RECOVERY BENEFIT NOT AS HORGAN ADVERTISED
Finance Minister Selina Robinson scrambled for excuses this week when it became apparent the NDP's economic recovery benefit was not playing out as it had been advertised during the election campaign.
Premier John Horgan promised cash payments of $1,000 to families and $500 to individuals as a helping hand for those hard hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
But when Robinson rolled out the details Tuesday, it became apparent that the payments won't have anything to do with how recipients fared during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Eligibility for families and individuals will be determined on the basis of their incomes in 2019, the year before the pandemic struck.
People who lost incomes, jobs or businesses as a result of the pandemic won't qualify for the full benefit if in 2019 they exceeded the income threshold of $125,000 for families and $62,500 for individuals.
Whereas people who were fortunate enough to keep working throughout 2020 — earning extra pay for doing pandemic duties, for instance — can collect the benefit based on their 2019 tax returns.
Robinson didn't dispute that analysis. But she insisted the New Democrats had no choice.
“This is the best tool that we have,” the finance minister told reporters. “If we were to wait for the 2020 tax returns, people wouldn't get a benefit until much later and people need help now.”
She maintained the New Democrats had anticipated most eventualities by allowing partial payments of benefits for families that earned up to $175,000 in 2019 and up to $87,500 for individuals.
But she conceded that those at the cusp of the cutoff could expect at most $10 in the way of a benefit.
No wonder when Robinson got to speculating how people might use the government largesse, she mentioned they might get “a $5 latte.”
Overall, she estimated that “between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of British Columbians are eligible for this grant,” meaning the needy beneficiaries could be swamped by the not-soneedy.
The scattershot approach contradicted something else Horgan said about the benefit.
“We don't want to be reckless,” he told reporters Oct. 6. “We want BCers to know that we are not just throwing money to buy votes. We are throwing money at people to stimulate economic activity.”
At the time, the premier's “not vote-buying” exercise was priced at $1.45 billion. But this week the government added coverage for the disabled and those on social assistance, boosting the estimated tab for the benefit by $250 million to $1.7 billion.
The sense that the New Democrats were making it up as they went along did tend to confirm one thing that Horgan said at the launch point of the election platform.
He was asked whether the government had concocted the cash giveaway before the Sept. 21 election call, but held it back as an attention-grabber for the election platform.
“We did not contemplate this until we were putting together the platform, which was not until after the election was called,” Horgan insisted. “We put this together over the past couple of weeks based on what we see is the needs of BCers.”
I am now inclined to believe him, seeing as how the benefit is so half -baked.
Horgan also suggested during and after the campaign that the benefit cheques could go out before Christmas. Robinson repeated the prospect Tuesday, saying “we are expecting that people will be able to get it in their bank account before Christmas.”
On closer examination, that seems unlikely for many would-be recipients.
Online applications won't be up and running until Friday, Dec. 18 at the earliest. Ordering by phone is promised for the following Monday, four days before Christmas Eve.
So, attention last-minute shoppers: don't pre-book those holiday season lattes or anything else, if you are counting on cash on the barrelhead from the government much before the end of the year.
The finance minister also tabled legislation this week to give her some extra breathing room before having to deliver the next provincial budget.
For two decades, the usual date has been the third Tuesday in February, ensuring that the budget can be debated and scrutinized before the April 1 start of the fiscal year.
But back in July, the New Democrats amended the budget law to allow a tabling as late as the fourth Tuesday in March in an election year. (Say, do you think maybe Horgan was already thinking of calling a snap election back then?)
Now the government has intervened with a second legislative amendment, putting off the tabling until as late as April 30.
The additional lag-time means B.C. could be one month into the fiscal year already before the New Democrats get around to sharing their spending and taxation plans.
The extra delay tends to refute Horgan's insistence that the government would be fully functioning while he and the New Democrats campaigned for re-election.
“The tradition is to have a stay-behind minister to work with the professional public service, which I have complete confidence in,” the premier told reporters on Sept. 21 when he called the election.
“That caretaker minister will be the deputy premier and Finance Minister Carole James. ... We're in pretty good hands. I'm very confident about that.”
No slight to James, but judging from this week's scramble on the economic benefit and the timing of the budget, government lost weeks of preparation while Horgan engaged in his self-serving bid for re-election.
Don't pre-book those holiday season lattes or anything else, if you are counting on cash on the barrelhead ... much before the end of the year.