To the editor:
The government cannot continue with uncontrolled spending, as it has for the past decade under the B.C. Liberals and in the decade before that under the NDP.
I became aware of this when I ran as a candidate for the BC Reform Party in 1996.
I am delighted with many of the draft policy ideas that have been proposed, and put together, by hundreds of members from the BC Conservative Party.
One of these is a proposal for multi-year budgeting and funding, where appropriate, to enable government to effectively plan and transform services to achieve greater efficiencies, effectiveness, and streamlining of services to citizens.
I believe government ministries, in most cases, are afraid to look at the long-term because the focus is always on seeing results “right now.” How will we know if we are getting the results hoped for in projects being implemented today, when often it will take multiple years of a plan to see that?
Multi-year budgeting will allow for the opportunity to project outcomes along the way, and show how larger expenditures of revenues at the start of a program can result in long-term savings. I think this would be especially important in health and social services ministries where more and more it seems we are headed to “reactive” solutions, rather than looking to long term “proactive” solutions and outcomes.
John Cummins and the BC Conservatives having been saying for some time now that its polices will be developed from the ground up and will contain the common sense ideas of everyday people, and it looks to me like a good start is underway.
Alan Forseth
Regional director
BC Conservative Party