Premier Christy Clark appears to be living up to the promises she made while campaigning for the leadership of the B.C. Liberal Party and, subsequently, the lofty flight to the premiership of the province.
While rolling through British Columbia to drum up support amongst the party faithful, Ms. Clark promised she would make a number of changes if she were selected as the next premier.
The former radio personality promised she would raise the minimum wage, and it was one of the first things she did when she was anointed as the unelected premier of B.C.
There was a significant outcry from the groups representing business because they thought the current economic scenario wasn't a good time to foist extra business costs on them.
Many predicted there would be a rash of business closures and there would be mass layoffs throughout the province.
Of course, they also cried about bad timing when the economy was booming.
During her leadership campaign, she noted the minimum wage had not been increased for 10 years and said increasing it is necessary.
Obviously, it plays a huge role in the children-and-families theme she hammered throughout the leadership race and, undoubtedly, it will be a major B.C. Liberal plank during the next provincial election.
Next on her agenda was dealing with the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) referendum and getting that albatross off the B.C. Liberals collective necks as quickly as possible.
During the leadership race, she promised to get the HST referendum in front of the voting public as quickly as possible.
Many political parties, pundits and opponents of the tax change said it couldn't be done without significant changes in the legislature.
Obviously, Ms. Clark is very astute or she has some clever people around her, as they have devised a mail-in ballot that will require an order-in-council.
We can only hope it goes more smoothly than it did with the mailing out of the PINs for the leadership selection.
Ken Alexander it the editor of the simplymastery.
