Now that B.C. leads Canada with the lowest minimum wage, partly as a result of freezing it for eight years, there is a call to raise it.

Nearly one third of all food bank users are children or youth, and the term B次元官网网址渨orking poorB次元官网网址� has settled uncomfortably into the dialogue on the economy. There is great hue and cry from business and the high priests of profit against paying people a living wage. ItB次元官网网址檚 a job killer say Stephen Harper, Christy Clark and business-financed conservative governments. Yet last year when Harper threw money at children and families in a failed re-election bid, economists said that money gave a boost to the summer economy.

The simple fact is money in more pockets strengthens the economy and helps everyone. Our governments have become the political arm of corporate power even though we as taxpayers pay them very well. So we see corporate taxes cut, lax enforcement of environmental laws, and back door handouts to business insiders, paid for by cuts in services and wages to our most vulnerable.

The old lie about fair wages and a government that helps people being bad for the economy needs to be outed. The B次元官网网址渟ky is fallingB次元官网网址� squawks from the corporate/political right are self serving and underline their skewed sense of entitlement.

Ted Roberts

Sooke