Magic Statistics

A new four-year deal between the BC Nurses Union (BCNU) and the provincial government calls for a 15 percent wage increase plus other significant benefits.  Nurses working in areas of severe staff shortages—operating rooms, emergency rooms, intensive care, and other critical care units—will receive an additional $50 per month.  Approximately 1000 nursing positions are presently unfilled in BC.

Full-time nurses will also receive a $3150 signing bonus, which amount will be pro-rated for part-time and casual nurses.  Shift premiums for weekend and night work will double immediately.

Retroactive to April 1, new nurses will earn about $50,000 a year, not including benefits, and nurses with nine years experience will earn at least $65,000. By the end of the contract, new nurses will earn nearly $55,000 a year and nurses with nine years experience will get almost $72,000 but if they are in a management capacity, the salary rises to nearly $90,000, although the BCNU says very few nurses are in that category.

The new contract also addresses two problems of increasing concern to front-line hospital nurses.

Employers have agreed to find ways to reduce the number of verbal and physical attacks on nurses by patients and visitors. Each health authority will establish a violence prevention program and do risk assessments to ensure a safe work environment.

Contract provisions will give nurses a say in stressful, workload issues as the parties have agreed to establish a workload measurement system to determine appropriate staffing levels in health care institutions. The system is meant to reduce staff turnover, make recruitment easier, and reduce overtime, absenteeism and reliance on disability programs.

Why is this contract so favourable to the nurses?  According to BCNU, it’s because the government recognises that nurses are in very short supply.  Dr Penny Ballem, the province’s Deputy Minister of Health, took an active interest in negotiations.  Unlike the personnel department functionaries who have handled negotiations in the past, Dr Ballem knows that nurses are overstressed and overworked.  The contract simply reflects that reality.

Nurses are in high demand and short supply, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.  I predict that this contract will set a precedent for generous pay increases for nurses across Canada.

Why are nurses in such short supply?  Some answers are suggested here.

"Red Ken" Livingstone, Mayor of London, will roll out his city's red carpet next week for Hugo Chavez, aspiring Dictator President of Venezuela.  Some might think it strange that the Mayor of London is receiving Mr Chavez in view of the latter's recent remarks that the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina and that Prime Minister Tony Blair is "an ally of Hitler", not to mention his support for Iran's nuclear program and Columbian narco-terrorists.  Apparently, Red Ken views any enemy of American "imperialism" as a friend.  Besides that, Chavez runs an oil-rich nation.

Emboldened by a huge windfall of petrodollars due to climbing oil prices, Señor Chávez has no shortage of international cheerleaders. He has become the voice and leader of the resentful of our world. From Argentina to the offices of the Greater London Authority, almost every person bearing a grudge against capitalism, free markets, democracy and the rule of law support his “revolution”.

Once an island of stability in a region ravaged by coups d’état and dictatorships, Venezuela under President Chávez has become the source of instability in Latin America. The Chávez administation [sic] has, for instance, a cosy relationship with the FARC, the Colombian narcoterrorist group. When Rodrigo Granda, its leader, was captured in 2004 by bounty hunters on the streets of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, Señor Chávez’s irrational reaction was telling. He suspended relations with Colombia, Venezuela’s second-largest trading partner, claiming that the Colombians had violated national sovereignty. Granda not only had been living in Venezuela and been given citizenship, but his wife and stepdaughter were allowed into the country in 2002 thanks to orders from the Minister of Interior and Justice.

In welcoming an ally of terrorists, Ken Livingstone betrays the memory of Londoners who suffered and died in terrorist attacks less than a year ago.

Read the whole thing.

The Fraser Institute is so routinely vilified as a "right-wing" think tank/pressure group by Canada's mainstream media that it comes as a shock to find out that it runs a program called Children First that helps children from low-income families reap the benefits of quality education.  Margaret Wente brings the news:

The idea behind Children First is that an excellent education shouldn't be restricted to the affluent. The program was launched in 2003 by the Fraser Institute (invariably identified as the "right-wing" Fraser Institute), and has now won substantial funding from the Weston Foundation. It gives modest scholarships — up to $4,000 — to low-income families so they can send a child to an independent school. Next school year it will fund 1,200 students in Ontario and 50 in Calgary. Students are selected on the basis of need, not academic merit, and are funded until they complete Grade 8. The average income of participating families is $28,000 — which, as it happens, is about what Bronwen Chisholm makes in her job as an administrative assistant.

Contrary to popular opinion, the vast majority of independent schools are neither elite nor outrageously expensive. They include arts schools, alternative schools, schools for special-needs and gifted students, schools for black students, and many different types of religious schools. Many of them outperform the public schools, and spend less money doing it. The average tuition of the schools chosen by this year's families is $4,485.

Children First has been deluged by so many applications — 21,000 to date — that it has been forced to operate by lottery. The winners have included plenty of immigrant families and single mothers. Bronwen Chisholm is among them. She decided to enroll her kids in John Knox Christian School, a small, elementary school that is explicitly "Christ-centred." She is a religious person, and she felt comfortable with its values. The principal took her son under his wing. Instead of being put into a box when he acted out [as was done to him at a school he attended previously], he was given chores to do. He learned trust and respect for his teachers. "They went the extra mile with him," she says. He graduated last year and is now back in public school, in a Grade 9 academic program.

God bless the Fraser Institute!

For access to Ms Wente's full column, click here.