BC Liberal platform emphasizes reduced debt and job creation
Posted April 15, 2013 6:33 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The BC Liberals are promising to hold the line on taxes and reduce government debt in their new election platform.
‘Strong Economy, Secure Tomorrow‘ doesn’t contain any big new spending announcements but does build on familiar themes.
It promises to capitalize on liquefied natural gas resources to create jobs and use all revenues to pay off debt including BC Ferries and BC Hydro.
“We have the customers, we have the confidence, we have the investment and we have to seize it now. We will either seize it as a province or we will kill it and it will never come again.”
Clark is also promising to cut small business tax by 40 per cent and freeze personal income taxes and the carbon tax.
Something new is the idea of a referendum on how to fund TransLink.
Liberal MLA candidate for Surrey-Fleetwood, Peter Fassbender says the province and mayors would come up with the top options and those in Metro Vancouver would vote in the 2014 municipal election.
“We think that putting that together, engaging the public and then asking the public to give us direct feedback through a referendum is great. What we don’t want to do is pit Vancouver against south of the Fraser.”
Other key election platform points:
- A $500 tax credit for teachers who help with in extra curricular activities.
- A $250 back to school tax credit per child for parents.
- Corporate tax rate reduction to 10 per cent by 2018.
- Launching a review of government ministries.
- Capping government spending increases.
NDP MLA Carole James says Liberals are running out of ideas
Carole James says the Liberal platform is full of recycled promises.
And as for calling a referendum to decide how to fund TransLink, she says that means they’ve simply run out of ideas.
“They’ve been trying for 12 years to try to resolve transit issues, to try and have discussions around TransLink. I think a referendum approach is simply stalling off. They’ve given up.”
So what would the NDP do differently?
“We’ve made a couple of suggestions, we’ve said that some of the revenue from the carbon tax should go towards green initiatives,so a shared funding model where the province provides some support as well. Basically saying that you are going to have a referendum is saying you are going to pass the buck.”
But there is one thing that James agrees with. “The cap on the pay-day loans. That’s something we have committed to and something we have pushed over the last number of years.”
We will carry a four-way leaders debate live on News1130 on April 29th at 6:30 p.m.
