Vaughn Palmer: The NDP points to new schools and the like to justify deficits, but day-to-day spending is to blame for half of it

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VICTORIA — Finance Minister Brenda Bailey released a budget update Thursday confirming that Premier David Eby has thrown away the good financial position he inherited from his NDP predecessor, John Horgan.

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The proof is evident in a side-by-side comparison between two financial updates: the last one from the Horgan government, delivered Nov. 25, 2022, and the one Bailey delivered this week.

The one from three years ago, covering the first six months of Horgan’s last year in office, showed he left behind a budget surplus of almost $6 billion. Eby’s latest update projects a deficit for the year of $11 billion.

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The $17 billion turnaround in just three years ranks as the most dramatic reversal in the B.C. government bottom line in the more than 40 years I have been covering provincial finances.

Note, too, that Bailey only managed to cap off the deficit at $11 billion by bringing forward almost $2 billion in future payments from the settlement with Big Tobacco.

The province won’t get some of that money for another 18 years. The province’s independent auditor general has........

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