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'Hangover Budget' Pleases Few

Housing spending up, but Libs draw fire from health, education, environment sectors.

By Andrew MacLeod, 3 Mar 2010, TheTyee.ca

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Canadian Federation of Students' Shamus Reid: Budget priorities 'out of whack'

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Finance Minister Colin Hansen today presented a budget that shrinks the civil service and makes cuts across several ministries while keeping spending for health and education steady.

Hansen pitched it as a budget that would build on momentum from hosting the Olympics and would support children and families. Observers criticized it for abandoning earlier government priorities and failing to address the continued weakness in the economy -- more of a post-Olympics hangover budget than one picking up steam from the Games.

"It's very clear from this budget that B.C. faces a tentative recovery," said New Democratic Party leader Carole James. "I didn't see the government come forward with a strategy around jobs, a strategy around investing in people, putting resources that we need to in research and development, in post-secondary education in making sure we're providing for the people who are going to help us get through this economic recovery."

There will be 4,142 fewer people working for the government by 2013 than there were in 2008, according to the budget documents. That's a shrinking of 13 per cent, and at least some of the decrease will come from lay-offs.

As the document puts it, "Despite expected natural attrition, some involuntary staff reductions will likely be necessary in 2010/11 and 2011/12 to ensure government manages within annual budget targets and achieves a balanced budget by 2013/14."

The province has laid off 500 since September with another 1,000 to come over the next few years, a staff member told reporters on background, though Hansen later said it's impossible to put a figure on it. The "overwhelming majority" of staff reductions have been through attrition, he said. For people in jobs that are cut, he added, "We will work very hard to help them find another alternative position in the public service... Our goal is to keep the number of absolute layoffs to an absolute minimum."

Revenues down, spending up

The job cuts are part of the government's efforts to balance revenues and expenses by fiscal 2013-2014. The documents show a deficit of $1.715 billion in 2010-2011, which is consistent with what was projected in September.

While revenues have dropped off during the economic downturn, something frequently mentioned by Hansen and Premier Gordon Campbell, spending has continued to increase, though Hansen pointed out in his speech that it's not growing as fast as it was.

Even since the September budget update, corporate income tax is off by a further $252 million, natural gas royalties by $190 million and HST rebates have added another $227 million expense. On the plus side, the province is picking up $311 million more in transfers from the federal government and this fiscal year will include $395 million of the $1.6 billion in federal compensation for adopting the HST.

The documents also show that the province received $250 million of that compensation in 2009-2010, instead of the planned $750 million. The shift was because of the federal government's cash flow, said Hansen. "It's not something we have unilateral say over."

At the same time expenses have grown by $460 million, including a further $105 million for school districts, $31 million for post-secondary institutions and $34 million for health authorities and hospital societies.

The budget adds in $35 million to the LiveSmart program and $100 million for what the documents describe as clean energy initiatives.

Many missed opportunities

"This is a very confusing, unfocussed budget," said Michael Prince, a University of Victoria social policy professor. "There's just a real absence of looking at the most vulnerable," he said. "A real absence of social policy vision for the province."

The budget does little for communities outside the Lower Mainland that have suffered from the recession, said CUPE president Barry O'Neill. "There's no focus I think on the real resource communities."

B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair criticized what he said was a clumsy attempt to sell the HST as a way to fund health care. "It's absurd. They really treat us like we're stupid," he said, noting the net impact of introducing the HST will be $113 million less in government coffers this year.

"At the end of the day, it's a transfer not from me to health care but from me to Teck Cominco that made record profits. That's the real transfer here," he said.

"It's not horrible," said Iglika Ivanova, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives B.C. office. "There's nothing disastrous happening but it's not a reason go around celebrating."

While some arts and sports funding was reinstated, she said, "There are a lot of other groups who aren't getting anything."

There's no plan for rural economic development beyond drilling for gas, she said. And despite B.C. having the highest rate of child poverty in the country, there's no plan to address the issue, she said.

The Fraser Institute's senior economist Niels Veldhuis said the government needs to get its spending under control, especially in the health ministry. "Throwing more money at the problem won't solve the problem," he said. "This budget won't achieve what the minister wants it to achieve."

