Provincial Budget Update Just Hours Away

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 04:37 AM

Prince George, B.C. - This is “Budget Update” day in B.C., and the picture is not expected to be pretty. Yesterday, Premier Gordon Campbell was setting the stage by telling reporters provincial revenue has “collapsed” since June, with personal and corporate taxes down a billion dollars and lost revenue from all major natural resource sectors.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen has also advised the deficit will be larger, and last longer than originally predicted.

The budget will be delivered at about 2:45 this afternoon. Opinion250 will carry details, and provide reaction once the document has been tabled.

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Posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 04:37 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: socredible on September 1 2009 7:52 AM

And whatever happened to, "Tax cuts work" ?

(And they do. But not when we have a government that can't discern the difference between 'inflation' and 'prosperity'. And induces the former in the guise of the latter, and now the price (which we've already paid, through the higher costs of nearly everything), will be wrung out of us again. But don't worry, BC will be "number one" again. If you're counting from the bottom up!)

Posted by: Andyfreeze on September 1 2009 10:02 AM

Amen to that socredible!

Posted by: gus on September 1 2009 10:57 AM

I was just "walking" through the internet to see how other provinces are doing with respect to their budgets. Many set their budgets in the Spring and there is no update on some.

Based on 2008 provincial populations, here are the projections and the dates of the lates information.

AB - $6.9 Billion = $1,925/pers - August
ON - $18.5 Billion = $1,431/pers - August
NB - $741 Million = $992/pers - March
BC - $4.0?? Billion = $913/pers - September
NS - $716 Million = $763/pers - March
QC - $3.9 Billion = $503/pers - March
MB - $0 = $0/pers - March
SK - $0 = $0/pers - March

We must be careful here with provinces that have a budget from the spring that have not been looked at by the press, at least not on the internet.

Sakatcehwan is a good example.

The had a balanced budget in March. The latest information there is linked below.

As a reult of a downfall in Potash revenues of more than $1Billion over projections in the spring, They will be say $1.2 Billion in the hole which means a deficit of $1,181/pers. In these days, any province that is dependent on natural resources is going to be hit very hard. Those dependent on manufacturing are going to be hit almost as hard.

http://www.leaderpost.com/business/Saskatchewan+resource+based+economy+sets+government+budget+back/1894903/story.html

I am curious to see how Quebec is making out with theirs. Looks too good to be true.

BC is not number one. Looks like we will be middle of the pack. I think we should be closer to Ontario, then we would be doing our job to continue to fight the recession.

Just think, if we had not built all those public infrastructures which were given an artifical boost as a result of the Olympics, we could be building those same projects with a boost to fight the recession.

As it is, those projects are all coming to a close and the construction industry is laying off people as a result, just at the time when the recession hit.