Finance Minister Gary Collins released the 2004 updated forecasts from the 13-member economic forecast council together with his claim that "These forecasts are further evidence that the government's plan to revitalize the economy is working". This shows that he hasn't learned from past mistakes. Just two weeks earlier he released his Second Quarter Financial Report which showed that by dumb luck increases in costs were just offset by increases in revenue - none of it planned, although the 20% increase in total provincial debt was part of his plan.

Economists are great at making forecasts; line up 20 and you will likely get 20 different answers. What practitioners of the dismal science hate is to see their forecasts compared to the actual numbers when they become available. Collins has good reason to avoid those comparisons; his record has been one of consistently making overly optimistic forecasts. That may be no great surprise since he and the Premier are the ones who claimed that "tax cuts would pay for themselves". That misrepresentation may no longer be shocking since their credibility gap has been highlighted with the sale of BC Rail.

In his first budget in July 2001, dubbed a fiscal update, Finance Minister Gary Collins predicted that real GDP would grow by 2.2% in 2001 and by 3.8% in 2002. When all the numbers were in (and revised), real GDP decreased by 0.1% in 2001 and grew by only 2.4% in 2002.

In February 2002, when he presented his first full budget, Collins forecast that real GDP would grow by 2.8% in 2003 and by 3.1% in 2004. The average forecast by the economic forecast council was two tenths of one percent higher for each year. It will be almost six months before Statistics Canada releases the provincial accounts, but even the Ministry of Finance recognizes that 2003 will finish with real growth below 2.0%.

Collins' claim that the revised forecasts released on December 8th are an indication of the success of the government plan is a little hard to take. The revised forecasts average 2.9% growth for 2004; that is lower than the 3.1% Collins previously forecast and the 3.3% that was the average of the council's prior forecasts. After two and a half years as Finance Minister, Collins should know enough not to base wild claims on revised forecasts since the actual numbers have consistently shown him wrong. A government whose financial plans have failed needs to grasp at every straw.