BC Liberals reduce debt while building infrastructure

Editor: In 1970, my wife and I had been married for four years, had two children and a good-paying job.

We made a decision — work hard to pay down our many debts while planning for and investing in our retirement.

As we paid down those debts, we invested in some personal infrastructure in B.C. — land for our retirement home in the Okanagan.

Our friends thought we were silly — why buy something you are not going to use for 25-30 years?

I worked in a job in which transferring many times was normal. When we were first transferred, we rented. While we lived judiciously, we had a great life.

Eventually as our debt shrunk, we bought moderate affordable homes each time we transferred.

We did this many times, but never lost money on any of our purchased homes.

In the meantime, those working in the same industry who thought we were silly buying retirement infrastructure were buying fancy cars and huge homes. And losing them when the economy went south due to lack of personal debt planning.

By the mid 1980s, we were debt free, keeping our financial expectations reasonable while starting to build up our reserves with the idea of rewarding ourselves as we advanced towards retirement.

In the mid 1990s, we started looking seriously about retirement.

What we saw in B.C. scared us. Unlike our personal debt planning and reduction, the direction of the B.C. government of the day was to increase debt.

Had we been silly in buying that retirement land in B.C.? We were greatly concerned that the very financial foundation of B.C. was being seriously eroded — and soon we would be part of that province.

Looking forward, we did retire here, and today what we have in B.C. is a province that went from ninth to first in job creation in Canada along with being first in economic growth with the lowest unemployment rate, all the while investing in infrastructure for now and decades to come. Even in this risky economic neighbourhood we have today, we have a good government that is more likely to wisely handle the economy if things go sour.

We have a debt-reducing, infrastructure-building government where the people of B.C. are the boss. We are so thankful we chose to look to the future and choose B.C. with its current government as our home today.

Buying retirement infrastructure decades in advance while reducing debt were great ideas after all, like our current government is doing.

My wife and I realize what we have in B.C. now is what we wisely strived for, and we look forward to seeing the current government re-elected in May. Jim Edgson, Vernon