Canadian Federation of Students BC
Membership Advisory
Budget 2013
On February 19, the BC government introduced the 2013-2014 provincial budget, the first for Finance Minister Mike de Jong.
Similar to the previous year’s budget, the 2013 budget contains cuts for most ministries, either through budget reductions or miniscule increases that, after inflation, constitute a decrease in overall funding that will lead to service reductions and lay-offs.
Polling conducted for the Federation in November 2012 showed that 83% of British Columbians support a freeze or reduction in tuition fees. Despite the popularity of affordable public education, there is nothing in the 2013 budget to provide student debt relief for students or their families. In fact, the budget will likely make things worse for post-secondary education in British Columbia by failing to maintain adequate funding and driving students into more debt….
The government made much ado about the fact that the budget was “balanced” in the accounting sense of the phrase7. But from a social policy perspective, the budget raises many questions about precisely how the budget was balanced. In 2012, the government raised more money from tuition fees than from BC Hydro profits, natural gas royalties, and forest royalties combined. The government has saved more than $640 million since 2004 by cancelling the BC student grant program. These are just two of the ways that the goverment has “balanced” the budget.
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