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NDP budget spending twice as much as revenue coming in

MLA: All major expenditures earmarked for Lower Mainland
10732073_web1_Coralee-Oakes-web
Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes. File photo

When Finance Minister Carole James gave her budget speech in the Legislature on Tuesday (Feb. 20), she said the NDP’s budget was going to “lift people up.”

However, she didn’t say what area code those people would be living in, and that concerns Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes deeply.

“It’s an assault on 250!”

The Quesnel resident said she combed through the budget during the lock-up and there wasn’t much in there for rural British Columbia, even though the NDP talked about it during the throne speech on Feb. 13.

“They said rural B.C. matters and they wanted to be fair and equitable to every part of British Columbia. Then I went through the budget book to see where it is fair and equitable to every part of B.C.

“Lo and behold, all of the programs that are critically important to rural B.C. have been reduced or all of a sudden are not showing up in the budget.”

Oakes noted Phase 3 of the Cariboo Connector, which involves the safety, mobility and four-laning of Highway 97 between Quesnel and Williams Lake, is not in the budget.

However, there are a lot of transportation projects in the Lower Mainland.

The $2 billion budgeted for education is all in the Lower Mainland, she added.

“They talked about the importance of making sure we’re looking after wildfires and making sure communities are safe. They talked about wildfires costing $870 million this year.

“That comes out of contingency [funding]; their whole funding for next year is $550 million. If we have a bad wildfire season next year, they may not have enough money to fight the fires.”

The local MLA notes that while the NDP government was trying to balance the budget, it was moving things around.

Oakes said civil forfeiture, which is money that comes from crime and used to help women’s centres and other important groups, is showing as a reduction in the budget.

“Their growth in spending is almost two times as much as their projected revenues.

“A lot of revenue is coming from tax increases and fee increases – fees and licences.”

For example, she added, the budget shows water rental and fees for hunting and fishing licences will increase an average of 1.3 per cent annually over the next three years.

“So have they moved things around just to announce big projects for the Lower Mainland.”

The MLA says more will be known as the budget is debated in the near future.