What are people saying about the provincial budget? Here are some reactions from stakeholders in health care, education, business, arts, social services, the environment and the government.
Business: Philip Hochstein, President of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C.
"I think it was a defining moment for the premier and her government. I think the government decided to be on the side of taxpayers and therefore not increase debt and not spend any more money than they've got and not increase taxes and instead impose fiscal discipline on their government and non-government agencies. I think when you're putting together budgets, it's best to plan for the worst and hope for the best. There's so much uncertainty. Our economy is so dependent on forces beyond our control. China's demand for our resources, U.S. demand for our resources, and we have no control over what happens there. Things you control, you can be much more aggressive at or much more certain about your predictions. The things you can't control you can't be certain about, so I think the government is really planning for the worst and hoping for the best."
Seniors: Art Kube, president of the Council of Senior Citizens' Organizations of B.C.
"(The 2012) budget represents a major disappointment for B.C. seniors, especially in light of the Ombudsperson's recommendations to strengthen home support, and increase care hours in long-term care facilities. - The $15 million for non-medical home support is an insult to seniors.
Not only is it insufficient in scope, but the program completely ignores the criteria laid down by the Ombudsperson.
The Ombudsperson's report calls for standards, guidelines or directives, none of which are present in this program. - What's really needed - as COSCO has proposed for years - is a comprehensive home-care and home-support program designed to help seniors live with dignity and independence in their own homes.
Not only is this good for seniors' quality of life, but it reduces the intake into residential care and acute care. Improving seniors' lives in this way would actually reduce overall health-care costs, and especially capital costs."
B.C. government: Richard Lee, Liberal MLA Burnaby-North.
"You can see there are no major cuts here. In fact, you can see there's spending for health care. - There's no cuts, there's increases in health-care spending, controlled spending. It depends on the growth next year, we only assume our gross is 1.8 per cent this year, which is lower than the private sector forecasts.
That's why it's called prudent, because we cannot predict the future. We used a pessimistic forecast, it's more prudent than the private sector, so if the downturn happens, we are prepared for the worst case. But if it doesn't go to the worst case, then we have some extra resources and we can use it and balance the budget, you see. There are contingencies in the budgets in the order of $300 million."
The environment: Wilderness Committee
"This budget is alarmingly short-sight-ed and irresponsible," said Ben West from the Wilderness Committee. "There are no new ideas here, just the outdated policy emphasis of exploiting B.C.'s resources with little regard to living up to the province's commitments to tackle climate change."
The 2012 budget includes numerous subsidies to the oil and gas sector while continuing to drastically underfund environmental oversight. Spending on highway expansion projects yet again far exceeds allocations for public transit infrastructure and service while transportation emissions continue to be the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the province.
The budget also includes an upcoming review of the carbon tax while the dollars per tonne value remains the same. No new funding or tax credits are provided for housing retrofits, green building or the carbon neutral public sector initiative.
"Our greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets have now all but disappeared, despite the fact that the people of this province still care deeply about the impacts of climate change already being felt around the world," West said.
EDUCATION: THE B.C. TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The budget tabled today by Finance Minister Kevin Falcon signals the beginning of a second decade of deep cuts in B.C. schools. With funding to school districts virtually frozen at $4.7 billion annually through to 2014/15, inflation and increasing downloaded costs will continue to place significant pressures on school boards.
"This means $100 million in cuts to public schools next year alone," said BCTF President Susan Lambert.
She noted that $130 million would be needed just to keep up with inflation. The $30 million in the so-called Learning Improvement Fund to deal with class composition is completely inadequate to meet the real needs.
"The LIF amounts to mere pennies per day per child," Lambert said. "This is a massive theft of educational opportunities from the next generation of B.C. kids."
ARTS: ALLIANCE FOR ARTS AND CULTURE
"The B.C. government is making a long-term commitment to keep our province dead last in percapita arts funding," said Alliance for Arts and Culture executive director Rob Gloor.
"B.C. trails every other province in per capita funding of the arts," said Gloor, "and the current budget, which projects a multi-year freeze in arts funding, is a promise to remain last in Canada."
Budget details reveal frozen funding for arts and culture over the next three years, in spite of overall budget increases.
"With inflation, a frozen budget for the arts is equivalent to a multi-year decrease. - This results in a gradual decline in the capacity of the arts and culture sector to serve the community."
One new tax credit appears to provide relief for families in the form of a $500 credit for enrolment in children's arts programs. However, Gloor points out, the actual maximum benefit is just five percent of that figure - a mere $25 per child per year - and does nothing to facilitate participation among lowerincome families.
HEALTH CARE: B.C. NURSES' UNION
Increases for health-care spending in today's provincial budget that are tiny by historic standards leave virtually no room to implement improved staffing to support seniors, as recommended by the provincial Ombudsperson.
At the same time, the budget provides no resources to health authorities across the province to deal with increased overcrowding that's forcing nurses to care for patients in hospital hallways, closets, TV lounges and other areas not appropriate for patient care.
"Today's budget demonstrates the government is willing to let patients fall through the cracks because of serious understaffing as nurses deal with heavy workloads in hospitals, the community and in long-term care," says B.C. Nurses' Union president Debra McPherson.
Social services: Jeanne Fike, executive director, Burnaby Family Life
The social policy ministries were all flatlined which, in reality, means a cut in the delivery of social services because the demand on our services continues to rise, along with our expenses.
Although the Ministry of Health has received an increase, it's focused on chronic and acute care and not prevention.
Similarly, the increase in justice is focused on the system - to reduce backlog of court cases (with) no funds allocated to prevention.
No funds to relieve poverty of children and families.
Social services are left off the agenda and undervalued.
If we don't pay now and focus on prevention, we will continue to pay later for the increasing costs of health care and the criminal justice system.
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