RE: ‘Stats Battle’ (Nov. 25)
I was disappointed to read Mark Olsen’s letter. While I appreciate he’s trying to get a head start on next year’s election campaign, let’s set the record straight.
It’s easy to cherry-pick short-term statistics to make a weak case. But if Mark took a longer view, he’d see that B.C. has actually gained 29,500 jobs in the past 12 months.
Mark also mentions poverty, but again chose to ignore the bigger picture. He didn’t mention that since 2001, there are 52,000 fewer people in British Columbia living in poverty. If he wanted to look back even further, he would have seen that under the NDP, the number of people living in poverty increased by 172,000.
You don’t have to take my word for it. These figures are all freely available on Statistics Canada’s website.
I understand Mark’s looking to score some points before the election, and that’s fair enough. But playing fast and loose with the facts doesn’t help anyone.
Eric Foster
MLA, Vernon-Monashee
