ea ES

British Columbia

The budget:

highlights
for 1990

e@ A $15.2-billion budget
with 11 per cent spending
increase and a $640-million
operating deficit covered by
accumulated reserves in the
Budget Stabilization Fund.

@ Spending on social and
government services up
about eight per cent.

@ No job creation
measures; unemployment
predicted at 8.9 per cent.

@ No increase in GAIN
rates.

@ Environment fund
established with consumer
taxes on tires, diapers,
batteries; no measures to
make polluters pay.

e A block funding plan
for education which locks
school funding to between
six and eight per cent
increase this year.

@ Increased homeowner
grants the major election
meat

@ Pay equity and pension
plan programs announced
with no funding allocated.

MAY DAY GREETINGS

members and staff of

Carpenters Local 1928

Socreds manoeuvre for election
with new 1990 budget provisions

If last year’s provincial budget was the
“BS” budget, this year’s is more of the
same, but with extra significance. Last week
Mel Couvelier shovelled up the Socred’s

“election budget.

There are no important new initiatives.
Underneath the layers of colourful packag-
ing, it is very much a status quo budget to
reflect what is emerging more clearly as the
government’s re-election strategy.

The political buzz words that emerge
from the budget and which will be heard
repeatedly during the campaign fall into
two categories. The first group of govern-
ment slogans are on the fiscal side and
reflect the main strategy: ““managing in a
turbulent world,” “fragile prosperity,”
“federal mismanagement,” “a balanced
budget.”

The second group of slogans speak to the
social issues and substitute a lot of rhetoric
for modest amounts of money. But the
Socreds believe that people want to hear
things like “sustainable environment,”
“freedom to move” and “housing action
plan,” and we will hear these slogans over
and over.

The $15.3 billion provincial budget with
an 11 per cent increase in spending can not
be accurately described as a “restraint”
budget. However following eight years of
hard core neo-conservatism this budget,
like last year’s, spends just enough to main-
tain social services at their restraint era level,
and then spends a little more on some old
fashioned Socred election ploys such as an
increased homeowner grant, highway pro-
jects and everybody’s motherhood. project,
the environment.

A large chunk of the government’s
increased spending is not at all intended to
increase services. The province has swal-
lowed the $102 million for this year in cuts
in federal transfer payments from the last

To the friends of
labour, from the

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Industrial

aPerwor,
of ke,

May Day
Greetings

To our brothers and sisters
in the labour movement

Canadian Paperworkers Union
Local 514, Port Alice

2 Se Reger wher ae et: Hg See :

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MEL COUVELIER ... a budget crafted to perpetuate neo-conservative policies.

federal budget, and an about $35 million
loss from the end of the federal provincial
reforestation program. On top of that, the
province is picking up a greater share. of
existing spending in education to lower
homeowner property taxes with an increase
in the homeowner grant and through the
new block funding program for education.

Whereas the eduZation ministry is boast-
ing a 15 per cent increase in funding, in fact
there is only an eight per cent increase for
public school operating budgets which are
held firmly in the restraint era by the refer-
endum process. The other half of the
increased spending is to reduce the share of
the budget covered by property taxes, and
for ministry expenses to implement the re-
organization of primary education as a

- result of the Sullivan Royal Commission.

When these factors and other tax measures
are taken into account, the real spending on
provincial programs is increasing around
eight to nine per cent this year.

The modest spending in the 1990-91
budget was made possible by two years of
tax and user-fee gouging that ran up a sur-
plus of $977 million and a $1.5-billion spe-
cial fund (the Budget Stabilization Fund) to
start this year.

There won’t be major new taxes this elec-
tion year, but neither will enough be put
back into the economy to prevent a slow-
down that will see unemployment average
8.9 per cent next year, according to the
budget estimate.

In fact this must be the first budget ever
when there is not a single measure presented
for the purposes of job creation — not even
a summer jobs program for students or a
make work program to get people off wel-
fare.

At the media conference following the
budget, the finance minister was straight-
forward in answering a Tribune question on
the unemployment rate. He described the
current rate as “structural unemployment”
and stated: “There is no relation between
government initiatives and the rate of
unemployment.”

For the province’s GAIN recipients,

ominously, there was no announcement 0
any increase in rates for next year. Th
budget for the Ministry of Social Service
and Housing is no more promising, with‘
below average 6.8 per cent increase in fund
ing.

With over a billion dollars in reserves, tht
government clearly has the resources t€
announce some big spending program:
before or during an election campaign. Bu
the message in Couvelier’s budget is that !
isn’t likely. And the status quo approacl
received the approval rating from Jim Mat
kin and the province’s major employers tha
the Socreds were looking for. “*Definitel}
beneficial to the investment climate,” pro
nounced Matkin.

The spending measures that are in thi
budget are peripheral to the provincia
economy and instead are calculated t¢
counter what the Socreds perceive to bé
their political weak spots — primarily th¢
environment, education, and housing. It
each case, the actual measures turn out to bt
mostly public relations packaging (see stor)
page 7).

Vander Zalm and Couvelier have clev’
erly drafted a budget that continues the
neo-conservative program of the goveri
ment while increasing spending enough to
avoid a new round of social protest. AN
election budget, it is calculated to pose hard
questions to the NDP opposition. Would 4
Harcourt government bring in a radically
different budget?

One NDP policy advisor after the budget
agreed that an NDP government couldn't
be expected to spend more than the Socreds
are in this budget. Certainly the NDP would
have different program priorities, but Hal
court has given no indication that he would
contemplate a fundamental reorganization
of revenue and expenditure in B.C. to make
a clear break with the status quo pattern 0
Vander Zalm’s first four years. The Socred
election plan will stress financial manage
ment and point to the absence of majo!
social protest. Many will be waiting to se€
an effective economic and social counte!
strategy from the NDP.

is proud to mark
May Day 1990 in

their efforts to gain
economic, social and
trade union rights.

celebration of working
people everywhere. In

CUPE Local 389
North Vancouver