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In politics, fortuitous timing can go a long way to determine whether one’s tenure in office is a success or failure.

The annals of bad timing are long. Kim Campbell became prime minister in 1993, taking the helm of a battered Progressive Conservative Party that soon after was destroyed at the ballot box. The Alberta NDP in 2015 won power for the first time, ending more than four decades of PC rule, only to struggle through a long oil bust before they were ousted in 2019.

David Eby, the new Premier of British Columbia, is – for now – enjoying good luck. He was sworn in Nov. 18, and a week later B.C.’s midyear budget update revealed a bounty of cash. What had been forecast in February as a $5.5-billion deficit for 2022-23 has transformed into a $5.7-billion surplus. Call it a gift from the usually capricious political gods.

B.C.’s luck is a continuation of a run of good fiscal fortune that has buoyed provinces across the country. Budgets from coast to coast have recovered from the depths of the pandemic much better, and faster, than predicated – “with shocking speed,” Royal Bank said last month.

This trend started in mid-2021, as news that was less bad than expected has extended and improved into this year and keeps on rolling – even if it’s clear it’s nearing an end, as an economic slowdown, or worse, looms next year.

Still, it is certain this reversal of fortune has saved the country many billions of dollars in accumulated debts. For last year, 2021-22, the provinces collectively booked a surplus. A lighter debt burden means lower interest costs and more money available for everything else.

In B.C., the recovery has effectively restored the province’s sterling prepandemic fiscal position, when its debt-to-GDP ratio was in the range of about 15 per cent. In 2020 and 2021, it looked like that figure could spike in future years, possibly hitting 30 per cent. In the February budget, it was still pegged to be at 20 per cent. Now it’s set to fall back to 15.8 per cent. That provides a lot of fiscal breathing room.

The province has been, like others, buoyed most of all by higher revenues from personal and corporate income taxes – the fruits of a robust economy. And like neighbouring Alberta, there’s also natural resource revenues, led by natural gas in B.C., which are forecast at $6.1-billion in 2022-23, more than double that of two years ago.

Like other provinces, B.C. is quick to spend some of its windfall. On Mr. Eby’s first day as Premier, he handed out $820-million to help people in the province deal with inflation. There will also be costs for higher public-sector wages in the years ahead.

In Alberta, the story is much the same, as political luck shifts from bad to good. Former premier Jason Kenney grinded through the pandemic and fiscal red ink. The new Premier, Danielle Smith, has a bonanza of fossil fuel money that’s generating a surplus of $12.3-billion, as per the midyear budget update last week. Like B.C., the surge of money should lower debt-to-GDP to 9.9 per cent next March, down sharply from 15.2 per cent last March, and far from the more than 25 per cent that was previously feared.

Like Mr. Eby and other premiers, Ms. Smith is doling out money – $2.4-billion – to her citizens. But rather than savour her happy timing, Ms. Smith is also busy self-inflicting political wounds with her hot mess this week of a “sovereignty act,” an egregious piece of pending legislation denounced by pretty much everyone.

And even amid a crazy surplus, driven by never-before-seen gushers of oil and gas money – $28.1-billion in 2022-23 – Ms. Smith reversed a plan from earlier this year to invest money into the long-term Heritage Savings Trust Fund. In Alberta, ‘twas ever thus, praying for another boom, promising not to squander it, and on and on.

For all the unexpected money – B.C. and Alberta being the latest examples – the pending end of good fiscal luck is real. The economy is slowing, fast. The Bank of Canada in October predicted the country’s 2023 GDP growth at 0.9 per cent, half an earlier forecast. Economists see the provinces in similar positions – above zero but below 1-per-cent growth in 2023, at best. Alberta might be out in front but with growth of not much more than 1 per cent.

With good fiscal fortune set to fade, prudence is necessary. But the surprise luck of the past year or so will extend into the future – in the form of easier-to-shoulder debts than would have otherwise been the case. And that is lasting good news.

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