Bob Mackin
The Conservatives conjured the NDP’s 1996 budget scandal during Question Period on April 8.
Not once or twice. But 16 times.
Starting with leader John Rustad, members of the opposition party questioned the legitimacy of the March 4 spending plan, calling it a “fudge-it budget.”
The NDP’s $10.9 billion deficit forecast is now outdated, due to the March 31 elimination of the consumer carbon tax, which was expected to bring in $1.8 bililion this year.
“Can the Finance Minister confirm that nobody in her ministry was actually thought out of a plan as to how to deal with this?” Rustad asked Brenda Bailey. “Or, quite frankly, was this just pure incompetence or an intentional fudge-it budget?”
Replied Bailey: “Our budget was tabled in accordance with legislative requirements and prepared with the information available and government decisions at the time. A budget is a moment in time, and it is not appropriate to include speculative things in a budget.”
After winning the 1996 election, the Glen Clark-led NDP admitted that its $114 million surplus budget was actually a $318 million deficit.
Elizabeth Cull, who was the finance minister in 1996, oversaw the party’s 2022 leadership election, which David Eby won by default. Cull is now a member of the B.C. Emergency Health Services board.
WATCH: Conservatives taunt NDP over “fudge-it budget.”
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