Candice Malcolm and John Rustad discuss the B.C. NDP government’s runaway spending
Episode Stats
Words per minute
177.01228
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with BC s Opposition Leader, David Eby, to discuss his record in government and what he would do differently if he was in office today. We discuss everything from his record on crime, education, infrastructure, housing, crime, and the economy.
Transcript
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Your opponent, David Eby, and his record in government, so BC's debt has been skyrocketing
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in the first two years. This is in the Vancouver Sun, basically saying that they have increased
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provincial debt by almost 50% in almost two years, just two years in office. Eby inherited
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provincial debt of $89 billion a year. And at the end of this first year, it had soared to $133,
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up $44 billion. What would you do differently? Well, this has been absolute insane spending by
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this government, especially when it comes to the operating from the actual budget as opposed to the
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capital side. And so they've gone from what was about a $5 or $6 billion surplus to what a lot
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of people are estimating saying it would be an $18 billion deficit in just over two years.
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How do you destroy the finances of this province so quickly and have nothing to show for it?
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Nobody can point to anything in this province that is better under the NDP.
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Anything, whether it's crime, whether it's drugs, whether it's housing, whether it's affordability, whether it's our economy, nothing is improving.
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And so it really makes you wonder how and where they're spending this money.
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When you look at our capital, yes, we need to invest in roads and we had to invest in hospitals and schools.
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the budget the amount of capital that is allocated this year for capital projects
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is the equivalent of all the cost overruns on the projects that they're running
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so this has been just incompetence in terms of how they're actually getting projects done and
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the way this way they spend money and it's there isn't a single thing they've been in power for
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eight years now not going on not the ninth year there isn't a single project that's actually
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completed in terms of highways or bridges or anything like that. Everything is still a work
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in progress. And you look at it and think, how could this be that nothing could have gotten done
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over that period of time? Well, you mentioned crime, and we have some statistics here. Violent
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offenders in BC, why Canada's catch and release bails, are failing. So Vancouver recorded 6,256
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violent crimes in 2023, including 4,900 assaults, a rise of 451 incidents compared to 2019.
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the data shows that basically these policies where they can't keep bad guys behind bars
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is obviously failing all Canadians, and particularly in British Columbia.
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So I'm wondering if you can comment on, again, the crime rules and what you would do differently.
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So in this province, for whatever reason, the judges and our Crown prosecutions
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We've cut out, for example, this youth correction centre that I've heard from.
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They have typically between four and six people in there with that capacity.
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So you kind of look at it and you think, well, we're not committing less crime.
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How is it that we're not utilizing these facilities for what they need to be used for?