The BC NDP’s latest budget is one they can campaign on

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At first blush, the latest budget of British Columbia’s NDP government is a model of restraint.

It’s the third to be tabled by the minority government and the third to be balanced. It boasts no operational debt. It includes plans to balance budgets over the next few years and healthy contingency allowances that provide a comfortable measure of fiscal prudence.

It’s a budget on which any provincial government in the country would love to campaign – which is precisely what B.C.’s New Democrats plan on doing.

While it may not appear so, this is an election budget. Far from being a paragon of self-discipline, the province’s economic plan is awash in spending. And you don’t need to look hard to find it.

The place to start is the summary of provincial debt. Yes, the NDP may be balancing its operational budgets, but behind those numbers, overall debt is increasing significantly. It’s forecast to increase nearly $6-billion from the current fiscal year to the next (from $70.6-billion to $76.3-billion). When you look at the government’s three-year fiscal plan, debt is expected to grow to $87.5-billion in 2022-23.

The province’s debt-to-GDP ratio will increase to 17.1 per cent in 2022-23 from its current level of 14.6 per cent.

These aren’t figures that will scare credit agencies such as Moody’s into downgrading B.C.’s sterling Triple A rating. The economy is still strong and expected to remain so. B.C.’s general economic fundamentals are solid, especially compared with its provincial counterparts. But that overall debt increase represents a whack of new spending, most of it in infrastructure investment.

Over the next three years, there are plans to spend $6.4-billion in the health sector, projects that include new hospitals and facility upgrades. Another $7.4-billion has been set aside for transportation endeavours, including everything from new bridges to new subways. Nearly $3-billion has been earmarked for school construction and another billion for affordable housing. You can almost picture the gigantic road signs that will soon be going up around the province, heralding all the important work being done courtesy of the NDP government.

This, of course, is not some novel strategy. For years, it was known as “black top politics” – the phenomenon in which new highways were built or old ones were fixed prior to an election. (It also went by another name: buying votes). The smell of fresh asphalt had a way of making the electorate feel special, like the government cared about them.

Even morally righteous New Democrats aren’t above employing this tactic.

For a minority government reliant on the help of an independent MLA and two others from the Green party for its survival, an election could come at any time. The next one isn’t scheduled until the fall of next year. The NDP would prefer to have that intervening time to highlight the many things it is doing for British Columbians. But who knows.

There are other indications this budget was crafted with an election in mind.

The most obvious being the appeal to the “working class” or “every day” British Columbian – those who constitute the mythical middle class. This is a group to whom the NDP has always preferred reaching at the expense of the rich, who once again became a target of this government.

The budget creates a new tax bracket for the top 1 per cent of income earners in B.C. – those making more than $220,000 a year. It will add just a couple hundred million to the treasury annually, but the measure is as much symbolic as it is lucrative. “We’re asking those who can afford to pay a little more, to do their part,” Finance Minister Carole James said.

It’s a line that should play well during an election, whenever that comes. So should changes announced in the budget to the B.C. Child Opportunity Benefit, which will offer payments of up to $3,400 annually to an expanded group of families. The budget also introduced a new grant for students.

This year, British Columbians won’t have to pay a Medical Services Plan premium, thanks to the NDP. The government also announced a move to a no-fault insurance system, which should dramatically improve the oft-troubled bottom line of the Crown insurance corporation.

The NDP could get a chance to table one more budget before the next election. But it’ll start campaigning on the one they put forward on Tuesday.