🚀 go-pugleaf

Rick Sutcliffe (rsutc@twu.ca) wrote:

>If I may add my own $.02, we have had too many governments that hid the
>truth from the electorate by shuffling debt/deficit from the main books to
>those of crown corporations, or other quasi-governmental shadow agencies. 
>When in opposition, the NDP rightly opposed this practice.  What about
>now?

I would have to go w/ Rick here. The Socreds had the BS fund which they
used to shuffle the books. The NDP seem now to be doing the same thing w/
Crown Corporations (e.g. BC 21). Six of one, half dozen of the other.

As Terry Coatta pointed out in another post, a single number denoting
deficit and/or debt does have some serious limitations. However, without
some type of standard method for calculating debt and deficit it is almost
impossible to say whether the debt/deficit situation has improved under
under the NDP (as constantly claimed by the government) vs when the Socreds
were in power. Without such a standard, comparing the Socred debt/deficit
to that of the NDP is like comparing apples to oranges.

As well, in my economically untrained opinion, a debt incurred by a Crown
Corporation should go on the government's books if that debt would have
gone on the government's book when racked up by a government department.
In other words, if the *only* thing that causes that debt to not go on the
government's books is that the debt incurring entity is a CC as opposed to
a government department, then I would argue that some suspect accounting is
going on.
-- 
Jim Robinson
robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com
{ubc-cs!van-bc,uunet}!mdivax1!robinson