Listening to nurses union boss Maureen Hancharyk carp over the NDP's latest wage offer is like having to put up with a crabby househusband who complains his housework goes unappreciated and undervalued.

Hancharyk calls the government's wage offer of 15% over 3 years "an insult". Most working Manitobans would die for that kind of money, and readily queue up for generous insults hurled by their own employers, should they be so lucky.

Manitoba nurses are committed and dedicated to their work. On top of that, they're reasonable and well-educated people. They know when suffering patients are taking well to the morphine and when they're faking pain for another fix.

Hancharyk is fooling no one when she says Manitoba nurses need a 31% wage hike over 2 years or they'll leave the province. A 31% hike isn't just morphine. It's cocaine. And no one should take it or push it.

Reports of a mass nursing exodus have been greatly over exaggerated. The nurses union has made much ado over the fact that Manitoba ranks eighth nation-wide in hourly pay. True, but the difference between Manitoba and 5th place Quebec is only $1.38 per hour.

The more telling wage comparison is between the wealthy provinces - Ontario, BC and Alberta - and the rest of the country. The rich provinces pay their nurses between 35 and 40% more because the cost of living differential makes it necessary to do so.

Average real estate prices in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary are more than double the going rate in Winnipeg. It stands to reason employees in those cities earn an extra whack of cash to cover off the higher cost of living.

Despite the rhetoric, Hancharyk has no proof that lower wages alone drive nurses out of the province. The lure of the Rockies and the West Coast may have as much to do with lower taxes and a more moderate climate than the offer of a fatter paycheque.

The nurses union is quick to demand an extra 200 million health care dollars but you don't hear any constructive advice on where to get the money. Instead of finding solutions, Hancharyk offers up threats of a mass nursing exodus and a province-wide strike.

Does she seriously expect the Doer government to fold like an empty wallet once the union cleans them out Only a putz would spend that kind of money on human resources when we can't even afford to buy a MRI machine

Presumably, the province believes that health care will get a better bang for its buck at a $76 million settlement. Top that up to $200 million and sacrifices will have to be made in new technology and equipment acquisitions to accommodate the union's price tag.

Absent from the bargaining table is the discussion on finding less costly ways of improving health care and working conditions. Such recommendations from the nurses union are few and far between. It makes you wonder where their heart is planted - in the best interests of Manitoba patients or in the best interest payments generated off its union dues.

Manitoba nurses should tune out Hancharyk long enough to consider a pay scale that fairly reflects the value of their work in this middle-of-the-road province without unduly jeopardizing health care funding on other pressing priorities.