So just how important is it to folks for the B.C. government to balance its annual budget?
It's a question that is worth asking now that NDP leader John Horgan has suggested that a balanced budget may not be part of his party's election platform next spring.
In an interview with The Vancouver Sun, Horgan said he thinks "politics is changing and the focus on the annual budget is changing."
He said a balanced budget is a priority only for a select few: "The voters are not as in-sync as the gnomes in Zurich and the bond raters about the important of making sure everything comes out aligned in the end."
Bold, provocative words. Also, a potentially very risky position to hold. But where there is risk, there is sometimes also a reward.
The NDP has gotten absolutely nowhere in elections that have seen the party simply adopt a "B.C. Liberal-lite" budget as the underpinning of its election platform. Doing so allows only minor tinkering --a bit of spending here, a small tax shift there -- from the existing B.C. Liberal platform, with little room for major changes that would provide a clearer contrast between the two parties.
For example, the NDP wants to get rid of Medical Service Plan premiums, which sounds nice until one realizes doing so would blow a huge $2.5 billion hole in the annual budget. However, if balancing the budget is no longer a goal, such a move can be done.
The NDP is also clamoring for huge increases in spending on public education, to the tune of several hundreds of millions of dollars. Again, if balancing the books isn't a priority, why not start down that path?
The New Democrats have been bashing the B.C. Liberals about the ears in other areas as well: higher rates for those on disability assistance, lower tuition fees for post-secondary students, even more money for health care than what the government is currently putting into the system, and much more.
The list of demands is a lengthy one, and can only be achieved with a budget that either is not balanced, or that greatly increases taxes on individuals and corporations. Meeting these demands also means the budget would not be balanced over a term in government.
Nevertheless, dropping the commitment to a balanced budget would provide a remarkable contrast to what the B.C. Liberals - who view the balanced budget as sacrosanct and the cornerstone of their entire approach to governing - are offering.
Horgan no doubt has taken notice of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's huge election victory, propelled in part by his somewhat gleeful dismissal of balancing the budget. It can be argued people voted to get rid of Stephen Harper more than they endorsed scrapping the balanced budget, but still.
The path to victory for the NDP has long proven to be tough slog that always ends in defeat, unless the centre-right part of the political spectrum is fractured, and there are no signs of that happening. While elections in this provincial are usually close affairs when it comes to the popular vote, they are much less close in terms of winning seats.
A check of the electoral map and voting results from the last couple of elections shows the B.C. Liberals have a lock on about 35 seats barring some kind of catastrophic collapse (which didn't happen in 2013, and doesn't look likely now). The NDP, by contrast, has about 25 sown up.
For the NDP to win power, it needs to win a little more than a dozen or so seats currently held by the B.C. Liberals in Vancouver, Burnaby, the Tri-Cities, Surrey and perhaps several seats in the Interior. Plus, it has to hold onto about eight seats it won by relatively narrow margins in 2013.
Such a scenario seems unlikely to unfold unless something dramatic occurs.And tossing a commitment to a balanced budget for the foreseeable future would certainly be dramatic.
To some, it may look like Horgan is about to throw a Hail Mary pass.
But remember: every now and then those kinds of passes are caught for touchdowns.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global B.C.
