Time for another edition of the B.C. Monday Morning Quaterback – five things we’re thinking about today.

1. If you haven’t seen our bombshell (pun intended) news release this morning, drop everything and click here.

2. The B.C. Teachers Federation will recoil in horror, but Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente makes solid points on why teachers unions are obsolete:

The case for public-sector unions is arguable at the best of times. Public employees are supposed to behave in the public interest. But the more entrenched and powerful their unions become, the more money they are able to extract in the form of raises, bankable sick days, job security, generous pensions, rigid work rules, and the like. The unions’ job is to act in the interest of their members, which is inevitably contrary to the broader interests of the public. Politicians are happy to comply because the public purse is bottomless (until it’s not). Politicians are supposed to bargain on behalf of all the citizens. But the citizens don’t have unions.

Teachers regard themselves, rightly, as professionals. But the standards and practices that govern most professionals don’t apply to them. Their official work hours are precisely regulated. They have no meaningful performance reviews. They don’t get merit pay. And virtually nobody gets fired for poor teaching. In other words, no one gets rewarded for outstanding work or penalized for awful work.

3. Terry Glavin of the Ottawa Citizen offers the best glimpse yet into the politics of Idle No More (and it ain’t pretty!):

But here’s what you get from the activist webzine The Canadian Progressive: “Hunger-striking Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence is the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. She is becoming the greatest moral and political leader of our time. In fact, Chief Theresa Spence’s courage and sacrifice already eclipses that of South Africa’s globally celebrated anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela.”

It took only two months for an Internet meme to morph into a national news obsession. Now it’s the main alibi available to the bullying, anti-democratic minority that’s been paralyzing the AFN all along. Among the faction’s most prominent personalities are Manitoba Chief Derek Nepinak, Onion Lake Cree Chief Wally Fox and Serpent River Chief Isadore Day. These are the stout lads who came to Parliament Hill Dec. 4 intending to make a scene, purportedly about Bill C-45, and immediately resorted to roughhousing with House of Commons security guards for the television cameras.

The obstructionists boycotted the AFN’s own internal education task force and then had the gall to protest a lack of consultation when Atleo and Minister Duncan hammered out the beginning of a legislative strategy.

By last October, after a three-day session led mainly by Chief Nepinak, Atleo emerged to announce grimly that even his beloved education plan was history.

Read it. It’s fascinating stuff.

4. Don Cayo fights back against those wanting more film tax credits:

Even more off- base is the presumption of the pro- subsidy tub- thumpers that the provincial government has done nothing for them. Indeed, my view is that it does too much to prop up the 25,000 or so British Columbians who work in movies and TV — at the expense of the 4,375,057 or so who don’t. Last year, the province spent $ 219 million on the industry’s “tax credits,” and this year the number is expected to hit $ 325 million.

Finally, there’s the question of whether failing to raise these already massive subsidies would really jeopardize the industry and throw all 25,000 out of work?

5. Our Alberta director, Derek Fildebrandt, has a great piece on how once-mighty Alberta finds itself on the precipice of debt. Hint: it’s a spending problem!