Let’s face it. You can’t blame the NDP or anyone else enjoying the drubbing the Liberals are getting from Bill Vander Zalm and co. It is incredibly fun to watch. There is no question that the drubbing is well deserved. Whatever one thinks of the merits of an HST versus the PST it replaced, it [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Provincial budget & finance'
HST and the NDP
August 21st, 2010 · Marvin Shaffer · 3 Comments · Economy, Provincial budget & finance
Tags:
The Smart Tax Alliance. Non-Partisan? Really?
August 8th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 4 Comments · Provincial budget & finance, Taxes
Last Thursday BC newspapers carried a large ad supporting implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax. The advertisement was signed by the “Smart Taxation Alliance” a group of 30 or so employer organizations. The ad carried the usual dubious arguments that transferring the cost of taxes from corporations to consumers will create vast economic activity. What [...]
And now for the bill: the cost of the Olympics
July 12th, 2010 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · Provincial budget & finance
The BC government has released its final estimates of the cost of staging the 2010 Winter Games, highlighting the problems this government has with telling the truth (other examples include the 2009 pre-election fudge-it budget, and the HST). The Tyee reports: British Columbia’s government spent $325 million more on the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics [...]
Tags: Olympics
BC’s 2009 Super-Fudge-It Budget
July 12th, 2010 · Marc Lee · 4 Comments · BC Election 2009, Provincial budget & finance
Under the “we told you so” category, I am filing the BC public accounts for 2009/10. The province closed the year with a deficit of $1.8 billion. As Will McMartin comments in The Tyee: … B.C.’s public accounts for the fiscal year 2009/2010 conclusively prove that the pre-election fiscal plan foisted on British Columbians by [...]
Tags: deficit
Good news from the BC government – with a couple of caveats
July 10th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Health care, Provincial budget & finance
The BC government’s announcement July 9th that it had signed a deal on generic drugs with the province’s drug stores is good news. As discussed in an earlier blog, British Columbians have been paying far more than consumers in other jurisdictions for generic drugs. Alberta, Quebec and Ontario had already taken steps to correct this [...]
Tags: generic drugs·PharmaCare
New BC generic drug plan could save millions – but maybe not for everybody
June 18th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 1 Comment · Health care, Provincial budget & finance
Very, very quietly, the BC provincial government is negotiating new arrangements for the purchase of generic drugs that could save the province hundreds of millions of dollars. Done right, all BC taxpayers will win as more money becomes available for other health services. Done wrong, much of the savings for the province’s PharmaCare program will [...]
Tags: generic drugs·PharmaCare
Job creation alone will not solve BC’s poverty problem
April 29th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance
Whenever he’s confronted with questions about BC’s record high child poverty rates or by the growing income inequality in the province, our Premier maintains that the best social policy is a job. In fact, reducing the costs of doing business in BC seems to be this government’s chief economic strategy. Consider the HST, for example, [...]
Tags: Economy·job creation·OECD·poverty·poverty reduction·working poverty
Message to school boards: Shut the hell up
April 15th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 5 Comments · Education, Provincial budget & finance
The punch may have landed on the Vancouver School Board but make no mistake; BC Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid just took a swing at every school board in the province. The Minister’s imposition of the province’s Comptroller General as a budget cop for the Vancouver school board sends a clear message to other school districts. [...]
Income Taxes are a steal: Seth’s tax confessions
April 5th, 2010 · Seth Klein · 10 Comments · Privatization, P3s & public services, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes
I just did my taxes this weekend, and I’m wracked with guilt. Personally, I’ve never found completing my taxes particularly onerous. It takes me a few hours — no big deal. I’m paid well (and well above the average). I’ve never had to hire an accountant, as I’m not doing anything fancy. I’m only availing [...]
Tags: budget·public services·role of government·tax cuts·Taxes
The role of stimulus spending in the recovery
March 24th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 1 Comment · Economy, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability
Yesterday, the Fraser Institute published a new report, which argues that the government stimulus did not drive Canadian economic growth in the last two quarters of 2009, suggesting that government spending on infrastructure was useless for the economy. The report earned the scorn of Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who called it ”poorly done and it’s [...]
Tags: Economy·Fraser Institute·recession·recovery·role of government·stimulus