By 2013-2014 the government's debt will be as high as it ever was during the years the NDP was in power, he said.

Environmental contradictions

Tom Hackney from the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association said $30 million for LiveSmart won't go very far. "It's just not provincial in scale," he said. The government has good targets for greenhouse gas emissions, but he said, "It's time to start following through with some actions that will produce some serious results."

The government missed an opportunity to build the green economy, he said.

The Dogwood Initiative's Charles Campbell said the provincial government won't reach its climate change goals when it’s handing out $1.5 billion in subsidies to industries that are major greenhouse gas emitters. "You just can't ignore the contradiction," he said. "It's undermining our ability to build an economy of the future."

The premier has made fighting climate change a centre piece of past budgets and was quoted even on budget day in The Globe and Mail expressing his commitment to climate action.

"The environmental community was very optimistic a couple years ago," said Dogwood's Campbell. "We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt but he's really proving us wrong."

"Thin gruel for the environment once again," said Gwen Barlee from the Wilderness Committee. In the past the government has provided the number of employees working in each ministry, but in this budget moved to only providing a government-wide number. Barlee said she suspects the environment ministry has taken a disproportional hit.

More money needs to be put into enforcing environmental regulations, said Andrew Gage, a staff lawyer for West Coast Environmental Law. "People die when air pollution laws are not enforced," he said. "Salmon runs disappear when you don't have environmental enforcement."

Not enough for health, education

Even advocates for the areas where the budget maintained funding, health and education, were critical.

"It's not enough to cover the costs that we're going to be seeing," said Rachel Tutte, co-chair of the B.C. Health Coalition. "It looks like further cuts to our health care system." Cutting preventative care in particular will have long term costs, she said.

"It's a no-news budget and that's not good news for British Columbians in terms of health care"” said Health Sciences Association of B.C. president Reid Johnson. "Health care is not discretionary spending. It's stuff that we need."

He traces the problem to cuts to federal transfer payments in the 1990s and the Campbell government's tax cuts fromt he time they took office in 2001. "If I was in government I wouldn't have slashed my sources of revenue," he said. "If I'm erradicating my sources of revenue, how am I going to pay for anything."

On the education side, Cindy Oliver, president of the Federation of Post-secondary Educators of B.C. said spending was flat. "I was really disappointed," she said, adding that a well-educated, skilled population is the foundation for a strong economy.

The Canadian Federation of Students' B.C. chair, Shamus Reid said cuts to student aid are misguided and the government now collects more money from tuition fees than from corporate taxes. "To me that illustrates how completely out of whack priorities are for this government."

The B.C. Teachers' Federation distributed a news release saying the small increase in money for education will also lead to cuts. While the government earmarked money for salary increases and full-day kindergarten, it said, it failed to increase funding for transportation, heating, and increases to MSP and pension costs.

Cuts to resource ministries

The budget also increases the forecast allowance for the year to $300 million. That's more than the $250 million previously planned and much more than the zero allocated in last February's pre-election budget, at a time of great economic volatility, but still much lower than the $750 million that was standard a few years ago.

Ministries receiving cuts include agriculture and lands, citizens' services, energy, mines and petroleum resources, finance, forests and range and labour. The healthy living and sport ministry also sees a cut, much of which appears to be the winding down of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games secretariat.

The province will move $320 million from the resource ministries into health and education, Hansen said. Some of the savings in the resource ministries will come from consolidating some services, he said.

Hansen also released more details on the propety tax deferral for families announced in the throne speech three weeks ago. Starting in July, people who own at least 15 per cent of the equity in their home and who have children under 18 years old living at home will be able to defer their property taxes. The province will pay municipalities for the deferred taxes and will charge the home owner interest at the prime rate, he said.

The Housing and Social Development ministry's budget showed a decrease in spending on housing and employment programs, despite an increase in the amounts spent on disability and income assistance.

The Crown agency B.C. Housing, however, has seen its budget go up to $900 million from $627 million last year, with a provincial contribution four times what it was a few years ago. [Tyee]

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

25 Comments:

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  • freebear

    2 years ago

    First Green wash, now Financial wash!

