Vaughn Palmer: A new finance minister, but same old tax-and-spend Eby

Former Finance Minister Brenda Bailey speaks at a news conference as Premier Eby announces a cabinet shuffle following Bailey's cancer diagnosis. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG

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VICTORIA — It was nothing like a slow summer news day in the provincial capital on Friday as the New Democrats sent out word of a small but significant shuffle of the senior ministers in the government.

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Premier David Eby announced he was moving Brenda Bailey out of the Finance Ministry, prompted by her recent cancer diagnosis and the prospect of weeks of treatment.

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Her prognosis is good, happily.

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But Finance is heading into a fall of endless meetings to prepare the budget to be presented next February.

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The plan is for Bailey to remain on medical leave until the Oct. 5 resumption of the legislature. She’ll return as minister of jobs and economic growth, a portfolio she filled previously.

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Until then, Energy Minister Adrian Dix will be doing double duty in the Jobs Ministry because the current occupant, Ravi Kahlon, is moving on to Health.

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Not as good news a portfolio as Jobs, where Kahlon presided over the ambitious Look West resource development plan.

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Kahlon inherits the challenge of explaining how it is the New Democrats — despite doubling health spending and adding tens of thousands of health care workers — cannot keep emergency wards consistently open in many parts of the province.

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Yet, for someone who fancies himself a future NDP leader, the new posting is better than finance, where he’d spend much of his time saying no to spending requests from colleagues.

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The new finance minister is Josie Osborne. She moves over from health, the spending-est portfolio in government, to one where she is supposed to hold the line against the outflow of cash from the treasury.

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By Bailey’s own numbers, released this week, last year’s deficit was $7.7 billon, and this year the shortfall is forecast to almost double to $13.3 billion.

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If that constitutes bending the cost curve downward in Eby’s estimation, I shudder to think what it would look like if his government lost control.

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Osborne characterized herself as “a fast learner” and pledged to spend the weeks ahead “listening.”

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If Bailey’s experience is any guide, Osborne will learn that in a David Eby government, the finance minister spends her most important time listening to the premier and his inner circle.

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One early decision will be a response to the recent call from the legislature finance committee to back off expanding the provincial sales tax to services.

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The change takes effect Oct. 1 and the added tax bite is booked at half a billion dollars for a full year.

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Eby indicated “thumbs down” Friday when a reporter asked about the recommendation. B.C.’s PST is applied to the “narrowest base” of any province in the country “and we require revenue to run the government,” said the premier.