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Short on substance

Editorial

The fall sitting of the B.C. Legislature kicked off Tuesday with the reading of the throne speech.

It’s an annual tradition full of pomp and ceremony with Lt. Gov. Judith Guichon provided with the honour of reading the speech that is meant to set the course the provincial government wants to head for the next year.

The Liberal government wants to continue to build on its progress implementing the B.C. Jobs plan and grow our diverse economy (forestry, mining, tourism) to help fund vital public services.

Curiously, though, there is little mention of LNG projects in the speech. Oh, it’s in there, but government isn’t falling all over themselves promoting LNG, blaming declining oil prices as the reason why LNG is not front and centre in its plans.

It’s all fine, but the speech really lacks any details on how government plans to achieve those goals.

And there is no mention of BC Ferries or transportation issues. No mention of health care or education. No mention of helping those in need.

There were a few hints of what might be coming in this Tuesday’s budget from Finance Minister Mike de Jong — who, by the way, is promising to bring forward the third consecutive balanced budget — but no actual details.

It’s certainly good news that a third consecutive balanced budget is in the offing, but how about telling us how you are going about doing that?

No, this throne speech, all 15 pages of it, was short on substance and really was much ado about nothing.

Naturally the opposition was not impressed.

New Democrat leader John Horgan dead-panned with media that the reading was 30 minutes he would never get back, while lone Green Party MLA Andrew Weaver offered the Liberals the chance to steal some of the Greens’ ideas if they were struggling to come up with their own.

Premier Christy Clark took all the criticism in stride, even going so far as to jokingly point out to reporters covering the legislative beat that it wasn’t her job to come up with interesting news stories to tell. Well, she is right, but when you hand reporters nothing, that’s what you will come back with — nothing.

We can only hope that come Tuesday, when the budget is presented, it will contain something — some tax breaks, some help with education and health care, maybe some brilliant ideas concerning BC Ferries. If it doesn’t, then it looks like we are in for a long fall session debating a whole lot of, well, nothing.