    Reminds me of Nixon when he said he was not a crook!

    I wonder which directorship Gordo is looking at getting before the jig is up?

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    Environment

    ""The environmental community was very optimistic a couple years ago," said Dogwood's Campbell. "We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt but he's really proving us wrong."

    You mean David Suzuki, Ms. Berman and Pembina Institute?

    And now I guess you can add Green Peace International to the list!

  • Ramona777

    2 years ago

    Health Care Boondoggle

    The following quote was in Andrew's story:

    "Health care is not discretionary spending. It's stuff that we need." said Health Sciences Association of B.C. president Reid Johnson.

    Mr. Johnson is correct but how we define "need" is the crux of the matter.

    Yes, a seriously injured person brought into ER as a result of a drunk driver deserves full, free treatment as does a child with cancer.

    An overweight woman smokes heavily, goes to the tanning salon twice weekly, doesn't exercise and eats at fast food joints at least three times a week and then gets cancer (true story). This flagrant abuser of her health certainly needs treatment but there must be a way to make people like her pay for their treatment. There are many such cases out there. Go visit a Tim Hortons or Burger King.

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    What the F..k!

    My Ramona!

    "doesn't exercise and eats at fast food joints at least three times a week."

    YOu mean McDonalds and Coke that just sponsored the Spring Olympic Games! Where the Pavillions served hotdogs and beer?

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    You mean all the drive thrus that local Councils approve?

    Why do 'we' still 'permit' all these foul fast food junk food pop to be sold?

    'We' even go so far to flog it to kids while they watch a sports competition!

  • Rolf Auer

    2 years ago

    I notice that...

    ...seniors in nursing homes are still left out. Their rents were raised (in some cases, beyond what they were able to afford) as of January of this year, and I would have thought that the BC Liberals would have had some compassion for them. (see Andrew MacLeod's Oct. 8, 2009 article, "Health Minister Falcon hikes residential care rates.") Apparently not. There is a Vancouver Sun (Jan. 25) article, "BC Seniors face huge care-cost increase," and a Province (Feb. 5) article, "Rising rent hits BC seniors," this latter telling of rent increases higher than income.

  • mikev

    2 years ago

    says it all:

    "the government now collects more money from tuition fees than from corporate taxes"

    Because of course it's those fat cat students who need to share their obscene wealth with our destitute corporations. And those money hoarding seniors, they should pitch in too.

    The BC Liberals: doing *WHATEVER* *IT* *TAKES* to eliminate corporate poverty.

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    Agreed Rolf an mikev

    On another thread on the Tyee a poster that goes by Ayla states: "If the poor starve to death, so be it; their survival was their own responsibility, not the government's!" while going into a rant about how wonderful the Socred/Liberal governments have been. This unfortunately is the thinking of the Campbell/Hansen cartel. They are betting that we are all going to forget in the after glow of the Olympics and before the next election.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    If the poor starve to death.......

    ....then who is going to clean the "not poor's" houses?

  • Birch

    2 years ago

    discretionary health spending

    "This flagrant abuser of her health certainly needs treatment but there must be a way to make people like her pay for their treatment. There are many such cases out there. Go visit a Tim Hortons or Burger King."

    While I have little sympathy for addicted smokers, a lot of the people eating fast food do so because they can't afford fresh vegetables or many of the other recommended foods that constitute a balanced diet. Obesity is no an unusual result of eating cheap, non-nutritious but affordable garbage.

    Someone who can't afford to eat properly is likely not someone who can afford to pay for health care. Perhaps we should just let them die. Then I'm sure those of us who remain would feel better.

