Reality Check: Christy Clark’s definition of “on time and on budget”

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VEvergreen_Line_Construction_(13077056243)ICTORIA— For most people, “on time and on budget” means finishing a project by the deadline while spending no more than the budget. But for Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals, it’s more of a “stretched target.”

This week Christy Clark’s minister responsible for Translink told British Columbians that the Evergreen Line would be opened “on time and on budget” in early 2017 at a cost to the province of $586 million. But the B.C. Liberals committed to have it up and running in the summer of 2014 for $410 million.

Here are some other big promises that Christy Clark hasn’t delivered on time, on budget, or at all:

GP for Me

  • Christy Clark’s promise: A family doctor for everyone who wants one by 2015.
  • Reality Check: Health Minister Terry Lake admitted the government will never reach their goal. His excuse: it was “a very stretched target.”

Minimum Wage

  • Christy Clark’s promise: “We’re not going to be number one in the country… but we’re going to be catching up. We won’t be at the bottom anymore.”
  • Reality Check: B.C. has the lowest minimum wage in Canada.

LNG in BC

  • Christy Clark’s promise: At least three LNG plants up and running by 2020, with the first one open by 2015.
  • Reality Check: There are exactly zero LNG plants under construction, zero final investment decisions made by companies to build any, and zero British Columbians working to build LNG plants.

$100 billion Prosperity Fund

  • Christy Clark’s promise: To create a $100 billion “Prosperity Fund” out of revenue from the LNG industry. The fund was supposed to pay off massive provincial debts, remove tolls from the Port Mann bridge, eliminate the PST, and more.
  • Reality Check: Christy Clark’s finance minister admitted (after the election, naturally) that the government was just “being aspirational” by promising the fund. With no LNG revenue coming in, and none forecast for the entire three-year budget plan, the finance minister created the fund anyway and seeded it with $100 million of taxpayers’ money, not LNG riches.

Site C

  • Christy Clark’s promise: In 2010, then-Premier Gordon Campbell decided to build the Site C dam for “between $5 billion and $6.6 billion” and be up and running by 2020.
  • Reality Check: The B.C. Liberals’ latest definition of “on time and on budget” for Site C is now up to $8.9 billion by 2024. And Energy Minister Bill Bennett admitted last year that hydro projects cost estimates are a wild guess at best, saying “it could be 50 percent higher or 30 percent lower.” That means Site C could cost British Columbians as much as $13 billion.