Crandall: $27 billion deficit and no plan to deal with it

Government deficit – I know I’ve told you this before, but I also know that you and I are quite a bit alike in one respect, and that’s that we forget quite a bit, so I think I can tell you this again without you getting too upset.

I’ll tell you this way: pretend you’re in Alberta and you are driving along, notice that you are low on gas so you pull in to a gas station and fill up. Then, like some other big box stores, the gas station has a supermarket beside it, and you need eggs, so you park and go in and grab some eggs.

And since you’re alone and know that you may die of starvation if you don’t get something to eat before supper, and since an Eatmore chocolate bar is all you can see within arms reach at the till, you wisely add that to your list as you check out. But that’s another story, isn’t it?

But you’ve got your gas and eggs and head to your car, almost not noticing that you have gotten them both at the Co-op Store. Now, if you’ve been in Alberta much, or were maybe born there, there is nothing unusual about the Co-op Store. They’ve been there forever. You might have gone there when you were five, when they still ran their Playland section at Christmas time and gawked at all the stuff you thought you would like to see under the tree on Christmas morning.

And they are the same stores that used to be the government in Alberta. That’s right, the Co-op Store used to run Alberta. Well, the store didn’t, but the store is owned by the United Farmers of Alberta, or the UFA, and it was the government in Alberta for most of the 1920s and half of the ’30s. They still own the Co-op Stores.

It would be the very same as if Save-On-Foods or IGA stores here in Golden were connected to the government of B.C.

I tell you all of this (not the Eatmore part, I gave you that for free, partly just to boost Eatmore sales, so they keep making them, and I can keep buying them) so you won’t be surprised when you hear that a new B.C. government, being formed by some bankruptcy trustees (and I’m kidding you here) will be taking over the province on Tuesday morning.

The reason it could be true is that, just like I’ve been telling you about the U.S. of A., our neighbours to the south, who I believe are teetering on bankruptcy, and are now causing all this tariff trouble to try to dig themselves out of it, we in B.C. are getting closer to being bankrupt. I don’t know if you saw it or not, but we just had our credit rating.

Yes, the British Columbia credit rating cut. Down from AA1 to AA2. Yes, provinces and states and countries do have credit ratings, just like you and I have credit ratings. The problem is that the lower your credit rating, the higher the interest rate on your borrowings. Now, you and I don’t know all that much about credit ratings at that level, but I can tell you that a drop in ratings isn’t good. And it’s the trend that is most worrying since this isn’t the first downgrade.

And it’s a lot like our teeth. It doesn’t change from perfect to terrible all at once, Eatmore’s aside. The rotting process is slow. Almost so slow that you wouldn’t believe it’s happening. Certainly slow enough that nobody gets concerned about it.

So we may not be concerned, but if not, we also shouldn’t get mad about it when the bank takes over! Especially when we are going down exactly the same road the U.S. went down to get into its problems. The same disease. Deficit spending. The first years of it aren’t too bad, but eventually, the interest payments start taking the place of money we should have been able to spend on essentials like health care and education. And shoes and Kraft Dinner. And Eatmore’s.

Part of what might alarm some of us is that it isn’t just the huge deficit the government is running, like $27 billion this year alone, but that there is no plan to deal with it. No plan. Like driving down the highway at night, you see a deer’s eyes in your headlights, and you have no plan to slow down or swerve.

No plan.

Now, I don’t know if our Minister of Finance buys Lotto tickets on our behalf or not, but you would think, wouldn’t we, that if we’re going the wrong way with our provincial finances, someone might put a plan together to deal with it?

I read an opinion piece in the media the other day that said that we’re in this predicament because of irresponsible politicians and stupid voters. You might feel bad because you’re in one of those groups. Think about how I feel; I’ve been in both.

Maybe that’s why you’re reading this.

Duane Crandall is a retired newspaper publisher, having owned and operated The Golden Star from 1982 – 1987, and the Golden News from 1992 – 2003. He served as MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke from 1986 – 1991.