BC Conservative Platform Promises Bigger Deficits and Lacks Detail

With just four days to go until final voting day, BC Conservative Leader John Rustad released a platform with unclear accounting that he says would add at least $1 billion to the province’s already-record deficit.

“Our deficit will be slightly larger,” Rustad said this morning. “I just want to be straight up with people right now in terms of the fact that we are going to be adding spending and we are going to be putting the tax relief that is much needed for people in British Columbia.”

The Tyee’s analysis of numbers included with the platform suggests the operating deficit would in fact be much larger, growing by closer to $6.5 billion in each of the next two years.

B.C.’s most recent quarterly update said that three months into the current fiscal year, the province’s operating deficit as it spends about $90 billion had grown to a projected $9 billion.

Throughout the election campaign Rustad has criticized the NDP for reckless spending, but has made his own commitments without estimating what they would cost or saying how a Conservative government would pay for them.

“There’s a sea of red ink in this province and nothing to show for it,” Rustad said today. “The budget that we’re releasing today talks about a path forward, it talks about what we need to be able to do in this province and it talks about how we need to overcome the seven years of devastation that we’ve seen under the NDP.”

The 114-page Conservative platform, which mentions the NDP 176 times and David Eby at least 46 times, does not itself include a clear financial tally of the party’s promises.

There is some detail in an accompanying six-page appendix, but not in a format that presents the overall picture.

Over the next two years the platform shows a reduction of more than $7 billion in revenue.

The biggest part of the drop in revenue is $3 billion each year from the elimination of the carbon tax. The federal government charges a price on carbon itself in provinces that don’t have their own carbon tax and would likely replace B.C.’s if it is eliminated.

Starting in 2026 it also budgets $900 million to exempt the money for mortgage or rent payments from income tax and $150 million to cut the small business tax.

The spending picture is murkier. The platform says the party would spend $2.3 billion over two years “to fix gaps left by the NDP,” but totalling up the commitments the figure appears to be over $6.1 billion. The biggest expenditures are for health, encouraging housing construction and transportation.

Rustad acknowledged that the platform does not include figures for capital projects the party has promised, including transportation infrastructure like adding lanes to the Pattullo Bridge. On Monday he announced his plan to get started on a children’s hospital for Surrey, but did not provide an estimate of what it would cost. Today he said it would be at least $3 billion.

The appendix suggests the Conservatives are counting on accelerated economic growth to close the gap between revenues and spending. A table shows the billions that would be added to revenue by 2030 if the province were to grow at 5.4 per cent a year until then.

In this year’s B.C. budget the economic forecast council’s projection for GDP growth next year averaged 2.1 per cent. The council includes 13 private-sector forecasters who provide an independent opinion to the government each year.

Rustad defended releasing the costed platform so close to voting day by saying the party has been rolling out its ideas throughout the campaign. “The only piece that is new here that you see today is the final budgeting numbers,” he said.

He repeated that a Conservative government would return the province to a balanced budget, but only by the end of a second term in government in eight years.

Speaking ahead of the Conservative platform announcement, NDP Leader David Eby was asked about the symbolism of Rustad choosing the University of British Columbia as the place to make the release.

“It will be a great opportunity for him to explain to students at UBC why for 16 years he only funded 130 units of student housing across the entire province,” Eby said.

“It will be another chance for him to explain to the students at UBC why his Rustad long-wait-tax program prioritizes a penthouse owner in downtown Vancouver over UBC students who are working and paying provincial taxes.”

They would get money back under the NDP’s tax cut promise, he said, but nothing from Rustad’s proposal.

“It would be another chance to explain why he doesn’t support free birth control for students and what his position is on choice and whether he will support the students who are studying climate science at UBC, a leading centre of research around the world,” Eby said, adding that Rustad has been avoiding questions throughout the campaign.

Both the NDP and the BC Green Party released their platforms nearly two weeks ago.

The NDP’s promises would add $2.9 billion to the provincial deficit due to an income tax cut and increased spending for health and mental health care, affordable housing and economic measures.

The Green platform is built around increasing well-being and would add about $8 billion in expenses while raising taxes on corporate profits over $1 billion a year, property and incomes above $350,000.

BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau criticized the BC Conservatives for the delay in releasing their platform saying it is “laughable” to wait until now.

“I’ve said from the beginning of this campaign that the BC Conservatives and John Rustad are not serious,” she said. “They’re not serious enough to govern.”

It’s understandable that people are disappointed by the NDP government, but they should vote for a party like the Greens that takes governing seriously, she said. “The BC Conservatives do not deserve the kinds of support they’re getting right now as they’ve demonstrated that they do not take the job or the responsibility seriously.”

Final voting day is Saturday and Elections BC has said that thanks to new voting technology preliminary results should be available within an hour of 8 p.m. when polls close.