For the third time in three years, the province (arguably) boasts a balanced or surplus budget.
As expected, there’s give and take in all directions.
Monthly MSP premiums are going up for the sixth time in five years. At the same time, a higher tax on those making more than $150,000 per year is being rolled back to 2013 levels. Families on disability or income assistance will no longer have their payments clawed back if they received child support.
And though the total dollar amount going into health and education is going up, we can say right now that in 2015/2016 both sectors will continue to feel the strain as demand on the system grows.
It’s important to remember the human costs here. News of a balanced budget will be cold comfort for someone struggling to get access to mental health care. The same goes for school boards, which will have to find $29 million in “efficiencies” to keep the lights on.
But our current government did not campaign and win on making sure the government met the needs of every disadvantaged group, or that every public service was funded to the liking of its staff.
Thankfully, B.C. isn’t hurting the way Canada’s other provinces are, especially Alberta with its fortunes tied so tightly to a plummeting barrel of oil. But we also aren’t seeing any of the “trillion dollar” LNG bonanza that was the Liberals’ raison d’être in its 2013 provincial election campaign.
All in all, it’s a humdrum budget, and for those of us who already have all the excitement we need, a little boredom is just fine.
