Last year in the BC Throne Speech the word "new" was used 117 times, the word "heartlands" was used 10 times, and the word "budget" was used twice but not joined by "balanced". Tomorrow's Throne Speech is likely to boast about the so called balanced budget that will be introduced the following week. There's nothing new about that since we've been hearing since the government was first elected that they made service cuts and introduced new taxes and fees to balance the budget (as if they didn't create the problem on day one).

The difference between introducing a balanced budget and having the Auditor General verify that the previous year's budget was balanced is like the difference between buying a lottery ticket and winning. The NDP produced two budgets that were verified by the Auditor General as balanced, 1999-2000 and 2000-2001. The budget that Finance Minister Collins will introduce on February 17 is for the fiscal year that starts April 1, 2004, finishes March 31, 2005, and isn't verified by the Auditor General until the summer of 2005 - months after the next election. That introduces a big credibility problem for the Campbell government. Who will believe the budget is really balanced until it is verified by the Auditor General?

As a result of the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act introduced by the former government, budgets include projections for two years beyond the current budget year. Consequently, in addition to new spending, new cuts or changes in taxes that may be introduced in a budget, budget analysis now includes looking at how the plan has changed from one year to the next. Last February the projection for 2005-06 called for a surplus of less than two tenths of one percent of government spending ($50 million), and that was before any allowance was made for a "forecast allowance". Even if that projection were accurate, the tiny surplus projected for 2004-05 in last year's plan is less than the Ministry of Health spends in just two days; it can easily disappear.