VICTORIA, B.C. - The BC NDP says the Conservative Party’s newly released costed platform hides deep cuts to healthcare, pointing to $2 billion a year in claimed savings from cuts to budget contingencies, unrealistic revenue forecasts, and missing revenue lines.
“An initial look at the Conservative platform costing document makes it clear why they’ve been hiding it. The document is packed full of shell games, wildly unrealistic growth projections, and deep healthcare cuts hidden in plain sight,” the NDP said in a statement.
The centrepiece of the NDP’s attack is the Conservatives’ claim of $2 billion in annual savings from cuts to contingencies. The NDP says those savings are cuts by another name, and argues the money would come out of services British Columbians rely on, including healthcare.
The NDP also disputes the Conservatives’ revenue forecasts. It points to a 43 per cent reduction in forecast natural gas royalties in the Conservative costing, and says the platform leaves out $280 million in expected revenue from PST on alcohol. Combined with the disputed savings, the NDP says the Conservative plan would produce larger deficits than the party is admitting.
Conservative interim leader Lorne Doerkson has pushed back on the criticism, saying the party is still finalizing its full costing. At the leaders’ debate, Doerkson promised voters would see “a fulsome plan” before going to the polls, and the costed platform was released on October 18, days after advance voting began.
The NDP has also criticized Doerkson for avoiding questions about the costing. In a separate October 18 statement, the party said Doerkson “dug his fiscal hole even deeper as he ducked media questions on his platform costing,” and claimed a newly announced child activity tax credit would add another $520 million in uncosted promises.
The NDP puts the gap in the Conservative platform at at least $5 billion, not counting commitments it describes as too vague to cost.
“He knows his plan doesn’t add up. He’s trying to hide his healthcare cuts,” the NDP said.
For Surrey voters, the stakes of the fiscal debate are direct. Both parties have made major healthcare promises in the city, including new hospital capacity and urgent care centres. The NDP has committed to a second Urgent and Primary Care Centre in Langley and more across the region, while warning that what it calls the Conservatives’ $5 billion fiscal gap would put those investments at risk. The Conservatives, in turn, have promised a new Surrey hospital and say NDP tax hikes are driving doctors away.
The Conservatives have been contacted for response. Their platform argues that lower taxes and faster economic growth will generate the revenue needed to fund services, and that the NDP’s own record includes repeated credit downgrades and a projected deficit of about $13.8 billion.
With advance voting underway and election day on October 24, the competing claims over whose numbers add up have become a central theme of the campaign’s final week.
Source: BC NDP
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