While Finance Minister Carole Taylor pats herself on the back for B.C.'s record $4.1-billion surplus last year, it's time to question how the government achieves this black magic, year after year.

After all, while surpluses look good on paper, they also show poor forecasting -- and a look back over the Liberals' reign shows a worsening trend.

In 2006, Taylor reported a $3.1-billion surplus. A year earlier, it was $2.6 billion. In fact, over the last five years, the government has racked up over $10 billion more in surpluses than it forecast in provincial budgets.

Taylor says it's due to fiscal prudence. That record of poor forecasting goes beyond prudence and looks like inaccurate forecasting by design, with a goal of making the government look good.

It also exhibits a worrying lack of vision.

Any unspent surplus at year-end goes toward reducing the province's debt. That's useful.

But by failing to forecast accurately, the government has deprived the public, through their MLAs, of the right to have an informed debate about priorities. The budget forecast a $600-million surplus. The actual amount was $3.5 billion higher.

Accurate forecasting would have allowed consideration of potential uses for that money. Do we want more health-care funding, or smaller class sizes in our schools? How about more money allocated to reducing poverty or improving child care? Or tax cuts, for that matter? These are questions that don't get raised, because by lowballing revenue estimates the government can claim to be surprised every year when the bottom line comes out blacker than forecast…..

What is needed is a commitment to more accurate fiscal forecasting, and a broad-based discussion about our priorities as a province.

After all, what is the point of the finance committee travelling around the province every year, supposedly listening to British Columbians, if the government subverts the process by hiding billions of dollars?

The Liberals need to start listening more closely to what the finance committee is hearing at the grass-roots level. The majority of people want services, not just debt reduction: It's time government gave them the choice they deserve.