Balanced budget helps top two per cent: Horgan

NDP leader John Horgan and NDP MLA Carole James talk with B.C. Wildlife Federation representative Jim Gaicar at Books and Co. Thursday morning. Horgan and James are touring ridings without NDP representation. Bill PHILLIPS/Free Press

The province has tabled a balanced budget.

But what does that really mean for ordinary families?.

According to NDP leader John Horgan, it means the middle class in British Columbia is getting squeezed, while the top two per cent of income earners in the province get a tax break.

“They’ve taken $700 million in new fees and taxes from regular people through ICBC increases, Hydro increases, Medical Services Premium increases, camping fee increases, and the list goes on and on,” he said Thursday. “At the same time they gave a tax break top two per cent of wage earners.”

That tax break, he said, totals $235 million.

“British Columbians, although they heard in February there was a balanced budget, they did not hear the consequences of that balanced budget,” Horgan said.

To stress the point, Horgan had Doug MacDonald talk about some of the challenges he’s facing. A Prince George resident for the past 25 years, MacDonald said it’s getting harder to make ends meet.

“When I look at Prince George, those opportunities for those good full-paying jobs with benefits aren’t there anymore,” he said.

Horgan said the current generation may be the first once since the Industrial Revolution that is less well-off than the preceding one.

Horgan said an NDP government simply would not have given the top two per cent of wage earners such a tax break and instead have used that money to help all British Columbians through lower taxes and/or lower fees.