VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberals returned to the legislature Monday to rewrite their championed balanced-budget law to clear the path for a deficit budget next week.
Premier Gordon Campbell has been forced to admit the province is bleeding red ink with the rest of the world.
The Liberals will use the next week to amend the legislation outlawing forecasts of budget deficits in British Columbia, which they passed in 2001 after taking the provincial reins from the New Democrats.
Can someone explain to me the purpose of having a balanced budget law if, when you want to go into deficit, you just repeal the law? I assume it’s sort of the same principle as a fixed election date law you can break whenever you want an election, or a diet that lets you eat junk food whenever you’re hungry – neither of which are overly useful.
But, while BC is prepared to overhaul their law, there is one beacon of light in all of this:
Many provinces have some form of balanced-budget law, and they all come with some form of escape clause. Only Alberta’s Balanced Budget and Debt Reduction Law, appears iron clad against deficits, said Bader.