Huh? I thought that there was going to be a mass exodus of investment from the Province unless HST was retained? What a bizarre turn of events!!!!! LOL.

Perhaps, rather than waxing philosphically about the state of the Province, maybe Mr. Falcon could tell us exactly who is going to invest in the City of Prince George, and when we might expect this to happen.

Fact of the matter is, is that it is not going to happen. In addition its time to quit trying to tie every project in North Central BC to Prince George. The transmission lines on Highway 37, the Mines, on Highway 37, the new ingot plant, at Kitimat, and the LNG Plants at Kitimat, while having a **small** effect on Prince George, are projects that will be looked after by Kitimat, and Terrace, not Prince George. Mt Milligan mines will just replace the jobs lost when Kemess shut down last year. So we will maintain the status quo in that area. Tumbler ridge, Ft St John, Dawson Creek, Grande Prairie, and Ft McMurray will continue to look after their business as they have done in the past.

We might get a little business if Site C goes ahead but not much. The pipeline to Kitimat if it goes ahead will have very little effect in this area.

So Mr Falcon. Who is going to invest in Prince George, and when.

My guess is a few more Government projects like the ****stupid**** Wood Innovation Building, and thats about it.

I can see people leaving Prince George to get jobs in other areas of BC and in Alberta. They will go where the jobs are, its just that simple.

Prince George has hit a brick wall, and unless something dramatic happens we will remain in a downward spiral, as people get older, and young people leave.

Invest Terrace …….

The conception that most people seem to hold of a balanced budget is that the government is not going further into debt and that any fiscal period’s overall expenditures are being met entirely from that same fiscal period’s overall revenues.

But if this was true the Provincial debt would not have increased anywhere near as much as it has since the BC Liberals took office.

Obviously the budget is not being balanced through taxation alone, even when the balanced budget legislation they enacted was still in force. A considerable portion of the taxes we pay are being used to service debt, and the budget, in the years that it was balanced, was being balanced by loans, and not just taxation.

Now if a budget was to be balanced solely from taxation, what would it mean? Would it not be a statement in accounting terms that the Province was recovering ALL its expenditures, including all its Capital expenditures, over the SAME period of time they were incurred? That it’s ‘consuming’ exactly what it ‘produced’, over the same period of time, including all its Capital? What else COULD it mean?

Obviously this can not be the case. A new road, or hospital, or school, etc., does NOT “wear out” in the same period of time in which it was built. These things last for years, decades even, into the future. Why then should we be pretending that the money expended on them is all going to be recovered in the same year it was spent? That’s the premise behind a balanced budget.

What other business operates this way? If Save On Foods constucts a new supermarket, say, does it recover the full cost of the store the first year it’s in business?

It’s prices would have to be astronomical for that to happen. It recovers the Capital costs of that store over the expected lifespan of the buildings and fixtures and equipment therein. Which could be up to 20 years, or longer. Each year there will be an allocation for ‘depreciation’ charged into the price of the groceries sold, at an appropriate fraction of the total cost over the expected lifespan of the Assets that are depreciating.

Private business can do this because they have their books arranged in a manner that approximates the finances they show far closer to the physical realities those numbers are supposed to represent.

Why doesn’t the government do the same thing? Where, for instance, is the government’s Balance Sheet? A statement that shows not just whether they had a surplus or deficit in what they budgeted, but WHAT the money was spent on. Whether we increased Provincial ASSETS at a greater rate than we increased Provincial LIABILITIES (i.e., the Provincial Debt).

As it stands right now, we are being grossly overtaxed under the accounting system currently used. Governments are fond of telling us often that they’,”…just like any other business”, and that’s true enough in the sense that they are providing goods and services to the general public. Then why not do the books the same way they’re done in “..any other business”?