The Vancouver Province is on fire today with a couple of brilliant op/ed pieces. First, Jon Ferry (public enemy #3 on the BCTF’s list—he’s getting close to Christy Clark/George Abbott levels) reveals what some BCTF activists are saying about the current teachers dispute.

The union president in Cranbrook, for example, compared the whole thing to Nazi Germany. From Ferry’s piece:

Yes, Wendy Turner, president of the Cranbrook District Teachers Association, wrote to our newspaper to say that, as a child, she'd read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl and had asked her parents, "How could they do this to people?"

Her parents told her it was because the German people didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. "Why was it too late?" she apparently asked. "Because by then it was the law!"

Turner said she'd forgotten those words until she realized "history was repeating itself" with the Liberals using legislation "to legitimize their stripping away of employment rights for a targeted group of people — teachers."

Now, in the field of rhetoric, there's something called the fallacy of single similarity. It's when two different things are claimed to be the same because of one way in which they're alike. However, only an educational zealot could find even a single point of similarity between Frank's wartime tragedy and that of today's pampered B.C. teachers — who aren't forced to hide out from racist authorities to avoid death or starvation in concentration camps.

Wow. There’s more in that column, but, come on, Nazi Germany? Give your head a shake, Ms. Turner.

Ferry wraps his column with an aside:

“I agree with taxpayers' advocate Jordan Bateman that the latest car levy proposed by metro mayors is unnecessary. The spendthrift regional transportation agency can easily get the annual $30 million extra it says it needs through cracking down on fare cheats, being more efficient ... and killing AirCare.”

In yesterday’s Province, I called the latest billion dollar TransLink tax grab “outrageous.” A day later, I’m even unhappier. And I’m not the only one—the Province’s website is full of letters blasting TransLink for waste, and demanding that the provincial government reject the billion dollar tax grab:

• “TransLink is a bloated agency with no control on what they do or how they spend money. Somebody better start getting a handle on it before this thing overtaxes everything so no one can afford drive at all.”
• “Every time that TransLink and other government agencies run a bit short of cash, generally due to costs that they’ve incurred from inefficiencies on their part, the only solution they ever consider is to raise taxes! They never consider cutting costs… No more taxes from me, a law-abiding taxpayer. I agree with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.”
• “Drivers already pay a huge amount in fees and taxes. Why should they subsidize transit users as well? Maybe it is time for car drivers to fight for their rights.”
• “Enough of the money grab from home and vehicle owners!”
• “The proposed new car levy is just robbery, plain and simple.”

Finally, Province editorial pages editor Gordon Clark and his team weighed in with a hilarious TransLink-inspired song. My favourite line:

If you drive a car, we’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, we’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold we’ll tax your heat,
If you cross a bridge, we’ll tax that treat.
’Cause we are TransLink. Yeah, TransLink!

That’s just plain awesome.

Stay tuned, folks, and rest assured: The CTF is not going to take this tax hike laying down!