Speaking from her Victoria office on Wednesday, Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall said Tuesday’s budget, the first for her new NDP government, has much to offer her constituents.
“Yesterday was a very emotional day,” Mungall, who doubles as the Minister of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, said in a telephone interview. “During the election campaign, we heard time and time again that we need affordable housing and childcare.” Without change, she said, the labour market will only continue to face labour shortages.
The childcare debate has been going since the 1960s, she said and was first mentioned formally in a 1970 Royal Commission report.
The 2018 budget announced by Finance Minister Carole James promises to provide childcare at no cost to families with under a $45,000 household income, and lower cost to thousands of other families.
“When I called child care providers with details of our government’s $1 billion plan there were years of joy,” Mungall said. “The opposition says this is an anti-business budget, but business has told us that affordable housing and childcare are needed to combat labour shortages.”
She cited the Quebec experience, where a $10 a day child care program has proved to be self-financing as the economy grows with more parents able to enter the workforce.
“Getting rid of that regressive tax,” is the way she describes the plan to eliminate Medical Service Plan premiums in 2020. A payroll tax, scaled from zero for employers with payrolls under $500,000 to 1.95 percent on the those with payrolls of more than $1.5 million, will fund the cost shift.
“The tax will only affect 15 percent of businesses because most larger employers already include medical premiums in their employee benefits.”
Creston Valley’s agricultural sector will benefit from a $29 million injection to the Buy BC, Grow BC, Feed BC program, and School District No. 8 will be among the beneficiaries of a new capital and maintenance fund for education facilities.
“I am just in the process of arranging a meeting with the SD8 Superintendent of Schools,” she said.
Seniors care and Pharmacare are getting funding increases, the latter which will benefit nearly a million families, she said. “And we have committed $250 million over the next three years to support team-based health care,” an approach that works to connect patients with medical teams that offer a variety of services, including those of nurse practitioners.
“We want to roll out more nurse practitioners and make sure they are working to the full scope of their training,” Mungall said. And in an effort to provide more medical services closer to the homes of patients, the government will top up the $5.5 fundraising effort for East Kootenay Hospital’s new permanent MRI campaign.
Partnerships to create affordable housing spots will see a $14 million Columbia Basin Trust fund matched to create 225 new affordable rental units over the next three years, she said.
With regard to addressing needs of the Indigenous population, Mungalls said there is no single segment of the budget devoted to First Nations people.
“Instead, there are line items dotted throughout the budget as we target specific needs with funding.” One item that will be of particular benefit to the Kootenay region’s Ktunaxa people is a $50 million fund to support the revitalization of indigenous languages. There is support for First Nations people through the entire budget, she said.
Much of the increased spending will be funded through taxes on high earners and foreign real estate buyers, but the economy will get a boost from housing construction and policies that help more people enter the workforce, she said.
Asked about her recent announcement that she and her husband are expecting their first child this summer, Mungall said her baby seems excited by the budget news.
“It was celebrating by giving me the kicks, this afternoon,” she said. “I think it likes the noise during question period!”