sig you are still not dealing any facts and figures. Are you asking us to decide without even seriously looking into the past and present?
So lets see the liberals claim they have a 1.74 billion dollar for the coming year, but lets ask the question: how much of this is due to BC Liberal economic policy applied to the province?
But wait a minute here.....
1 billion in equalization payment from the Federal Government, because matters are 'so booming' in our economy that we still are considered a have not province deserving of equalization payments. Thats kinda strange don't you think?? mmmmmm I am starting to agree with some of this statement.
large transfer payments from the Federal government in the health and education sectors. No merit can be claimed by the BC Liberals on that score, we have the population, ergo we get the transfer payments just like other provinces.
Then we have the revenues from the home and commercial construction sectors, largely because interest rates are the lowest in about 50 years - once again no merit to the BC Liberals.
Yes, we have high resource revenues but that is because of world commodity prices and demand, especially for oil, natural gas and coal - surely, the BC Liberals can't claim merit for that. In fact, much of the natural gas revenues from North East BC are due to the framework laid down by the previous NDP government.
Let us not forget to count the extra revenues from increased BC Medical premiums. Then expanded gambling revenus: remember when " they" were against gambling expansion; then more monies from the Property Transfer tax - once again related to home construction.
Tourism revenues are up, but that is due to the value of our looney versus the Euro/US dollar and the fact that Canada is perceived as a 'safe' destination for Americans and Europeans. Of course, we should not forget the increased revenues from massive raw log exports - now that is a BC Liberal economic strategy that makes sense - export jobs along with the raw logs!
Most importantly, a good portion of that surplus (perhaps $700 million or so) is the result of massive cut-backs and/or closures of schools, hospitals, emergency care facilities, women's centres, privatization of Crown assets, the slashing of the civil service by many thousands of people, etc.
Yes, it is agreed that there has been an increase of approximately $2 billion in spending in the health sector--but ask yourself where has that money come from, and should the BC Liberals legitimately claim merit for those increased revenues?
Yes, agreed there has been a little over a billion in increased spending in the education sector, some for K- K12, and a larger portion for colleges and universities - but how much of that money is from federal transfer payments and the result of massively increased tuition hikes foisted on the backs of students? Once again - I give low marks to the BC Liberals for the increased expenditures in these vital sectors.
In my estimation the BC Liberals and their economic strategy is not the cause of the "boom'" in the BC economy. Rather the 'business cycle" in terms of construction and commodity prices just happens to have favored BC during this last two or years, and a large part of that surplus is the result of the massive cut-backs and off-loading on the backs of many segments of the population. Then we have the increased user fees - to numerous to mention.
Coming soon are the Olympic infrastructure, and transportation infrastructure expenditures. Most of those monies will again come from the Federal government not the BC Liberal strategy.
In my view the BC Liberals have been grossly incompetent with respect to the management of our economy. Many regions and many segments of the population have been hurt by their massive tax breaks, and their mean-spirited, slash and burn tactics of the past four years.
Discounted in all this analysis - is an analysis of one of the substantial factors for the booming BC economy - the "bc bud" underground economy - profits from this renewable resource are no doubt widely circulated in the "legitimate" sectors.
Let me tell you - in would take more than many months of inhaling "bc bud" before I could even come close to believing yet another BC Fiberal deception --and I don't smoke anything--so there is no hope there!
