NDP losing hope over Liberal promise to balance budget
Posted July 23, 2013 7:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The BC Liberals campaigned on a promise of a balanced budget during the election this past May.
Now they’ve missed the target for last year’s budget by more than $175 million.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong says it’s because of lower revenue from the natural resource sector.
But NDP MLA Mike Farnworth says the fact the Liberals are sugar coating the situation doesn’t change the fact the province is running a deficit.
He believes it’s unlikely they’ll be able to balance this year’s budget as things currently stand. “The government claims of debt-free BC during the election, we’re the best managers of your finances, is really just a bunch of hyperbole.”
He says he expects the public will soon start to see the strain of the deficit with cuts to services starting this fall. “The reality is that we’re not debt-free. We’ve had the largest increase in the debt in British Columbia’s history with this last budget. So the government likes to say ‘oh it’s debt-free BC’, the reality is it’s been more like a debt-spree in BC.”
Farnworth isn’t optimistic that future revenue from liquified natural gas would shore up the budget in the future.
