The writ has dropped.
The provincial election is off and running as can be observed by the plethora of signs appearing on boulevards around town. Like mushrooms emerging from the winter soil, election signs proliferate with abandon.
The NDP and BC Liberals have released their platforms. For the BC Liberals, the last provincial budget pretty much sums it up. It is a "stay the course and grow the economy" approach. There were a number of pre-election goodies offered up - including a decrease in the MSP and money for first time home buyers in the budget.
But on the whole "Strong B.C., Bright Future" is a fairly modest platform, albeit 129 pages long. Much of the document is spent touting the BC Liberal's successes in government over the past 16 years and attacking the BC NDP's record while in government in the 1990s. For most people, this is old news and fearmongering. It does put a charge in their base, though.
In terms of election handouts, there is $157 million in spending with tax credits for home renovations for seniors, for respite care, for car-sharing, for ferry dependent communities and a post-secondary tax credit for veterans. The election promises are relatively small because most commitments have been made in the past month, including a local surgical tower at UHNBC.
Perhaps the one place where the BC Liberals are taking on the NDP directly is in bridge tolls for the lower mainland. The BC Liberals are capping the annual cost at $500 while the NDP platform promises to eliminate the tolls altogether.
The BC Liberals claim their proposal will cost $30 million per year. The NDP propose spending the $500-million Liberals LNG fund over the next three years to pay for their proposal.
In announcing the BC Liberal platform, Premier Clark stuck to her messaging from the 2013 election. "This election is about which party has a plan to do three things: create jobs, control government spending and cut taxes for the middle class. Those are important. Most importantly, though, is creating jobs. Because a good job is how we look after the people we love."
Of course, in the 2013 campaign, the Premier linked those jobs to the development of LNG. She proposed over 100,000 jobs as a result of her ambitious plans. LNG development has not come to fruition and the Premier is now back-pedaling on the whole industry. Who knew market forces would be a factor, she is now saying.
Instead, this time around, she is hitching her wagon to the high-tech sector proclaiming "We're going to create a new Silicon Valley right here." While I am not at all adverse to a shift in our industrial base from resource extraction to high-tech (I have been arguing this for 20 years!), I wonder if it is not too late. After all, there is a Silicon Valley already in existence just down the coast. And Canada's high-tech centre seems to be more closely aligned with Kitchener-Waterloo.
On the other hand, John Horgan, Leader of the NDP, is pledging billions of dollars to create 96,000 jobs while building 114,000 new homes and subsidized housing units, and restoring the public service.
The NDP released their platform last week and at 97 pages long,
it is filled with a number of
spending pledges amounting to $717 million in the first year, $1.26 billion in the second, and $1.53 billion in the third. The costing of these spending pledges is offset by increased taxes on the top two per cent of earners, a one per cent increase in the tax on corporate profits, an empty-house speculation tax and burning through the $500-million LNG fund.
The latter is deeply problematic as it is a draw down on capital and will run out in three years. There really isn't any indication of how the NDP plan to keep tolls at zero after the fund is gone. The other increases in taxes are not targeted at the middle class which presumably makes them acceptable to the majority of voters. After all, if you can afford to speculate on a house, you can afford to pay a little more for it, would seem to be the mantra.
Perhaps the biggest item in the NDP platform is the promise of $10/day daycare. Present daycare rates in the province average around $960/month full-time licensed daycare or about $10,500 per year. At $10/day, those costs would drop to $220/month on average.
Where would the $740/month difference come from? Particularly given that we have around 220,000 children under the age of four in the province. If only half of them take advantage of this new rate, the cost would be $900-million per year.
On the other hand, it would certainly free up $900-million in income for B.C. taxpayers and that could have a significant impact on our economy.
