For all the controversy manufactured over the B.C. Liberals’ plan to sell off government land, it’s remarkable how quietly it’s proceeding.
The New Democrat Opposition fixated on the plan when it was first announced last year. Selling off property was viewed as a betrayal of the stewardship function of government, and a desperate fire sale designed to raise enough cash to balance one budget.
Thursday’s budget announcement includes an update on the program. Considering all the dire predictions, it’s a pretty boring read.
The government is well into the sale, and the earth stayed in its orbit. There was no rip in the space-time continuum. About all that’s happening is that the government is making a good chunk of money, in an apparently painless fashion.
More revenue is being produced than expected at this point, and if there is any concern at ground level, in the communities where the land is actually being sold, it’s not readily apparent. The initial controversy at this point looks to be a lot of fuss about nothing.
Looking at the published profile of the properties being offered, it’s not surprising. They’re all surplus to needs, and taken as a whole, they amount to a random assortment of odds and ends.
A sampling of what’s on the market: Some vacant lots near Victoria General and Mission Memorial Hospitals, former school sites in North Saanich and Surrey, a site marked for a new jail in Kelowna that was eventually placed elsewhere and a parking lot near the legislature.
Much of the initial attention dissipated after the original idea of privatizing the liquor distribution branch was shelved, in order to secure a deal with the government employees’ union. So all that was left was a series of land sales that look like the kind of sales that governments have conducted routinely over the years.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong said the goal is to raise $475 million in the current fiscal year. A quarter of the way through, the government has raised about 38 per cent of that. And a big chunk of the new revenue isn’t even from land, it’s from the sale of a financial instrument from the transportation authority, for $123 million.
The land sales to date this year — several of them former school sites — have brought in $58 million, about $7 million more than was forecast.
What seized the Opposition’s attention was the fact the sales target looked to be a big part of how the budget deficit was to be eliminated. So they seized on the idea that the Liberals were selling off timeless assets to meet their own short-term political goal: balancing the budget.
It got some traction when Ontario economist Don Drummond warned against the idea. But his concerns had more to do with Ontario than B.C., and were in a different context.
Prior to the election, NDP Leader Adrian Dix expressed philosophical objections to the whole idea. He said the land represented a common need to have things that belong to communities, and selling it was “foolhardy.”
But then he turned around during the campaign and floated the idea of selling B.C. Place, which is about as communal a property as you can get.
Liberals said the NDP in the 1990s conducted its fair share of sales, to the tune of $500 million. And Liberals over the first three terms sold 400 parcels for $380 million.
Assuming the sales continue apace, it looks as if the government will clear $475 million in badly needed cash, by selling off a bunch of properties that no one to date cares about.
NDP finance critic Mike Farnworth stuck to his guns on Thursday and insisted the idea is misguided. The argument about the concept is all theoretical, but the cold hard cash coming in is real.
Just So You Know: New numbers on Thursday suggest the Liberals’ “debt-free B.C.” election campaign was several years ahead of itself. A taxpayer group this week mounted a debt clock campaign to focus on how fast it’s growing. And the budget update shows it has jumped hundreds of millions of dollars just since the February budget.
De Jong recast the slogan, saying a balanced budget would “turn the corner” on increasing it further. It will still take a liquefied natural gas bonanza to actually reduce it.
