Hope Standard, March 26, 2015

Page 1

The Hope

Standard

Dummy Downhill skiing took place at Manning Park Resort on Sunday, March 22nd.

Office: 604.869.2421 www.hopestandard.com

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015

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4 HCS ON TO NEW HORIZONS

HCS will continue its efforts despite recent grant losses.

11 A LITTLE SPRING

CLEANING

Hope Mountain Centre volunteers rolled up their sleeves at the new Bike Park.

5 NDP OPPOSITION AT THE BLUE MOOSE

Opposition leader John Horgan and New Democrat finance spokesperson Carole James visit Hope.

INSIDE Opinion . . . . . . . . . . Community . . . . . Sports . . . . . . . . . . Classifieds . . . $

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RCMP takes on students at Hope Secondary School

The Hope RCMP sqaured off against an ad hoc student basketball team at Hope Secondary School on Friday, March 20th. The RCMP won the battle with a score of 50-40, but spirits remained high as students and teachers cheered in the stands.

Throness addresses budget concerns Erin Knutson

6 13 15 17

ERIN KNUTSON/THE STANDARD

The Hope Standard

At the recent Hope and District Chamber of Commerce Meeting — MLA Laurie Throness gave an insightful and thorough presentation on the latest Provincial Budget, demonstrating through fiscal realities that the B.C. budget is in a healthy state of affairs. “We have a balanced budget and Saskatchewan is the only other province with a balanced budget this year — we don’t know about the feds yet, but Ontario has a

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deficit of about 12.5 billion dollars this year and Alberta will have a deficit of 500 million,” said Throness. “We are doing quite well and we have forecast three more balanced budgets, so we’ve had three and we’re forecasting three more, including a surplus this year of $879 million dollars. An economic forecast council will predict the next five years and is seen as measure of prudence by Throness. The Ministry of Finance will take about three tens of a percent lower than that and so confidence is high that officials will

forecast budget concerns in a diligent manner. “Our exports have grown — in October 2008 we had exports of about 3 billion dollars, they fell by about a third at the bottom of the recession and they are almost back up to where they were in October 2008. Figures are up by 6.3 per cent compared to 2013,” said Throness. B.C. employment is up according to modest political terms — 12, 800 jobs were created last year, which is about 40 or 50 thousand jobs above what it was in June 2008, followed by population growth.

“Our job growth has not been stellar, which is why we have a big job figuring out different strategies to create jobs across the economy,” said Throness. “But, we maintain a budget — when the spending line curved a little bit, we curved spending. We held it down to three per cent and our revenue was up a little more than that.” By continuing to hold expenses down the government is forecasting a little higher revenue, which means that there will be surpluses in every year. Continued on 3

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