  • Ramona777

    2 years ago

    Birch, Your're Barking Up the Wrong Tree

    Sorry Birch but that old argument about not being able to afford fresh vegetables or recommended foods doesn't cut it with me.
    Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onions --- all cheap and nutritious. Add rice, pasta, tinned tuna (salmon on sale), tomato sauce, dry buckwheat, barley, beans --- you can eat VERY healthily on a low budget. I know. I've done it.
    A McDonald's meal -- $5. That $5 can buy at least four meals for one person.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    Ramona777

    Did you know there are people "out there" who honestly do not know how to cook?
    Also, agribusiness is ensuring that the food we eat is nutritionally deficient:
    http://books.google.ca/books?id=w46_bqSXDDkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+war+in+the+country+thomas+pawlick&source=bl&ots=WN4DDyn9EY&sig=HpgaoGrdtp5EqkJRKqD0qKFGlMc&hl=en&ei=7yCPS530HoSssgPzmNyfCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false
    Things are just a wee bit less simplistic than you might wish.

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    It sometimes depends on where you live.

    That $5 would not buy you enough stuff for four meals unless you ate dog food in some places and not much of that each meal either.

  • Bob Watts

    2 years ago

    HST?

    You state the Government will be $311 million in the hole due a HST rebate.
    What rebate, who gets a rebate.
    I heard Ontario gave a $1,000 HST rebate to each household. Found it! Copy and paste......
    The Ontario Government is giving a Ontario HST rebate of $1,000 per family to offset the new tax burden. No such BC HST rebate has been offered. The new Ontario HST sales tax increase to be offset by special rebates totalling $1,000 for families with an income below $160,000; singles with an income below $80,000 to get $300
    So where is our $1,000 BRIBE?
    I hear we are all to get $80...Please keep the $80 and put those seniors programs back. Return PAC money to schools back to $20 per student.
    $80 bucks each is just going to be pissed on the wall, when some good could have been done!!!

  • John Greg

    2 years ago

    Ramona777 ...

    I feel it's important to point out that a lot of poor people simply do not have proper food storage or cooking facilities. In which case the only real feasible option for them is cheap, processed junk.

    And aside from that, as RickW accurately pointed out, a lot of people are, for a variety of reasons, incapable of cooking, and in many cases just don't have the wherewithal to learn how to do so.

  • John Greg

    2 years ago

    Ramona777 ...

    Sorry, but another important point. You said "That $5 can buy at least four meals for one person." Balls to that. Perhaps 10 or 15 years ago, but not now. Even four packages of Kraft Dinner costs more than that when you figure in butter, milk.

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    No hope with Apes like Ramona

    I am flabbergasted at times with the zealots on this site.

    Ramona you are a sick icehole!

    What are you twisted thoughts on aid to Haiti and Chile?

    Expose your neanderthal mind would ya!

  • Bob Watts

    2 years ago

    $5 Equals 5 meals???

    Wow! Quick tell Campbell he didn't need a pay raise after all:) Last time I had a special coffee it was $6.
    Now to get real. A full welfare cheque for a single person is $610 per month. Basic welfare for food is $235 but this month it will be 35 days between cheques or $6.71 per day. The rent portion is a maximum of $375 per month and I know many cheap rentals start at $450 so that extra comes from their food portion. So a person on welfare now has $160 or $4.57 per day for food this month. Ah the best place on Earth. 75% of the homeless don't collect welfare, the days of needing a cheque and getting it ended a few years back.
    Being an Advocate I know this subject well. I know a disabled single parent who eats only once every 3 days. I know a Doctor who puts her clients in Hospital, just so they can eat. Food is medicine!
    If you live outside of the large cities rents maybe a little cheaper ($395) but food costs are very often double or more. Oh yes that $235 food money is also for toilet paper, cloths, shoes, phone, transportation etc etc. Now get up every day and look for work, buying a newspaper for job listings is 25% of your daily food money, taking a bus to hand over a resume is 50% of your food money, you now have $1.50 to eat 3 meals a day, or 50 cents per meal. If your diabetic, death will be apon you in a hurry....
    What I really love is the Sally Ann now gets $103.00 per night per mat on the floor just from the BC government, plus add in Federal money, private donations, local City property tax breaks, people willing their estates etc etc. But a poor person will never get more than $8 per day on a regular month with 28 days between cheques.
    If you don't look for a job your cut off.
    Ah welfare the good life.
    90% of the starter jobs in my town are now given to foreign workers by our business people. Deep Dark Poverty in BC is just starting, and mostly, no one gives a shit!!!

