The recent proposal by Christy Clark for an additional statutory holiday reinforces my view that she is a lightweight contender for the leadership of the Liberal Party of B.C.

Didn鈥檛 her former boss recently propose reducing income taxes starting in 2011 in a feeble attempt to raise his popularity?

Hopefully, the electorate will see this initiative in a similar light.

Who do you think pays the bill when so many employees needed to work on a statutory holiday are paid overtime for their work or are given a day off in lieu of the holiday? 

Who do you think pays for the loss of productivity and gross national product when millions of person days of productivity are lost through a statutory holiday?

One of the reasons that Americans are more productive than Canadians is due to the fact that they receive fewer statutory holidays and vacations than do Canadians.

Perhaps we should look carefully at the French who now suffer with street riots in their attempts to remedy their history of excesses in mandating statutory vacations, holidays and other very liberal employee benefits.

British Columbia already has 11 statutory holidays, many of which don鈥檛 make sense. 

Why do we celebrate Queen Victoria鈥檚 birthday? Why do so many of us get Easter Monday as a holiday? 

We would be better off converting a small number of existing statutory holidays to general vacation that we could use when we so choose.

Personally, I will continue to celebrate with my family day on the first Monday in sunny August and hopefully that won鈥檛 be with vote-buying Christy Clark at the helm of this province.

Allan Woodbury

Delta