New environics poll shows construction community can't be complacent, must get voters out

(May 5, 2009 – VANCOUVER) An Environics poll released yesterday shows the BC Liberals with an 11 per cent lead over the NDP, but that margin has the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA) of BC and the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of British Columbia (CHBA BC) rallying everyone touched by construction in BC to ensure voters get out to the polls to stop the possibility of an NDP win.

“If the NDP win, they have promised to bring back policies that will destroy the competitiveness of BC’s construction sector, so even with this lead in today’s poll, we cannot be complacent,” says ICBA President Philip Hochstein. The poll was sponsored by ICBA, and results released today show that 47% of voters support the Liberals, with 36% of voters supporting the NDP, 12% for the Green Party, and 16% undecided.

“The NDP platform shows their hostility to the interests of home builders and home buyers, by proposing significant re-regulation that would disadvantage independent construction companies and raise prices across the board,” says Tim Kasten, President of CHBA BC. “Our industry has worked collaboratively to build a strong industry training system in recent years, but the NDP is proposing to undermine these improvements in one fell swoop. We can’t stand by and let that happen.”

With the NDP platform demonstrating a continued willingness to sacrifice economic logic and the greater good to the interests of big labour, Hochstein and Kasten are urging anyone involved in construction, home building or home buying to rally their friends, family and colleagues to ensure voter turnout is high on May 12th.

“The last time the NDP were in charge, they directly attacked independent, family-owned construction businesses with policies like union-only hiring, pension suspension legislation, and badly hurt the economy,” added Kasten. “Carole James and the NDP are the wrong party and wrong leader at the wrong time, and we have to be sure voters who agree with that get out to the polls.”

Why has NDP abandoned young and green voters?

This article was written by Philip Hochstein and was published on the Georgia Straight's website http://www.straight.com/article-214215/philip-hochstein-why-has-ndp-abandoned-young-and-green-voters

In the aftermath of the launch of the “new” NDP platform, it is hard not to feel a bit sorry for Carole James.

While progressive government leaders throughout the world, including Barack Obama in the United States and Gordon Campbell right here in British Columbia, have articulated exciting visions of how we can build our economies and societies on environmentally sustainable platforms that our children will be proud of, James was once again forced to dust off the decades-old big-labour playbook and try to sell it as something fresh.

For a brief time early in her leadership, James made some noises about trying to wrest control of the NDP from its big union bankers. But like others before her, she quickly learned that those who pay the piper call the tunes.

Raising taxes on small businesses. Raising the minimum wage. Giving public unions the power to shut down the province. If it weren’t really the 2009 NDP campaign platform, it would read like bad historical fiction.

Most young voters today are no more likely to identify with a shop steward than they are with Richard Nixon. In the private sector, where there is choice, union market share has dropped to around 18 percent as young workers opt for careers in industries that value innovation and environmental sustainability.

There can be no more damning evidence that the NDP has all but abandoned its green and youth voters in favour of the labour agenda than its opposition to green energy projects.

Heralded by President Obama, and embraced throughout Europe, the development of a renewable energy industry is clearly the social, economic, and environmental opportunity of our generation.

Yet, James and the NDP have come out staunchly in opposition to green energy projects. And why? Because the public unions don’t want any energy, green or otherwise, developed in B.C. unless it is under their control.

While there is no doubt that, on the green energy issue, big labour has shown Carole James and B.C. voters who is really in charge of the NDP, one wonders whether this will end up being a hollow and shortsighted victory.

The green and youth voters that the NDP once competed for are going to find it difficult to draw a connection between their values and an NDP that has chosen its big-labour past over their future.

Philip Hochstein is president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, which represents family-owned construction businesses across British Columbia.

Judge dodges issue of worker rights in election spending decision

With the full verdict issued yesterday in the unions’ legal challenge to Bill 42 restricting spending by third parties in an election, the judge chose to sidestep the question of the democratic rights of workers who do not support their union’s political views.

Two educators: Gloria Laurence, a CUPE member, and Wendy Weis, a member of BCTF, were parties to the court case to try to prevent their unions from spending their mandatory dues to attack a government they support.

See the full text of ICBA’s news release on this issue at www.mydues.ca.

ICBA President Philip Hochstein, in an op-ed in today’s Vancouver Sun, is calling on government to stand up for worker rights on use of union dues.

“Unlike every other democratic country in the world, and despite a Supreme Court ruling that forced union membership is a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, British Columbia clings to labour laws that force workers to join unions, and then force those workers to contribute to the unions' political agendas, no matter how extreme.”

It is ludicrous to say that every single union member in BC supports the NDP, yet they’re all forced to watch their unions spend millions creating ads that say Gordon Campbell wants to kill their grandmas. This has to stop.