Corporations First, Kids Second

The Campbell government's news release promoted the February 2006 budget with the headline "Budget 2006 Concentrates on B.C.'s Children". Some say it could be called Sherry's budget, in honour of Sherry Charlie, but she isn't the only child whose name is associated with the Campbell cuts. An alternative is to call it "Ted's Budget" in anticipation of the report that will be released by Ted Hughes on April 7th.

The budget tried to support the claim that it concentrates on children by saying that an additional $421 million would be available to help vulnerable children and their caregivers; the fine print noted that the $421 million is over four years. If that makes the 2006 budget the "Children's Budget" then consider what the September 2005 mini-budget should have been labeled; that's when Finance Minister Carole Taylor announced $143 million per year, $569 million over four years, in corporate tax cuts, even though not a single word was said about that tax gift during the May 2005 election campaign. When the Campbell government had a choice, it put corporate tax cuts a year ahead of restoring cuts to child protection and it gave 35% more to corporations than to child protection.

Budget day marks not only the budget speech and the release of various budget documents, but it also marks the release of the Third Quarter Financial Report and of service plans for every ministry and crown agency, as required by the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act. The updated service plan for the Ministry of Children and Family Development contains sickening pabulum about the "five great goals". However, as advised in a September 27th, 2005, article in StrateticThoughts, the ministry has finally included "Rate of recurrence of child neglect and/or abuse by family" as a performance measure; it is listed as the first measure for the first goal and first objective of the ministry. That's a big step from apparently ignoring outcomes in previous service plans.

After years of cutting

It will take a lot more than recognizing some important outcomes for the Campbell government to redeem itself after years of cutting services in the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It is almost impossible to trace changes in the ministry's budget since categories are aggregated and major programs like day care are shifted from year to year, but the "estimates" (the "detailed" figures that go before the legislature) indicate that the words "child protection" have not appeared as a line item in the ministry's budget since February 2002. At that time "child protection and family development" had a budget of $596 million, down from $621.6 million in the previous year. In this year's budget, the government promised to set aside $100 million over three years for future enhancements to child protection and family support services. Child protection services were cut by $25.6 million between 2001 and 2002 and we don't know precisely how much more they were cut in the four years since then; it looks like $100 million over three years doesn't begin to equal more than $128 million in cumulative cuts over the five years since 2001.

If, on the eve of the tabling of the Hughes report on child welfare, the Campbell government cannot buy credibility for restoring cuts to child protection, how can it expect to have credibility on any other aspect of its budget?

Tight with riches

The budget for all government spending in all ministries is reported as increasing from an estimated $25.824 billion in the year ending March 31, 2006, to $26.752 billion in the year ending March 31, 2007 - an increase of $928 million (3.6%), but various fudge factors (forecast allowance of $850 million, contingencies - new program $320 million and contingencies - negotiating $420 million) total $1.59 billion before counting underestimates of key revenues sources like property purchases taxes and natural gas royalties.

The Campbell government has a hard time hiding its embarrassment of riches; it certainly isn't using much of it to restore damage done in its first five years.

Former BC NPD advisor David Schreck publishes an online political journal StrategicThoughts where this column was first posted.