New Westminster MLA Judy Darcy fears the provincial government is balancing its budgets on the backs of B.C. families and municipalities.
On Tuesday, the provincial government tabled its 2014 budget, which forecasts a balanced budget through controlled spending and anticipates a surplus of $175 million at the end of the current fiscal year. Finance Minister Mike de Jong said the “boring” budget is balanced and is the right plan for B.C.
“We say this is the greatest place on earth to live. Well, it ought to be the greatest place on earth to learn, and to have equal opportunities for the future. That starts with education,” Darcy told The Record. “My single biggest disappointment in this budget is in the area of education.”
According to Darcy, education has been under funded in British Columbia for about 12 years, and education has been “flat lined” in the budget.
“We have already got serious problems in our school district – and there’s no relief,” she said. “In fact, I think it can easily get worse as a result of this budget. That’s really, really worrisome. It’s worrisome for New Westminster. This is about investing in our future – the great future of our province, the great opportunities. That starts with kids.”
While she’s concerned about the kindergarten to Grade 12 education system, Darcy is also worried about post-secondary institution.
“It is not just flat lined, it is being reduced overall by $108 million,” she said. “That means more pressure on Douglas College. It means more pressure on our universities. At the end of the day it probably means higher tuition fees, which will probably continue to go up. The government says over and over again, like a broken record, that they are balancing the budget, but they’re doing it at the expense of things that really matter, like access to education.”
Darcy said British Columbia has an “enormous” skills training shortage in B.C. and needs to be investing more in trades training and post secondary education so workers are trained to do the jobs, rather than bringing in more temporary foreign workers.
“Education K to 12 and post secondary are really the biggest deficits in this budget by far, I would say,” she said of the budget. “Trustees, parents, teachers, special ed assistants – everybody pays close attention to what comes down in the budget. Will there be any help for us here? I am sorry to say that there is not.”
Darcy fears the budget means bigger classrooms and classes with more special needs kids in each class.
“I am the mother of a special needs son, and I know how important that investment is in our classrooms,” she said.
Darcy was pleased to see that an expansion of Royal Columbian Hospital continues to appear in the government’s service plan. The government is proceeding with the service case for the first phase in the redevelopment of the hospital, but the final scope will be determined as part of business case planning.
“No details. A broad commitment. That’s a good thing,” she said. “I am going to certainly keep pressing that this move as quickly as it can.”
Darcy believes the B.C. Ambulance Service resource allocation plan to deal with “sirens and lights’ is about downloading onto municipal fire departments. While ambulances won’t be responding with lights and sirens in the way they’ve done in the past, she said fire departments will be required on scene right away – and they’ll do what they can to stabilize the patient and “wait and wait” until ambulances arrive.
B.C.’s Chartered Professional Accountants applauded the overall fiscal management of the provincial government, but expressed concern that it didn’t take steps to make B.C.’s sales tax more competitive. While the Canadian Federation of Independent Business gave the budget a B for holding the line on spending growth and balancing the budget, it expressed concern that the budget didn’t do enough for small business or address concerns caused by the return to a provincial sales tax.
“With all the talk of a balanced budget, in fact this government has run up debt faster than any government in B.C. history. I must admit that I sit in the legislature, and they keep crowing about a debt free B.C. Yet debt is piling on faster than anytime in B.C.’s history,” Darcy said. “Is the budget balanced this year? It depends what you mean by balanced. If you are downloading costs to families, if you are downloading costs to municipalities.”
