Dharm Makwana

Finance Minister Colin Hansen tabled British Columbia's 2010 budget on Tuesday afternoon. Here's what some had to say minutes later.

Carole James, Leader B.C. NDP

“This was the post-Olympic budget that was really a chance for government to show they had a strategy for the economic times that we’re in. That they had a plan to address the challenges that families are facing.”

"The only idea that this government really did bring forward was the HST. Not only did they bring the budget forward, but they brought forward one of the most ridiculous excuses, again, as to why they’re bringing it in. Now they’re trying to convince the public that they’re bringing it forward for health care. Before the excuse was the difficult economic times."

“It really showed that they have no ideas. That they’ve run out of steam. That it’s a government that’s been in power for eight years and doesn’t have any idea how to deal with these difficult economic times.”

“I wanted a vision for this province that recognizes we should invest in people. We should take a measured approach. We should reduce our deficit but over the longer-term than this government is doing so we don’t see these kinds of cuts in programs and services and I really didn’t see that.”

Bernie Magnan, Chief Economist Vancouver Board of Trade

“They’ve boosted their capital spending to provide a little more stimulus in the economy and they’re looking to balancing the budget in four years time, which is sooner than we had anticipated.”

“The debt supported by the taxpayers is $48 billion and it’s been higher than that in the past under previous administrations over the years."

“In bringing these projects forwards, instead of spending it two or three years from now they’re spending today to create jobs today. So people have jobs, that means they’re earning money, that means they’re paying taxes and providing revenue back to government. It gets us to point where we are in surplus condition and we can start paying down the debt.”

Maureen Bader, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

“I think what this government has not done is engage in any real serious spending cuts. They’ve moderated their spending blowout but they need to go much, much farther otherwise we’re going to leave our children with a legacy of debt.”

"The government seems to have forgotten the real benefits that were brought to families by income tax cuts the made when they first came into office. What we’re seeing now are some boutique tax cuts for deferrals for homeowners who have children under age 18. They don’t make any sense at all. These homeowner will have a bigger debt down the road.”

Jim Sinclair, B.C. Federation of Labour

"This budget is a guarantee that there will be more unemployment, that every school in the province will suffer cuts and every health authority will suffer cuts and that our young people are being ignored again when it comes to dealing with the highest child poverty rates in the country.”

“They are increasing spending in some areas but not enough in some areas to even cover the rate of inflation. If you don’t fund for at least inflation than you can’t do anything. They’re not funding the status quo.”

“I don’t see what they see. I see rising unemployment of good paying full time jobs and the government is going to create 4,000 more vacancies themselves through attrition. I don’t see economic recovery for average people coming and nothing in this people is going to put anyone back to work.”

“The greatest scam of the day was to tell us the HST was going to be a revenue neutral tax and then to turn around and tell us the HST is going to be spent on health care. The HST for this year will have a $113 million deficit compared to what we collected from the PST. You tell me how a deficit of $113 million pays for health care.”