  • Ramona777

    2 years ago

    My Original Point ...

    Is not about that you can eat on $5 per day. (But as an aside, I asked at two grocery stores, and they said it can be easily done.) If people don't know how to cook, shall the government do that for them too?
    Anyway, my starting point is that the middle and working class choose to abuse their bodies (see my original posting about the overweight, sun-tanning, junk food gobbling, smoker female).
    They know better. They can cook. They have money to spend on groceries. They should also have to pay extra when they get obviously self-inflicted maladies.
    I'd be the last person to go after poor people. I've been there. I know what the challenges are. And I never said $5 for 5 meals, which shows how respondents often get their facts wrong.
    As for aid to Haiti and Chile --- I fully support aid to Haiti because of what the colonial system has done to that country. As for Chile, I don't all of the facts.
    BTW, I make a substantial monthly donation to a local service for children and also sponsor a child in Africa. You might think that makes me feel less guilty. Well, maybe it does, but it's better than spending money, sitting in a Tim Hortons lineup waiting for my "double-double" or whatever the laggards order.

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    Hey Ramona777

    Minister Rich Coleman is obese-too many burgers and double doubles Ramona?

    And how do you explain Coke and McD's association with the Vancouver 2010 Spring Games?

    Karma's going to catch up with you!

  • G West

    2 years ago

    The point Ramona - with respect

    Is that we're all in this together - thin and fat; young and old; rich and poor.

    Or at least we ought to be - personal responsibility IS important but so is recognizing that we all bring unique gifts, problems and histories to the table. And we all share the same humanity – not just the kids in Africa and Haiti. Not to put too fine a point on it, the fundamental problems in Haiti existed for generations before the earthquake and virtually no one in Canada gave a shit.

    A lot of families out there today in the real world are single parent families - many of them trying to feed themselves and their families on less than the matrons of Kerrisdale spend on their dogs.

    I assure you, those people aren't sitting in a line up for a latte at Starbucks or idling in a car waiting for a double-double at Tim's.

    When we get the poor kids and their families up to some kind of a decent standard of living I'll join you in promoting cooking lessons for them.

    Until then, I don't think you have a point.

    As for self-inflicted maladies I think you're totally out to lunch - there's nobody in this society, in my view, who ought to have the job of judging who deserves decent medical care and who doesn't.

    And, God willing, there never will be. Making a monthly donation to anything doesn't give anybody the right to sit in judgment of their neighbours' grocery lists. Especially in a society where the rights of food and beverage marketers to our eyes and ears are something governments and other organizations can sell for billions of dollars annually.

    By the way, I hope you’ve checked how much of that monthly donation you’re so proud of actually ends up helping ‘your’ child in Africa and how much goes into administration and advertising

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    Ramona777:

    If people don't know how to cook, shall the government do that for them too?

    In today's society, cooking has become an option. One cannot castigate someone else for not knowing everything there is to know. Do you (for instance) know how to make and use an adze? Do you know how to spot the perfect angle of the branch on the oak tree that would be the best and strongest keel for the ship? Can you start a fire by rubbing sticks together? Do you know how to salt meat to preserve it? I would say likely not. But you are not being put down because there is increasingly little use for these talents.

    Same goes for cooking. When parents haul their little Joans and Johnnys off to MacD's "because they've had a hard day at work", just what IS that telling the children?

    The art of cooking is much like the art of woodworking. Schools (sometimes) teach them -- and education is the purview of government (at the moment). Or must we get into the role of government in society in general?

  • greengreen

    2 years ago

    Oh to be pure

    Ramona...just wondering, if such a person happens to be poor, perhaps even on welfare, should we just let her die?

  • greengreen

    2 years ago

    Ramona...just wondering, if

    Ramona...just wondering, if this person happens to be poor, perhaps even on welfare, should we just let her die?

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Wow! There goes forestry

    Just in from friends and relatives in the last couple of days - four people of my acquaintance laid off in the Ministry of Forests in Prince George and Campbell River/Nanaimo.

    This is starting to look like a recession budget, not a hangover budget.

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