The sa国际传媒 Liberals found a winning strategy in last month鈥檚 election, and they are using it to guide their new term in office. Who can blame them for sticking with a message that brought them victory when every pundit predicted they would lose? Premier Christy Clark鈥檚 government sees the election results as a mandate to proceed with everything they promised in February鈥檚 budget.
In this week鈥檚 throne speech and budget, Clark held to the course she charted in that pre-election budget and the election campaign. Economic growth and the jobs it is expected to produce are still the focus, as they were during the election.
鈥淵our new government is optimistic for the future, alive to the challenges of our times. But the global economy is fragile and recovery has been slow. In British Columbia, we must protect our economy and the jobs and citizens who depend on it,鈥� the throne speech said, referring to what it called: 鈥淎 bold plan for a bold province.鈥�
So far, however, most of the economic indicators are boldly going in the wrong direction. Employment, retail sales and housing starts are all down, and the economy is expected to grow 1.4 per cent this year, which is slightly lower than the February prediction.
On the brighter side, natural-gas prices have recovered a bit since February.
The economic news will make balancing the budget a bigger challenge.
A slavish dedication to a balanced budget is still a priority for the Liberals, as part of their vision of themselves as solid fiscal managers. They promise to tighten the balanced-budget law, which has been broken often enough to render it meaningless, but they don鈥檛 say what teeth they will add.
They should quietly drop that commitment, because so much of provincial finances depend on external forces beyond a government鈥檚 control. The revised budget, which totals $44 billion in spending, is a good example.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong admitted that the expected $197-million surplus for this year has already shrunk.
Thanks to lower-than-expected economic growth, the surplus will be $153 million 鈥� and that figure is only possible because de Jong shifted $50 million out of the forecast allowance. In fact, revenues have fallen $124 million from the earlier budget鈥檚 projections.
With those numbers in mind, the finance minister said he will be looking for another $30 million in cuts in this fiscal year, promising that the next year to year and a half will be 鈥渢ough.鈥� No job cuts are planned, but ministries will have to go back through their numbers yet again, looking for any dollars that can be pruned.
The much-maligned plan to sell off Crown assets to help balance this year鈥檚 budget appears to be on track, with $181 million of $475 million worth of properties already sold. If that trend holds, de Jong will prove the doubters wrong.
The government still promises a debt-free province, but that holy grail seems to be receding into the distance. One calculation says sa国际传媒 has racked up $750 million in additional debt since the election, and de Jong says debt is accumulating faster than was forecast in February.
Clark still pins her hopes on liquefied natural gas exports to bring in the revenue that will erase the debt. To make that happen, her government will have to move quickly. Other players in the world have the same goal in sight, and they are further down the field.
De Jong points out that in terms of debt and balanced budgets, sa国际传媒 is the envy of other Canadian governments. While the Liberals are well on their way to keeping that position, we must keep in mind that no budget is truly balanced until the end of the fiscal year.
