'Status quo' Liberal budget disappoints Nelson MLA Mungall
By Nelson Daily Staff
The 2011 BC Liberal Budget offers “no change,” and instead is the very same budget delivered under Gordon Campbell earlier this year, says Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall.
Former Minister of Finance, Colin Hansen, defined the budget as status quo when he presented it, as he assumed that the new Premier would add changes to it, said Mungall.
Far from any changes, the budget is the same, she added, showing Premier Christy Clark fails to offer any real difference from her predecessor.
“The people of Nelson-Creston want to know why this government continues to leave school districts in the lurch with unfunded costs that force them to impact their budgets in places no one wants, the classroom,” said Mungall.
She questioned where medical services plan increases — generating an extra $147 million last year — were going.
“We’re still without a surgeon at Kootenay Lake Hospital. We still have 2,000 orphaned patients in the Creston Valley, and we still have overworked public health nurses covering regions the size of some European countries.”
As the newly appointed critic of Advanced Education, Mungall noted that the budget fails to address the rising costs of tuition fees and student debt for British Columbian families.
On these issues, Mungall talked about the BCNDP plan to “get the debt off of students’ backs. A hundred million in student grants — that’s what we propose. Thirty million to eliminate interest.”
