity of the move. After all, didn't we hear endless platitudes about tightening belts during the very recent election campaign? (According to media reports, Clark and her outgoing cabinet increased the top allowable salaries for political aides to $102,000 from a previous ceiling of $94,500 - initially the outgoing cabinet raised the maximum to $105,000, but the incoming cabinet brought the amount down before the issue became public. The move came as part of a reorganization that elevated top advisers from the role of ministerial assistants to chiefs of staff for each individual minister.)
And then, on top of that, one of the first things she does is hike her own staff's wages to exceed what President Obama pays for his own right-hand man in the White House. To say that this all didn't sit well with B.C. taxpayers is a bit of an understatement.
But what is equally ironic is that Clark's main criticism of Adrian Dix during the election campaign was that he "flip flopped" on everything. Seriously?
You just can't make this stuff up. We hope that this first misjudgment by the new premier is a one-off due to a lack of sleep as she juggled appointing her new cabinet, hiring staffers and kick-starting her own election campaign in Kelowna. To be sure, she's got a lot on her plate.
But, Clark needs to walk the talk and lead by example. There are kids in school districts, such as New Westminster, who will have to do without - at least partially - because of a lack of provincial funding and now is certainly not the time to be throwing taxpayers' money at your staff.
