When BC's flight instructor prepares for take off on February 17th, he will probably tell his passengers that BC has finally adopted Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Will he tell folks that he balanced the budget by changing the method of accounting? The 2002-03 Public Accounts say that if the changes were made then, the bottom line would have improved by $586 million or $243 million after the unusual item of writing off Regional Hospital Districts' net assets. Don't expect to hear Finance Minister Gary Collins say that he balanced his budget by timing full conversion to GAAP for the budget when he most needed help from the change; don't expect him to admit that the higher tuition payments from tens of thousands of college and university students are now padding his bottom line, but that is the truth. The 2002-03 Public Accounts show (page 78) that the accounting change would have yielded $1.189 billion more fee and license revenue to government.

Collins included a background discussion titled "Converting to GAAP" in last year's budget documents. It noted that BC is the only senior government in Canada to require full adherence to GAAP; it also noted that except for the treatment of Crown corporations and SUCH, for the most part BC's financial documents comply with GAAP. SUCH refers to schools, universities, colleges and health authorities. Before February 17, 2005, the SUCH sector was not fully included in the government's financial statements. A very informative note on the changes was included in the 2002-03 Public Accounts when over the name of BC's Comptroller General, Arn Van Iersel, it said:

"… as of April 1, 2004, the government reporting entity will include the entire SUCH sector. This is much more than an accounting issue as it is expected that the accounting change will drive changes in the management of these organizations."

Not only will the accounting changes "drive changes in the management" of schools, colleges, universities and health authorities, but they will also affect politics. Many people will find the changes difficult to follow. They will create the opportunity for government to claim responsibility for funding changes that are little more than accounting changes. Recall that Premier Campbell promised not to sell BC Rail; he sold it and continues to insist that he didn't. He said he couldn't remember Doug Walls amongst thousands of other Liberals, and he defended over $2 million in write-offs to fish farms that never would have seen the light of day without the good work of the Sierra Legal Defense Fund. With a record like that, don't expect the Campbell government to adhere to the straight and narrow when they are given the opportunity to be creative in their interpretation of accounting changes.