CCPA Policy Note

Entries Tagged as 'deficit'

The recent secretive, haphazard spending cuts should be repealed

September 23rd, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Children & youth, Economy, Education, Provincial budget & finance, Transparency & accountability, Women

Almost daily we wake up to news of yet another important program or initiative whose funding has been cut by the BC government. Literacy initiatives, high school sports, programs that protect women and children from violence, arts and culture: hardly an area of social service provision has been spared.
These cuts have been devastating to many [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ······

What should our government be spending money on?

September 16th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Economy, Education, Environment, resources & sustainability, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes

One question that is missing from the public debate on deficits and debt is whether we’re getting the best bang for the stimulus buck. Even if we accept that it’s appropriate for governments to borrow and engage in deficit-financing during a recession, as I have argued here, we need to have a discussion about the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·········

Putting our government debt in perspective (now with graphs)

September 15th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Economy, Provincial budget & finance

It turns out that our province is in a good fiscal position to engage in deficit-financing at this time. BC’s debt-to GDP ratio has been decreasing since 2002, which means that out government debt fell relative to our collective ability to pay. As a result, BC entered the recession as one of the Canadian provinces [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Should we be afraid of the government debt?

September 15th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 1 Comment · Economy, Provincial budget & finance

Governments around the world are running large deficits in order to prop up their economies and dampen the hit of the global recession. For almost a year now, economists abandoned their usual anti-deficit arguments and seemed to agree that increasing government spending to stimulate the economy is the best way forward. We were all Keynesians [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Take Two: BC Budget 2009 September Update (Notes from Marc and Iglika)

September 1st, 2009 · Marc Lee · 1 Comment · Economy, Health care, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes

The September BC Budget is a new look at a budget most have come to see as a fake. February’s budget was not passed through the legislature due to the May election, and up to E-Day the government maintained the fiction that it had a small-ish deficit of just under half a billion dollars. Since [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··

Still reckless and unnecessary

August 27th, 2009 · Shannon Daub · 5 Comments · Economy, Provincial budget & finance

Gary Mason offers this summary of the past eight years in yesterday’s Globe:
When B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell came to office in 2001 he unleashed a top-to-bottom review of all government agencies in an effort to bring finances in order. The result wasn’t pretty. It led to protests of all kinds from any number of [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ····

Spending cuts will spell further job losses and a longer recession

August 27th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 1 Comment · Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance

Want a recipe to harm the economy and increase hardship for British Columbians in the middle of a recession? It’s easy – all you have to do is cut government spending. Unfortunately, this is exactly where our government seems to be headed judging by their ominous throne speech.
A new report by yours truly, released today [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

The throne speech missed the point

August 25th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · 4 Comments · Economy, Provincial budget & finance

Today’s throne speech suggests that the BC government has finally recognized the severity of the recession and the hardship it’s causing to families across the province. Unfortunately, when it comes to policy implications or what to do about the recession, the government seems to have it all backwards. Instead of presenting an ambitious stimulus plan [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··

Watch out for that train

May 13th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Economy, Provincial budget & finance

Is it too early to start talking about what happens now the election is over? Because that light at the end of the tunnel really is a train.
In their February Budget the Liberals said they were going to have a $500 million deficit this year. Nobody believed them then. Marc Lee called the Budget figures [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

BC's economy and the Liberal platform

April 29th, 2009 · Marc Lee · 1 Comment · BC Election 2009, Economy, Energy, Provincial budget & finance

With my oped last week on the NDP platform making me less than popular over at NDP HQ, today the Sun published my take on the Liberals’ platform, thereby guaranteeing that the list of Christmas parties I get invited to dwindles to next to nothing.
BC’s Economic Challenges and the Liberal Platform
By Marc Lee
The BC Liberal [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··········

  • Find us on Facebook