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Preying on fear and pulling on the public’s heart strings will never make a prescriptive and regressive policy a good public policy.

Yet, that’s exactly what the NDP government and B.C. Building Trades unions are doing as they work to sell voters on the need to build key infrastructure projects under a community benefits agreement.

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Between them, they are touting benefits such as good-paying local jobs, increased hiring of women and Aboriginal workers, quotas for apprenticeship training, and labour peace as reasons to support the CBA.

While our association supports creating opportunities for women, Aboriginal workers and under-represented groups, the Vancouver Regional Construction Association does not support this CBA because of the way it was negotiated, the way it’s being rolled out, and its potential impact on the construction industry and B.C. taxpayers.

That’s not a partisan criticism of an NDP policy. As an independent, non-partisan organization representing both union and open-shop companies, we would make the same statement regardless of which political party is in power.