Cariboo Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett says the B.C. provincial budget announced last week missed the mark for rural British Columbians
“There really is nothing that I can find in this budget for rural British Columbians and that, of course, is my biggest concern.”
Previously the Minister of State for Rural Economic Development, the Liberal MLA is the current critic for rural development in B.C.
As the budget is gone through in more detail, Barnett says she will be scrutinizing it for what it has to offer rural British Columbians.
“I will be asking some very direct questions. If they say there is funding in there for rural British Columbia, where is it because I can’t find it, how much is it and what are the projects?”
Of her initial thoughts on the budget, Barnett says she is glad to see money going towards more daycare spaces, but is calling out the NDP government on their inaction on promises regarding $10-a-day daycare and a $400 rental subsidy.
Still, she voices concern over raised taxes.
The budget includes up to $5.5 million in tax hikes, says Barnett, parts of which come from the new employer health tax set to replace the MSP and raised carbon taxes.
“Taxes are going to increase. It will hit businesses who are over $1.5 million in payroll. They are going to pay the brunt of it. There is going to be an increase in carbon tax: your gasoline is going up April 1, your diesel is going up April 1. Your home heating costs are going up, so as taxes increase the cost of living increases and I am very concerned about that.”
Her criticism also extends to where the money from the carbon tax will go.
“Before, we, as the government, had a line that showed where the carbon tax came in and where it went. Now it is not revenue neutral and it all goes into general revenue,” she says.
“Our projections are, with 5.7 billion litres of gasoline sold last year, that the provincial government will rake in an average of $409 million from gasoline carbon tax and that’s without diesel.”
Barnett also says the tax replacing the MSP will hit some places particularly hard: school boards, health boards, policing, municipalities.
“It will increase the costs so your property taxes may go up.”
She also expressed concern about the tax on vacant properties.
Designed originally in the Lower Mainland as an initiative to open up more housing where properties are sitting empty without renters while parts of the province are facing tough rental markets, the 2018 budget expanded the area to include parts of the Okanagan and Vancouver Island.
“Part of British Columbia’s rural economy is cabins — it’s tourism, so if they expand that throughout the rest of the province could you imagine what is going to happen?” she says.
“The worst part about it is it is going to hit families.”
While the budget announced $72 million in its budget for wildfire recovery and fire prevention, Barnett says she won’t be satisfied until she sees the details.
“Show me the plan” she says. “What is it for, is it for reforestation, is it for wildfire mitigation, is it for reseeding, is it for slope stabilization? Where is the plan?”
She says she’ll be looking to the government in coming weeks as MLAs continue to scrutinize the minutia of the budget.
“Rural British Columbia needs to know that. The ranching community the logging community, we all need to know where is the money going and what needs to be done.”
There are some positives in the budget, she says,
Payments to seniors are set to increase by $930 per year to help make rent more affordable.
“Those are things that are positive for seniors because a lot of seniors are on a very, very low income and these are the things that we need to keep our seniors in our houses,” she says, although she notes the assistance goes towards seniors who are renting, not those who own their own homes.
She also notes that there is $50 million in the budget for bolstering indigenous languages, and $158 million for housing in Indigenous communities.
Still, Barnett falls back again to what she says is a lack of support for rural industry in particular.
“I think the important thing missing from the budget was there was nothing in there to encourage resource industries, there is nothing to encourage LNG, nothing to encourage oil and gas, nothing in regards to the mining industry, the ranching industry. There was nothing in there to encourage investment in British Columbia.”