Focus on incentives to improve environment; - POLITICS/Public has chance to offer ideas on spending British Columbia's $40-billion budget
Surrey Now
October 12, 2007 
By: Ted Colley

Victoria's financial road show blew into Surrey Thursday in search of suggestions on how the province's budget should be spent.

The 10-member Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services hit the road in September with a schedule of 13 public hearings around the province. Surrey was their 11th stop and 27 groups and individuals were on the list of speakers for the one-day session.

The list of speakers for the Surrey session included organizations as diverse as teachers, bankers, loggers, Surrey's arts council and chiropractors, all with their own ideas how next year's $40-billion budget should be spent…

Ralston also criticized the government of lowballing its surplus forecast. Finance Minister Carole Taylor forecast a $600 million surplus for 2008/2009, but that has climbed to double that, $1.2 billion, and it could go higher.

Taylor has defended her forecast, saying she was simply exercising prudence when predicting revenues and other factors that affect the surplus.

"It's beyond prudence," Ralston said.

"You make yourself look good and you avoid making harder decisions because you can just say well, the money's not there."

He said the extra money should be spent on services like province-wide child care.

"People say use the money to create new programs. The problem is you don't just have to pay for them this year, the cost is ongoing and you might not be able to pay for them year after year. That's how previous governments got into trouble."

The committee will wrap up the hearings next week and must present its report to the legislature by November 15.