Your reason to vote

Everyone has their own reason to vote. Liberal, NDP, Green Party, Marijuana Party, Sex Party, Social Credit (if they're running) or for whoever.
Health care seems to be at the top of the list along with the economy. As I get older, health care becomes very important to me and I am worried about the future for my family. What was particularly heart wrenching for me, was that split up of two married old people in care homes in the interior, where they sent the aged husband to one place, and his wife to another because the government closed their facility. As a person who married his childhood sweetheart, and she valiantly stuck with me all these years, (45) we know we could not tolerate that kind of treatment from our government. We would probably die of separation. So yes, health care is high on my list of what I want a government to do, but with compassion for people. That is a phrase that comes to mind and seems to be presently misunderstood.
The economy is important, of course, but to what extent? Does profit become the lone priority? Can we say we have a booming economy if companies outside British Columbia are benefitting from simply being here? From being given plum contracts that may not be offered to BC companies? If a German company benefits at the expense of a British Columbia family, is that a good economy? Are we creating minimum wage jobs while allowing the cream of employment to go to Europe and America? If American corporations make millions because of friends in government and they're located here, do we count that as OUR booming economy? Can we accept that rationale?
One thing sticks in my craw, and it's probably an innate mindset from a childhood where not having much was the norm and looking to the future and building one's assets was the way. That thing that sticks is the 'disposal' of assets belonging to all of us.
Selling off BC Rail bugs me. Because I considered that asset part of MY British Columbia. I thought old WAC Bennett wasn't so wacky after he took over the PGE and made it OURS. It was used to benefit communities in BC. It wasn't intended to be 'global' or profitable even. It was intended as an asset for everyone here to build BC in a positive way.
Same for BC Hydro. Sure they SAY they aren't going to sell it off. Stealth semantics. They don't NEED to sell off BC Hydro, but to simply allow other corporations to do hydro projects at the expense of BC Hydro is bypassing it. Saying they won't touch it while making it useless is still a lie to me. Someone seems to think that having the lowest cost of electrical power in the world is NOT a good thing. We need to be global they say. Do we? Hasn't BC Hydro power been a company in good stead with BCers for years? I trust the BCers who have run BC Hydro. I Don't trust Gordon Campbell.
Our wild salmon fishery SHOULD be developed to help feed the world. There is no limit to the potential. However, the fish farms are taking over at the expense of a historic industry. Foreign owned usually. And unconcerned about devastating the wild fishery belonging to BC.
Shipping raw logs to US mills doesn't maximize the employment of our hard working families, it lessens it for the sake of US families. Have there been any attempts to set this right? None that I know of. Are we competing 'globally', against that weak balsa wood crap that they grow in Brazil in 3 years? Houses would blow down with that 'wood'. BC Timber is second to none for strength and endurance, we should be getting a premium price for it, let Brazil try to grow Douglas Fir.
British Columbians seem to be losing ground with every new action of this government. It seems to me, my humble opinion, that someone in the present government simply doesn't trust BC people to do the jobs. Others are always chosen first. Why?
I believe the government has no right to sell off our assets. They should have jealously guarded the Province. With every action like selling OUR goods, we lose a little of our sovereignty. We lose the ability to determine our own future. We relinquish our decision making to others who do not have the same concerns for our future.
It's like we rented the government our house, and they sold off our fridge, stove and porch without even asking us. I feel that the Liberals are a group of sly guys finding ways to wheedle us poor taxpayers out of our assets.
We should be concerned about health care, the economy, and everything else the politicians have been shouting about in the last month or so, but as an inborn British Columbian, I need to have confidence that the decisions made about our futures are made for the benefit of us, our families, our grandchildren, NOT outsiders. The government should have been the caretaker of our assets, holding them firmly for us, expanding their value. Not getting rid of our accomplishments with such arrogance and disdain.
I have the confidence that British Columbians have the ability to manage our province and our assets to continue to make us a world player if need be, but I feel dejected that our present government seems to be our enemy. And whatever these new parachute Liberals say to get elected, we all know that they'll have no say in matters afterwards, they'll only be told to explain the government TO us. I need to know that the MLAs in Victoria care deeply for British Columbians.
I can't vote for a continuation of the Liberal Government, I think Gordon Campbell has betrayed what we have built and has no idea what the hearts of British Columbians want. We should not lose our way of life here, it is second to none in the world. We don't need to copy others, they need to copy us.
Enthusiasm for our wonderful province is what I want to see.
I didn't see anything but enthusiasm for money in the last few years.

- disheartened BCer

---

[reprinted from an earlier post]
- permission to all to repost on your own blogs -