Voters concerned by lack of new health, education spending.
Measure offering $ 10,000 bonus to first- time homebuyers deemed nice but not enough to matter
What wasn’t in B. C.’ s new budget concerns people as much as what was, Vancouverites told us on Tuesday afternoon.
Although many of the measures were lauded as good ideas, concern over health care and education was uppermost in people’s minds.
Nate Hume, 31, who lives in Vancouver with his wife Angie Chan, 32, and two small children, said the four- per- cent increase in medical services plan premiums does not concern him much. Monthly rates for MSP are $ 64 for one person, $ 116 for a family of two and $ 128 for a family of three or more, so the increase will cost between $ 2.50 and $ 5 a month.
“Health care is expensive,” Hume said. “I have less of a problem with that than I do with these big- picture items I see missing here.”
Two women participating in a program at the West End Seniors’ Network at Barclay Manor, Mary Dimitri, 89, and Linda Nichol, 63, were both supportive of the MSP increases.
“I think we need more money in health care, so the increase to MSP is a necessary evil,” Nichol said.
Dimitri said she was very happy that other fees for seniors won’t be raised, and believes that health care needs the extra funds.
Roberta Mulholland, 71, who lives in the West End, said she would feel the MSP payment increase, even though it is small. “That’s quite a bit for me,” Mulholland said.
Colin Humble, 43, who is single and lives in North Vancouver, pays his own MSP premiums and will also feel the pinch.
But Humble said he understands the need for higher premiums and was even looking for more funding for health care. Humble’s father, who is a senior, has been in and out of hospital a lot recently, and Humble said resources are stretched pretty thin.
“You’ve got a bunch of stressed- out employees trying to do more with less,” Humble said, adding that he only sees this situation getting worse as the population ages.
Chan, however, said she was very disappointed that the Liberal government did nothing to address the high cost and lack of space for child care. “The dearth of accessible, high- quality child care remains a stress for many families with young children,” she said. “Not only is high- quality child care important for the early development of children, but it is also an important factor in a parent’s ability to enter the workforce. For many families, the cost of child care outstrips most of the financial benefit there may be for a parent to work.”
As for the $ 25 tax credits for children’s fitness and art programs, Hume said it’s disappointing not to see more support for fitness in the budget. A family needs to spend $ 500 to receive the $ 25 tax credit for fitness or arts.
Hume said he was looking for signs of the government’s commitment to all levels of education, including post- secondary, and he hadn’t found it yet.
As Sun education reporter Janet Steffenhagen reports, the only real spending boost for B. C. public schools in the coming year will be a modest, previously announced fund to help teachers deal with special- needs students in their increasingly diverse classrooms, according to budget documents released Tuesday. Apart from that, spending on public education and post- secondary education is expected to remain flat for the next three years.
Both Hume and Humble liked the bonus of up to $ 10,000 for first- time buyers who purchase new homes, but it’s not enough to help either of them.
“I wish I could take advantage of it, but I will never be able to own property in B. C.,” Humble said. “It’s just so far beyond my capabilities.” Hume said the credit was likely aimed at helping people his generation or younger buy their first homes, but it isn’t enough.
“$ 10,000 is nowhere near enough to get us interested in buying in this market,” Hume said. “But I certainly don’t expect a larger tax credit or any other help from the provincial government to buy a house. The prices are just too high. The provincial government can’t do much about that right now.”