Using ICBC to balance budget

Dear Editor: In Friday’s Penticton Herald newspaper, BC Liberal leadership contender Dianne Watts is quoted as describing herself as a socially progressive small-C conservative. “So there are a multitude of issues that differentiate us, (from the NDP government)” she continued. “One is balanced budgets – not spending beyond our means – and one is growing the economy and creating jobs.”

I question her assumption that balanced budgets, not spending beyond our means, is solely BC Liberal ideology. After all, it was Christy Clark’s BC Liberals who ran up budget deficits and used funds from ICBC to give them a “balanced budget”?

Governments of all political stripes claim not to spend beyond their means, and then do so, often for very good reason: think infrastructure projects that require a 50 per cent payment from the province in order to receive a 50 per cent payment from the federal government.

I also question her assumption that growing the economy and creating jobs is solely BC Liberal ideology. No matter our personal political persuasion, we all know that growing the economy and creating jobs is vital to the health and well-being of B.C. society.

The government must have the tax revenue created by economic growth in order to fund education, hospitals, transportation, social housing and other government services the B.C. government is mandated to provide.

What I’m getting at is this: just because somebody says it, doesn’t make it so.

Be informed, make an informed decision, no matter the issue. Andrina Iliffe Penticton