BURNABY– The BC Liberal Fire Sale of Crown assets will leave the residents of Burnaby scrambling to find space for future hospitals, schools and social housing.
“The Auditor General’s report makes it really clear that the BC Liberals chose to prioritize short-term partisan politics over the good of the province,” said Anne Kang, MLA for Burnaby Deer-Lake. “Instead of planning ahead to ensure future governments would have space to build schools, hospitals, and social housing, the BC Liberals chose to pad their budget.”
In 2012, the BC Liberal government launched their two-year fire sale of public assets in order to pad their budgets.
The report shows that the province liquidated hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of crown lands during the time of the initiative. One such site, in Burnaby, was situated directly beside an affordable housing site for assisted living, and could have been a prime location to build supportive housing to help mitigate the worst effects of the housing crisis.
“Because the BC Liberals chose to sell off tax-payer assets to balance their budgets, going forward it will be more difficult for any new government—regardless of political affiliation—to build public housing, health care centers, or schools around the province,” Jinny Sims, Minister for Citizens’ Services and MLA for Surrey-Panorama noted. “The BC Liberals simply did not take the long-term needs of our communities into account when they chose to ignore the potential costs. This is yet another example of the BC Liberals robbing Peter to pay Paul in order to produce a ‘balanced’ budget.”
In her report the Auditor General noted that the BC Liberal government didn’t look at the ways that such spaces could be used to promote a healthy growing economy, or assess the potential economic implications of selling these assets into the future.
“This was such a short-sighted decision. The BC Liberals refusal to look at the long-term implications of selling these properties, will cost people more in the long run. Land appreciates every year, and buying back land for capital projects in the future is going to be prohibitively expensive,” Kang continued.
“We have seen this pattern over, and over. For their own short-term political gain, the B.C. Liberals repeatedly sold out the province, costing people more money in the long-run. It is the same exact thing that was behind their bad choices with BC Hydro and ICBC.”
Due to the short-sighted nature of the BC Liberal decisions, the tax-payers of this province will be on the hook for a lot more money the next time we need a new school or hospital. It is hard to believe BC Liberal MLA Tracy Redies claims that their fire sale of public assets were of land “not required for future use.”
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Media contact: Selina Wall (250) 387-0314