‘Actions are just simply not matching the dollars’: MLA Milobar reacts to provincial budget

VICTORIA — With the B.C. budget presented Tuesday (Feb. 28) in Victoria, opposition parties will soon begin ministerial estimates, where MLAs can get a closer look at the budget and properly scrutinize the numbers. Before those meetings can begin, the NDP government still needs to table their supplemental budget, which includes many of the financial promises made by new premier David Eby over the past 100 days.

Before the budget was presented, B.C. Finance Minister Katrine Conroy stated to reporters that the resource sector and the Interior of B.C. would not be forgotten in the document. Liberal finance critic and Kamloops South-Thompson MLA Peter Milobar noted Conroy didn’t mention natural resources until the second-last page of her speech.

“I guess (it’s) factually accurate for the minister to say the rural areas and resource sector were not forgotten in this budget, but I don’t think that was what people’s anticipations were based on that comment. It was on the very bottom of Page 15 of a 16-page speech when the minister finally spoke about resources and rural B.C. I think the actions are just simply not matching the dollars and the words with this budget, results are ultimately what matter,” said Milobar.