4 billion

4 billion dollars is how much BC made last year in its budget. After projecting 700 million surplus, we made 4 billion. Knowing the very little I know about Carole Taylor, I'm sure she knew that her tight fisted budget would bring a windfall much bigger than she advertised. Good on her though. It's a refreshing change from the usual press about cost overruns and overspending which is the usual government rhetoric.

I, like many of you I'm sure, read headlines like this and feel somewhat like I do when I find $5 in my back pocket or shoved between the couch cushions. That means we're doing well as a province. That means our economy is booming. There are jobs. People are spending. Now the government has more money to spend on infrastructure and making our money work for us.

I'm not sure though that as Christians we should feel that way. BC is 9th of the 10 provinces in terms of how we care for the least, last and lost. Our social advocacy for the homeless, low income, single parent, sick and addicted has become very poor within our province. While I would never wish we could go back to the days of NDP overspending, it seems that we've gone the other way in terms of our social programs. How are these people supposed to get ahead anymore? Universities and post secondary education has become priced out of the range of most except the privileged few. Affordable housing is at a crisis. While there are many jobs out there, how many of them pay well enough to afford to live here? Health care is becoming harder to get for those that need it most.

This is a complicated issue and I don't want to oversimplify it. But status quo is never what God asks of us. Carole Taylor needs to loosen her grip a bit on our taxpayer dollar.