Governments like to release bad news on Fridays, and a prime example of that was last week's announcement that the Fraser Health Authority was in trouble.
Of course, the official news release didn't actually frame it in those words. Instead, it said that Health Minister Terry Lake was "directing a strategic and operational review" of Fraser Health, and it was a review designed to "assist" the health authority.
But the key line that was buried in the news release was this: "It is anticipated Fraser Health will require additional funding from the Ministry of Health to meet its service requirements."
I hate to be one of the "I told you so" types, but there are many of us who predicted back in February that the funding increase for the health-care system was well short of what was required just to maintain the status quo when it comes to service delivery.
The funding lift was about $620 million, which brought the overall Health Ministry budget to $16.5 billion. But as large as the funding increase was, it was significantly lower than previous years' increases.
A number of observers concluded the health-care system was underfunded by at least $250 million and said there were going to be inevitable cuts in service delivery.
And that is exactly what seems to happening, at least in the Fraser Health region, which is the fastest growing of all the health authorities. It serves more than 1.6 million people in an area that extends from Burnaby to Boston Bar.
To be clear, spending gobs more money on health care isn't necessarily a good thing. B.C. has the country's best health "outcomes" in a variety of measuring sticks, but trails a number of provinces in per capita health care spending.
And it is clear that pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in increased funding for health care every year is a fool's errand. Eventually, government services in other areas will be cut or taxes will have to rise, or both.
But the sudden belt tightening (if a $620 million increase can be called "belt tightening") over the course of a single year obviously has a significant impact on a complex system that is used to spending more money.
Fraser Health was given an additional $135 million more in funding this year, but clearly that was not enough. The health authority spends about $7 million each and every day, which shows just how expensive solving this funding problem may be.
This all undoubtedly makes Finance Minister Mike de Jong very nervous.
Balancing the budget is the key, dominant part of the B.C. Liberal government's agenda, and right now it is balanced on a proverbial razor's edge.
The last fiscal update projected a miniscule surplus of less than $200 million on a budget of $44 billion. There is precious little room for error, and even a tiny bump in health-care funding could quickly turn that small surplus into a very real deficit.
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A lot of ink was spilled last week over two blatant patronage appointments by Premier Christy Clark, but should anyone be surprised by them? Appointing ex-B.C. Liberal MLA Ben Stewart as the new trade commissioner to Asia was an obvious reward for him giving up his Westside Kelowna seat so the premier could win a byelection there. And giving former party leader Gordon Wilson a government contract connected to the liquefied natural gas file seemed derived from the fact he endorsed her party during the election campaign.
Certainly, the qualifications of both appointees can be questioned, and there is at least some irony with Wilson's appointment (he clashed with Clark in the past, and recently expressed doubt about the prospects of LNG actually taking off in this province).
But spare me the howls of outrage from critics who seem to think this is some kind of major war crime.
Patronage appointments are an inevitable byproduct of pretty well any political system. The B.C. Liberals have made a lot of political patronage appointments in the last decade, as did the NDP government of the 1990s did before them. There will be more to come, and life will go on.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global B.C.
