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NDP already have a dim view of tomorrow's budget
VANCOUVER/CKNW (AM980)
Shane Woodford | Email news tips to shane.woodford@corusent.com
2/18/2013


Details won't be known until tomorrow but the provincial NDP are already pouring cold water on the B.C. Government's new budget.

Finance critic Bruce Ralston says the idea of a balanced budget is already being panned.

"The Globe and Mail had a cartoon this morning with Mike DeJong mounted on a unicorn holding some balloons holding some balloons in the shape of pigs flying I think that might capture some of the public mood."

Ralston is most worried about a possible firesale of provincial assets to shore up the books over the short term.

"It is really tricky selling assets don't count your chickens before they are hatched and is not a easy process and it is not a long term solution to a budgetary problem."

He says there are any number of ways the budget can be "fudged."

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  • 36
  1. Ron_26 posted on 02/18/2013 03:48 PM
    So that's how they come up with thier opinions - newspaper cartoons.
    1. TonyB_0924 posted on 02/18/2013 04:22 PM
      @Ron_26 Saw the cartoon looks about right for a BC Liberal budget
  2. BlakeN posted on 02/18/2013 04:26 PM
    Yes. The fantasy land budget. Never mind what DeJong said in December. Just click your heels three times and John Doyle will be in Australia....It really isn't surprising niether the NDP or the BC Conservatives don't believe this budget. I'd believe in unicorns and bridge trolls before I believed in this budget. (well, maybe not bridge trolls, Mary Polak fits that description well).
    1. Dale - left coast posted on 02/18/2013 04:35 PM
      @BlakeN There is a bridge Troll . . . and I even know his name . . . its Dix ! ! !

      If you we not here in the 90's . . . you are going to luv the next 4 years . . . you think things are bad in Ontario and Quebec . . . wait till you see BC in about 2 years.
    show more replies
  3. Dale - left coast posted on 02/18/2013 04:28 PM
    Ralston, ex-Surrey councillor, knows little about "Budgets" . . . check out the only NDP western province . . . Manitoba . . . you see . . . Out of control spending, numerous Tax Increases and debt. Saskatchewan got off the Dipper Train 6 years ago and is booming today.
    The last decade has been relatively prosperous in BC . . . but it seems the folks want to turn the clock back . . . to the nasty 90's . . .
    Where on the planet today is a "Socialist" government not on the verge of Bankruptcy?
    1. WizardOron posted on 02/18/2013 04:43 PM
      @Dale - left coast For Your Information the NDP are not socialists. Get off of that old and tired argument already. And then BE RESPECTFUL!!!

      We are prospering not so much because the BC Liberals are in power but rather due to the commodity prices that skyrocketed the first 7 or 8 years that they were in power.

      BC is on a Credit Watch by at least one credit reporting agency!

      BC Liberals have tripled our deficit hence the credit watch!

      BC Liberals have had BC Hydro defer it's own debt in order to create a surplus that the BC Liberals then use to try and balance the provincial budget, $5 billion that BC Hydro has deferred.

      CD Howe has put the BC Liberals on their Pinocchio List because they have overspent by $6 billion over the past decade!

      Paying a CEO's salary to a BC Liberal Party insider as he supposedly worked for BC Rail years after it was sold...

      Commodity prices declined and crashed through the 80's and 90's, mines closed because they were not making any money!

      The BC economy grew at an average of 3.5% when the NDP were in power, in power during an actual recession and when the Federal Liberals were offloading costs down onto the provinces so they could repair the financial mess of the previous federal Liberal and Conservative governments.

      Socialism does not exist in Canada or the US. Yes we have social programs to help the needy but that is the human and humanitarian thing to do!

      Oh, and the fund the BC liberals plan to set with LNG revenues smells of the Social Credit BS fund that they set up in 1988 just before and election as well.

      Maybe the BC Liberals should just privatize the entire province and we the voters can then pay then tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars out of our respective pockets for education, health care, roads and transit, etc.
    2. Ken280 posted on 02/19/2013 08:32 PM
      @Dale - left coast To their nasty 2001-2013 record of lies!Go NDP Go
    show more replies
  4. StephenG_3 posted on 02/18/2013 04:29 PM
    The NDP as usual are always negative. We still have not heard a thing on what the NDP would do in government, policy changes or anything.

    The only thing the NDP do is increase taxes, and that is exactly what Adrian Dix has indicated. Corporations, the Banks, and wealthy persons can expect substantial increase in their taxes.

    Problem is the corporations and banks will just pass such costs back to consumers, while the wealthy will not support investment or charities as much.

    The NDP is just bad for British Columbia as truly established in their past disastrous terms.
    1. Dale - left coast posted on 02/18/2013 04:38 PM
      @StephenG_3 Don't forget new Carbon Taxes or Cap and Trade . . . they still "believe" the Gorebull Warming Myth . . . no temperature increase now for over 16 years . . .
      Socialists stamp out prosperity . . .
    2. WizardOron posted on 02/18/2013 04:54 PM
      @StephenG_3 Actually, what Adrian Dix said is that he does not foresee any need t raise taxes and like the BC Liberals is willing to raise the corporate income tax rate, albeit 1% more than what the BC Liberals are proposing.

