By Bob Simpson
Forgive me for thinking Finance Minister Colin Hansen is supposed to be the minister of finance for the province of British Columbia, not the B.C. Liberal minister of finance caught between two premiers.
This is not political rhetoric, but a fundamental question about the very nature of our democratic process: is the finance minister a minister of the Crown whose primary responsibility is to ensure taxpayers get maximum derivative benefits from their hard-earned tax dollars or is the minister merely a function of the premier's office and of the party the premier represents?
Looking at last week's budget, the answer seems clear, as this was a purely partisan political budget. It’s one that continued the downsizing and restructuring of government initiated by Premier [Gordon] Campbell (including the Harmonized Sales Tax), while, rather than addressing critical and time-sensitive policy, program and public service needs, it parked billions of tax dollars in slush funds to help Mr. Campbell's replacement put his or her own stamp on the next budget, whenever that one is presented later this year.
The billions of dollars in slush money could have been used to address child poverty, improve seniors care, add resources to mental health and addictions services, restore gaming grants, fund relief for the agriculture industry, fund a permanent predator control program, restore the annual facilities grants for schools, invest in community wildfire protection and forest health activities, provided continued funding for the Organized Crime Task Force in the Interior, reinvest in school nutrition programs, provide funding to early intervention therapy and autism services, increase funding for transition house programs, and extend broadband services into rural remote communities.
This list comes predominantly from the Finance Committee Report on the Budget Consultations for 2011 - a committee that held 17 public hearings, heard 233 oral presentations, received 373 written submissions, and had 698 respondents to its online survey. The 59 recommendations from this committee would have been a great starting point for this year's budget in the absence of any "new direction" from a yet to be determined premier.
In the absence of a premier, we could have had a "people's budget;" however, we got a "political budget" in the worst sense of the word.
The new premier may act on some of the recommendations of the Finance Committee, or other outstanding and time-sensitive issues that need addressing, but we won't know that for some time -possibly not until after an election.
In the meantime, more vulnerable children will be put at risk, not-for-profit societies and sports groups may close their doors, our public resources will not be adequately protected, and our communities will be put at unnecessary risk during another wildfire season.
More importantly, why do we need to wait until one of the 85 duly elected MLAs gets the nod from one of the province's political parties before we get a "new direction" for this province? All the resources were available to create a great budget for B.C. instead of a political one.
Please exercise your responsibility as a citizen and e-mail every Liberal and NDP leadership candidate demanding reform in our political system to ensure ministers and MLAs first responsibilities are to the citizens of this province and not to their parties' prospects at the next election.
Bob Simpson is the Independent Cariboo North MLA.