Peter Milobar (image credit - Hansard)

By Michael Reeve

BC BUDGET SURPLUS

‘The real concern right now is around the stability of these funds’: opposition finance critic Milobar

Nov 30, 2022 | 4:13 PM

KAMLOOPS — Late last week, B.C. Finance Minister Selina Robinson announced a shocking $5-billion surplus for the province. The news came as a surprise after the minister had previously predicted just a $700-million surplus earlier in the year. The announcement also came just days after new premier David Eby stated that the province was in a good place to handle the financial burden of his recent promises.

Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar serves as the official opposition’s finance critic, he questioned how the NDP government has routinely under-estimated their own budget.

“I think the concern is right now that in fact this is $11 billion different than what they were budgeting for in February. And the previous year it was about an $11 billion error as well of underestimating,” said Milobar. “I think the real concern right now is around the stability of these funds. Can you count on them year after year.”

With Premier Eby making a number of announcements over the past two weeks, targeting issues surrounding housing and justice in the province, the B.C. Liberals are concerned about the promises burning through the surplus.

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“That’s were you have to be careful with some of these promises. If they are year-over-year-over-year program-type promises, that money has to be in the budget moving forward. It starts to constrain other programs you might want to do. Really, a lot of these programs that have been announced, a) what took them so long, and b) what is the actual deliverable we are actually looking for out of these program announcements?” said Milobar. “They have a long track record of expensive announcements, not such a good track record in terms of delivering. That’s what we are going to keep an eye on.”