Throne Speech Touts Balanced Budget
Victoria, B.C. – Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon kicked off the spring session of the B.C legislature this afternoon with a speech from the throne.
In it she said B.C. will not only deliver a balanced budget next week but will likely be the only province to do so in Canada this year.
She toned down the government’s language however on LNG development from the last election saying it “could create a hundred thousand jobs” and the revenue to eliminate the province’s debt.
Of particular interest to Northerners, she said the province will need to work out a new softwood lumber agreement with the United States, as the current deal expires this year.
On the international front, Guichon said international trade remains a major focus of the government adding Premier Clark will make her 7th international trade trip to China this year.
She also said the government will continue to grow the market in India as trade there has increased by 157% since 2011.
It was also noted since 2011 the BC Jobs Plan has added more than 70,000 jobs, and that by 2022 over a million job openings are expected across the province.
Guichon also reiterated the province’s commitment to continue to forge strong relationships with First Nations, reduce unnecessary red tape, and invest in skills training.
Comments
So let’s ee how this really plays out.. BC is 40 billion in debt as per CFIB debt clock. We have been going in debt of a rate of 4.75 million a month.. So,let’s see how the liberals do this year..they haven’t done anything to pay off the debt yet.
40,000,000,000 dollars in debt. That is over $8,000 for every man, woman and child in the province.
Even at 3% a year on interest, that is $1,200,000,000 spent out of our system to pay for something we spent five years ago!!!!
We all complain about our debt load, but when we get a surplus, everyone has great ideas on how to spend it. I have an idea, reduce the debt load!!!!
I’m not a big fan of Christy, but its her or the NDP. unfortunately, we need mines and industry to get us out of this hole. thus we need to keep ourselves right of center. Remember, when the NDP was in, no new mines were opened, that is how the world sees BC as well, stay away from BC if its NDP.
BC is actually $63B in debt and increasing every year and yet somehow we have a balanced budget. Balance would indicate inputs and outputs being equal and yet that’s not what’s happening unless of course you ignore the BC Gov’s ballooning debt, and BC Hydro’s deferred debt.
Fate, there are a few different debt clocks for bc out there.. One even shows bc true debt as 130 billion if you take what Canada owes ..
70,000 Jobs since 2011 approx. 23000 per year.
A million jobs by 2022 would be approx. 142,857 per year. Hmmmm.
157% increase in trade with India could mean anything. What we need to know is exactly how much per year did it increase. Using percentage numbers is a old trick that allows you to avoid scrutiny.
Trade with China on lumber has decreased, and trade with the USA has increased to 41% of total exports. Ie USA 1st. China Hong Kong 2nd, Japan 3rd.
The USA/Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement expires in October and any new agreement will be negotiated by the Federal Government the same as the last agreement. There of course will be input from the Provinces, however the agreement will not be negotiated by BC.
LNG is a bust. They might get a small plant up and running by 2018 if they are lucky, but that’s about it.
Balanced budget.. For the liberals it means filling one side of the scales with as much bull&hit as the other .
Mission accomplished
To all the people who like to slam the NDP over mining should know that commodities like copper were $.50/lb. that was the enmity of mining. Idiots.
If they wanted to do something for PG the Province could designate PG as the corporate and trading center for LNG exports, and move the Ministry of mines and Energy to the Central Interior gateway to the North.
I think only a move like this could move PG forward in any significant way. The cost savings and the ethical decision to have benefits in the North from an LNG industry make sense.
With PG a beneficiary as a corporate headquarter then we we might be able to get the city to a 150,000 where it would become self sustainable as a destination city where people chose to live. This would provide more balance to the province as a whole and in the long run would be a way to ensure better infrastructure throughout the North.
If you check the budget and understand where the money gets spent your comments may have some relevance! Ignorance is bliss
this is a government full of unfulfilled promises. ever step towards prosperity is countered by two steps away from it. a government that is more loyal to foreign governments is not looking out for BC. If one of the key messages is a paid for trip abroad then what are tax payers here receiving? If you want to aid BC talk to BC the people here can tell you how to fix the economy, those are the people who know what BC needs.
You can’t fix stupid. Christy Clark should go back to her waitress job and count crealoes! !. The BC economy is way beyond her ability.
TYPO ABOVE….I mean “count creamoes”
WE know what you meant MAXIMA. YOU had the stupid part right!!! KRUSTY is so full of it her eyes are brown. WHAT truly amazes me is the DEBT LOAD piled on since BIMBO and her mentor took office.UNDER this regime I cannot see prosperity only POVERTY.
With PG a beneficiary as a corporate headquarter then we we might be able to get the city to a 150,000 where it would become self sustainable as a destination city where people chose to live.
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You did forget one point Eagle and that is “climate”. Quenel might work. Its a zone 4 climate zone.
Governments have a hard time to reduce their debt loads because the current financial system is not fully self-liquidating. What this means is that all ‘costs’, which originate in ‘money’ as bank created credit to initiate and carry through some productive process, cannot be fully recovered in ‘prices’ when that production is finished and ready for sale into final consumption.
This comes about largely because we are continually displacing direct ‘labor’ costs ~ actual ‘incomes’ paid to those engaged in productive processes ~ with increasing ‘capital’ costs, as the whole structure of production lengthens and broadens through ever advancing technology. This is also exacerbated increasingly now because of the outsourcing of labor costs to countries with far lower standards of living and costs of living than we have here.
It puts businesses into a position where, while sometimes their reported profits in ‘dollars’ may be increasing, those profits as a percentage of their sales are actually falling. So long as we can continue to constantly increase ‘capital’ spending this is not so much an immediate problem.
But businesses repay the principal of their loans from their profits, and if those profits as a percentage of sales are continually falling, and they continually increase production to try to lower their per unit costs, they eventually glut their markets. Think LNG, globally.
And then there are no profits, period. When prices fall below cost, production ceases. At that point, if not before, the ‘floating debts’ of the private sector can only be repaid by their being replaced by the ‘fixed debts’ of the public one. We have a Winter Olympics. Or a site C dam. Or a war.
If governments reduced their debt load by actually repaying these debts, the situation worsens, because currently those debts are our money supply. And already that supply is chronically insufficient in regards to the ‘prices’ of goods and services on the market and expressed in ‘money’. Otherwise Canadian consumers would not be something like
$ 1.65 in debt personally, on average, for every $ 1.00 of disposable income they receive. A ratio which increases yearly.
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