“It’s my job to care and to ensure we don’t agree to provisions that are beyond the affordability of B.C. taxpayers.”
– Mike De Jong, Minister of Finance
Really, Mike, that’s your job? Where’d you learn that? Is it something you picked up at MLA school, or did your boss task you with it?
Let me suggest that your job is way bigger than that, and that aspect of the job is not nearly the most important. Let me suggest that in a democracy your first job is to represent your constituents. You are meant to be their voice in government, even those with whom you don’t agree.
Then, of course, you have a job as a legislator, in which you are meant to understand the intent of existing laws, and to introduce and debate the enactment of new laws. Implicit in that is respect for the laws of the land, even those with which you don’t agree.
As a member of the governing party, you also have the important job of providing services to the public. This, of course, is the reason why we have government at all. Government is the way societies organize efficiently; it sets agreed rules of conduct and provides shared services. Without services there’d be little reason for government at all.
A subset of that part of your job (and your specific role as finance minister) is to make sure there is enough money to pay for the services. But that really comes after everything else, and it certainly isn’t the most significant thing. Your job is to serve the citizenry.
Somehow, though, in public discourse, “taxpayers” have superseded “citizens.” But not everyone is a taxpayer: children aren’t, nor are the poor, for example. And, Mike, you run a real danger of excluding those most in need when you believe that your only (or even most important) task is to serve the taxpayer. When you do that, you’re appealing to the ugliest side of human nature – that part in all of us that is selfish and uncaring.
And if we do that, we might find ourselves living in an ugly place: a place that has the highest rate of child poverty in the country, a place that spends $1,000 per year less per student than the Canadian average.
And I believe no one wants that, even you, because you want to keep your job – even if you’re not clear on what it really is.
