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BC Election Preliminary Results Thoughts and Feelings and Some Preliminary Analysis

The BC NDP will possibly hold onto power in the province of BC. With a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Greens, they should aim for four years of stable government. However, they should also look inward. They should take good lessons from this near-loss of power. The BC NDP wanted to take a "centrist" position —that they were "safe for business"— but have no idea that the further right the party tacks, the more this plays into the right's strengths giving parties like the BC Conseratives headwinds to go even further right. Rather than safe, the BC NDP needed to announce policies that would've been like swinging haymakers at certain business interests especially for rentals; businesses taking advantage of low wages for international workers; and universities taking advantage of international students.

For current rent prices, this plays twofold against the NDP. Rent prices as they are now depress voter turnout for the NDP. People see the NDP as ineffectual at moving prices down. This also removes a lot of people who would potentially vote NDP from the equation as well. because they have no fixed address. Lowering rental prices by 50% and getting people into housing would've been a slam dunk for the NDP, but they never developed nor chose policies that would've enabled this. They played it safe and stuck to their largely ineffectual policy of not upsetting landlords too much and nearly/have paid the price. If the NDP somehow manage to hold onto power, then the first step they need to take is announcing a policy that'll be like aiming a hook directly at landlords: at these "investors" driving up both housing and rentals prices by instituting a stronger rent cap, introducing vacancy caps, and tying rental prices to the provincial average wage and additionally low-income rentals to Social Assistance rates. In effect, the NDP need to deliberately collapse the housing market and chase out the bad-faith investors and landlords. And they need to do this early in their term should they regain control of government.

The latter two policies toward TFWP and University International Students were also policies people saw the NDP taking an ineffectual stance on. The NDP seemed to want to appease businesses and universities instead of siding with BC workers. Instead of announcing policies that would stem the influx of people coming into BC, the NDP almost seemed to tell the electorate that they were wrong for feeling like these big numbers of people coming into the province were degrading life for BCers. But there is a kernel of truth to that. People have long known that programs like Canada's TFWP hurt labor wages and salaries. The NDP need to remember: the UN announced Canada's TFWP was akin to modern-day slavery. People inherently understand all these TFWP workers are driving down their own wages as well as occupying roles that could've gone to native-born BC workers, and also inadvertently helping to drive up rental prices. Without the massive influx of TFWP workers, rising wages and collapsing rental prices would've in turn helped to alleviate much of the homeless crisis that is so visibly prevalent right now. People are insecure right now because their wages don't cover the cost of living and they can't save. This also is very visible in the number of homeless people in the province. Higher average wages and salaries would towards covering much of the disparity in rental prices. Rising wages would go a long ways toward covering this, but the average affordability of units would also need to go down to match what people are willing to pay for rent. The province needs to regulate who can ask for TFWP workers: restaurants don't need TFWP workers. Neither do farms. Construction. Retail. All these industries can get by without TFWP workers because they used to (and thrived) when they had to pay actual BC wage rates. The NDP should just give these industries a double-jab to the chin and follow-up with a cross. And the province needs to give the universities a good thumping as well. The universities have been instrumental in driving up rental prices as well. Cap the number of international students per year at the rate of Canadian born at half of what it is now for the time being, and then bring it to a sane number in the years following.

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