An aging workforce along with changing technology is producing something of a perfect storm in B.C.'s labour market
It's a new government. It's a new mandate. The question for Premier Christy Clark is what priorities she needs to address over the next four years.
Throughout the provincial election campaign she stressed the importance of jobs. It's a theme she has been returning to repeatedly since she won the BC Liberal leadership in 2011.
She even made jobs a central part of her first two years as premier by announcing her jobs plan.
The problem she has faced, like many other B.C. premiers – and for that matter many prime ministers – is that there is often a sizable gap between the plan and the reality of job growth.
In B.C., where many of the jobs are based on exports and trade with the rest of the world, employment growth reflects external conditions more than anything else, things like commodity prices and economic growth in international markets.
While those aren't excuses for doing nothing as a province, they are a reality check on how B.C. needs to position itself to benefit from trade and exports.
The unfortunate fact for B.C. is that job growth over the last two years has yet to establish the upward trend that Premier Clark wants to see take hold. She would be well advised to consider carefully how best to position B.C. for stronger growth in recovering international markets.
Sectors like the forest industry, which have suffered the largest losses over the last 12 years, should be a high priority for the premier. Better legislative and provincial policy support for value-added wood products manufacturing along with more investment in intensive silvaculture are examples of areas where government action can have a positive impact.
The premier also needs to turn her government's attention to the serious problem of skills development.
An aging workforce along with changing technology is producing something of a perfect storm in B.C.'s labour market.
The default position of too many employers is to look to programs like the temporary foreign workers' Program (TFW) to find the skills and workers they need for various projects. That strategy has turned out to be not only disastrous for B.C.'s existing workforce, it has also proven to be rife with suspect applications by employers for TFWs.
There is a much better solution for these labour market problems.
It requires new investments in training, especially post-secondary education, as well as a major overhaul of B.C.'s Industry Training Authority, the public agency responsible for investing in the skills that B.C. workers need to succeed. That overhaul should include input from labour and employer representatives, input that seeks to build solid, recognizable and portable skills that give workers the mobility they need to secure the high-wage/high-skill outcomes that our province deserves.
In the February 2013 budget that her finance minister tabled, the premier has recognized that fiscal pressures in B.C. will mean tax increases for corporations and high-income earners in our province.
Our federation has long argued for those kinds of changes, and we think that a broader discussion about tax fairness as well as needs-based budgeting should have a high priority over the next four years.
In a recent Globe and Mail interview after her election victory, Premier Clark signalled that she wants to adopt a less confrontational approach to labour relations in B.C. That's an encouraging sign and one that our federation is more than willing to explore in more detail with her office.
In the first term of the BC Liberals' contentious labour legislation, it served only to create deeper divides between the provincial government and union members.
Long court battles ending in a Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled the legislation had gone too far are a reminder to us all that a more balanced approach, one that respects our collective interests, is a better alternative.
If the premier wants to head in that direction, she will have our full attention. •
