Dear Editor:
The welcome but unexpected contract settlement reached with the BCTF means B.C. parents can now breathe a small sigh of relief for the coming school year. However, with a provincial election less than a year away, it's fair to wonder what Adrian Dix and the NDP would have done, or would do, if they were in government and negotiating with the BCTF.
Unfortunately, Adrian Dix and the NDP appear to have taken a vow of perpetual silence on this subject. Fortunately, the notso-distant past provides us with a pretty good idea how Adrian Dix would likely go about negotiating a BCTF contract, because when he was NDP Premier Glen Clark's chief of staff in the dying days of the NDP regime of the late 1990s, Dix helped orchestrate a notoriously one-sided "sweetheart" deal with the BCTF.
The real cost of Dix's 0-0-2 BCTF contract amounted to an additional $1.3 billion (in 1990s dollars) for B.C. taxpayers, and it led to the now famous headline, "NDP math: 0+0+2=11."
Mike Taylor, Port Moody
