The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C. president Philip Hochstein said he'll forgive Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell if the provincial government has to dip into the red ink for February's budget.

“I think these are unusual times and unusual times demand unusual measures,” Hochstein said. “If we weren't in these times and he ran a deficit, then I'd shit all over him.”

The British Columbia government is legally required to bring forward a balanced budget, but both Campbell and finance minister Colin Hansen have said that with falling revenues and increased demands on spending, making the budget balance this year will be very difficult.

Hochstein's ICBA, meanwhile, is running ads attacking the B.C. NDP for “running the economy into the ground” in the 1990s.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.