I'd like to comment on Chris Gorman's recent column on balanced budget legislation.
I firmly believe that governments federally, provincially and locally should respect taxpayers and manage their money prudently.
Gorman states that the B.C. Liberals introduced balanced budget legislation in 2001 to address the deficit mess left by the previous NDP government. However, for this Liberal government, it seems that having balanced budget legislation is only for political purposes and lip service as it also introduced legislation to allow increased spending.
This begs the question of who is really watching the books. Indeed, the facts speak louder than words or legislation.
In this latest term, we have not seen a balanced budget. In fact, by 2013, the Liberals will have presented seven deficit budgets. The government's own auditor general, John Doyle, goes so far as to say that in the 2011-12 budget, the deficit would have been $520 million higher to a total of $2.36 billion if accepted Canadian accounting principles had been used.
When our premier came to power, our deficit was $46.7 billion. Today, peering through the "transparent" balanced budget legislation window, it is $51 billion and will rise to $66.4 billion in three years.
This is akin to drawing money from a credit card to make minimum payments on the same credit card, which is how the Liberals are managing the budget.
Even former premier Gordon Campbell said "I hate budget deficits; I think they take away from future generations." Unfortunately, both he and our current premier have forgotten about our future generations.
Graeme James,
B.C. Conservative candidate, Kelowna-Lake Country