      Previous governments of all stripes have had their share of economic problems and the BC Liberals are no different. This if it is true will only be the sixth balanced budget over the past 12/13 years.

      The BC NDP provided the BC Film industry with a tax credit in the 1990's and the revenues it contributed to the BC economy was almost $20 billion three years ago as it has declined since then as other jurisdictions are doing more to attract that industry.

      The BC Liberals have been lucky with sky high commodity prices that brought the mining industry back to life starting around 2000 when those prices skyrocketed. And you may notice that this happened during the last year the NDP were in power as the natural resource industry boosted BC economic growth up to 4.8 that year and into 2001.
    show more replies
  5. BlakeN posted on 02/18/2013 05:59 PM
    Dale...lived here for most of my life and was here during the NDP reign. I wasn't impressed by it, but face facts. The BC Jobs plan is a dismal failure. 16,000 jobs down the sink. The HST, BC Rail and Smart Meter boondogles ranks up there with issuing our troops bright green uniforms in Afghanistan. Then the throne speach which by the way every serious political commentator laughed at. The Liberals are a shadow of their former selves. I can't say I thought much of Gordon Cambell, but at least he was intelligent. The same cannot be said of the current leader.
    1. Dale - left coast posted on 02/19/2013 11:16 AM
      @BlakeN Been payin attention to what is going on around the World?
      I survived the 90's . . . while the US with Billy Klinton was booming . . . BC was a disaster . . . unless you were a Public Sector Union Member that is.
      The BC libs have done some dumb things . . . but nothing like the 90's.
      Today BC is one of only 3 provinces in Canada that is doing reasonably well. An NDP Govt would have us looking like Quebec and Ontario in short order . . . I am not prepared to take that chance.
      Plus I detest "Socialists" . . . one trip to Manitoba is a wake-up call for all. 1 in 4 in the Peoples Republic of MB work for Government . . . large debt and deficit and tax increases almost every year. Unsustainable I would suggest ! ! !
    show more replies
  6. joes_2868 posted on 02/19/2013 11:34 AM
    Dale-left coast: Excellent comments. B.C. is the odd ball province of Canada.
    8 provincial elections and 1 federal election have come and gone in the last 2 years and everyone returned the incumbent government.
    B.C. wants the rest of the county to laugh at them. The rest of Canada do not have to watch "Two and a Half Men" to get their laughs, tune into the province of B.C. where taxpayers do not face facts and reality when voting of who is to have their cheque book.
    This is what B.C. wants. They want to vote in a NDP government, who will be voted out in 2017, to a coalition government, who will have to take drastic measures dollar wise to clean up the NDP mess.
    Bill Bennett had to do it after a Dave Barrett NDP government and Gordon Campbell had to do it after a 3 stooge premier NDP government of Glen Clark, Dan Miller, and Ujjal Dosanjh.
    The NDP in Nova Scotia is going to be a one term government as they have destroyed Nova Scotia. They will be voted back to opposition status, and the Nova Scotia Liberals will win government.
    THOSE ARE JUST SOME FACTS AND FIGURES. AND YET DOES IT SINK INTO THE MINDS OF B.C. VOTERS? NO?

    THEY ALSO SEEM TO FORGET THAT B.C. IS A BUSINESS INVESTMENT PROVINCE.
    BUSINESS INVESTMENT DO NOT BELIEVE IN NDP GOVERNMENTS.
    WHAT HAPPLENS: THEY DO NOT LEAVE, BUT THEY HAVE SLOW DOWNS AND ISSUE LAY OFF SLIPS TO ITS EMPLOYEES.

    THE FUNNY PART IS THAT A B.C. VOTER WHO VOTED NDP, CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY RECEIVED A LAY OFF SLIP.

    SIMPLE EVERYDAY ECONOMICS.

    P.S.: No need for a reply from you, WizardOron, you lead a double standard of preaching one thing and doing the exact oppositte. We hear enough of that from the NDP.
    1. Ken280 posted on 02/19/2013 08:50 PM
      @joes_2868 we always hear this from the man with his futuristic balls in each hand and as the liberals no substance! The man lives in the past with his grouse fright wig and big bug eyes ,trying to scare our youth to believe him and that the commie's are coming if they vote NDP! I am wondering, if these guys were involved in the sale of BC rail with their rants?They sure seem for living in BC in the 90's, did pretty well for themselves,they must have made a pile of money to still be living here? If it was so bad as they say did you go to Alberta?You are working for the Liberal/Cons of the coalition and come here to defend the budget?Scared the NDP will call a Inquiry, in the payoff of basi&virk?Go NDP Go
    2. Dale - left coast posted on 02/20/2013 11:48 AM
      @joes_2868 BC voters are still listening to the likes of Sinclair . . . who says the same nonsense today as he was saying 30 years ago . . . kind of like an old tape recorder.
      When the labor movement aligned itself with a Political Party . . . it was the beginning of the end . . . they have been in a downward spiral ever since. The NDP was NO FRIEND of Private Sector Unions in the 90's . . . it eliminated more good paying union jobs than than anyone in the history of the province . . .
      The fools still think Taxing the "Rich" is a net gain . . . look at France and Britain as they attempted to do this over the last couple of years . . . their REVENUES WENT DOWN . . . as the Rich folks moved elsewhere.
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