Conservatives must put a price on success

Written By Rob Shaw
Published

Can you put a price on success? It’s a question facing the BC Conservatives, as they unveil promise after promise in the B.C. election, without any sort of costing.

The biggest such move came this week with the party’s transportation plan, which would see it build a new bridge between Kelowna and West Kelowna across Okanagan Lake, replace the Taylor Bridge across the Peace River, rebuild the Red Bridge in Kamloops, upgrade the bypass highway near Nanaimo, expand Highway 1 to six lanes to Chilliwack, rebuild exits and interchanges around Metro Vancouver, replace the Ironworkers Memorial and Patullo Bridges, and come up with a solution for the Massey Tunnel “as soon as possible.”

That doesn’t include the party’s transit commitments, which are to extend SkyTrain in Surrey and develop regional rail to the Fraser Valley, expand BC Transit services across the province, and grow the HandyDART system.

All told, it’s easily more than $10 billion dollars worth of work. But the official Conservative price tag was completely MIA.

Same thing on leader John Rustad’s plan this week to supercharge the NDP’s $10-a-day childcare plan, including expanding it back out to more private operators, as well as increasing the Affordable Childcare Benefit and BC Family Benefit. 

No cost estimates to grow a government program with a base of $2 billion annually, which after seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars more from Ottawa, still has only managed to successfully fund 10 per cent of child care spaces in B.C. at true $10-a-day. Any improvements are going to be expensive.

Rustad promises accounting next week

Rustad promised some sort of accounting in the upcoming third week of the campaign. 

“In the very near future we will have the full platform that will be released, which will also have an outline of the budget,” he said Thursday.

Expectations are high. 

On the operating side, Rustad has to navigate the current $9 billion deficit forecast by the BC NDP government, the highest in provincial history. On the capital side, he’ll have to avoid piling up too much debt, after at least one recent credit downgrade on NDP government finances. 

To complicate matters, the Conservatives promise to eliminate the carbon tax will blow a $3 billion hole in provincial revenue (though, this problem is now shared by the BC NDP who have largely adopted the same position).

“If David Eby can lock down a number on a deficit, perhaps we could actually lock down our full numbers on a budget.”

John Rustad

Rustad’s revenue-generating options are limited, after ruling out tax increases, bridge tolls, road pricing and a restoration of MSP premiums. He’s said any new or increased taxes would trigger a referendum. And he’s promised not to cut core services like healthcare, education and social programs.

“If David Eby can lock down a number on a deficit, perhaps we could actually lock down our full numbers on a budget,” said Rustad. 

“When you have a budget that David Eby has put forward, and all the projections that they have that seem to be completely out of whack, it’s going to be very difficult to completely nail down what we’re going to do as a budget.

“But we will have that in our full platform that will be released in the near future.”

Eby takes ‘free shot’ from $26 billion bow

NDP leader David Eby is in no position to lecture anyone about financial management, having been part of a government that’s ballooned spending more than 60 per cent in seven years. 

His party platform outlined $26 billion in deficit spending over three years, with no plan to return to balance in the foreseeable future. Rustad has promised only by the end of his second term, or eight years.

Still, Eby has an unexpected free shot at Rustad for as long as the Conservatives fail to cost out any of their promises.

“We’re the party that builds, we’re the party that follows through on our commitments,” said Eby.

“And John Rustad, the numbers he’s putting out, nothing makes sense. It doesn’t make any sense. You can’t trust him on these things.”

“We’re the party that builds, we’re the party that follows through on our commitments.”

David Eby

It’s still not clear how much voters actually care about costs, debt and deficit. The Conservatives feel in a change election, the numbers are less important than the desire by the electorate to try something new.

The NDP feel the total lack of accounting for how Conservatives will pay for things is another sign they can’t be trusted to govern.

But at a certain point, a party that’s serious about governing has to show a serious plan on how it will handle taxpayer money. There’s a lot riding on that next week from the Conservatives — both for the party’s future, and, potentially, the province’s finances.