It’s a case of the “phantom savings.” That’s what the Opposition is calling $300 million in internal cuts the B.C. government claims are in the budget, but can’t actually be found anywhere and haven’t even been identified yet.

It’s a ghostly figure, haunting the pages of the fiscal plan, scaring the bejesus out of government employees and cabinet ministers alike with the spectre of budgetary reductions. Yet it has so little substance you can see right through it, as Finance Minister Brenda Bailey was forced to admit this week during her ministry’s budget estimates.

Bailey was quizzed by Opposition critic Peter Milobar repeatedly, over several hours, to show the $300 million in savings. After all, it’s written into her fiscal plan, which is supposed to account for every single penny of government revenue and expense so that MLAs can debate and pass the spending in minute detail in the house.

“Has the $300 million already been accounted for in the $10.9-billion deficit?” Milobar asked.

“If so, where have the targeted spending cuts happened? If not, why are we dealing with a document that has a totally inaccurate deficit number? The government doesn’t get to have it both ways.

“No wonder this budget has already been getting bandied about as fudge-it budget 2.0.”

Bailey bristled, as she so often does when Milobar questions her.

“Not at all,” she said. “The $300 million is in the initial savings that we have booked for the work that we are doing right now that will lead to that number or more.”

Bailey pointed........

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