Highlights of B.C.'s 2009 budget

B.C.'s Liberal government will invest $14 billion on an infrastructure plan it hopes will cushion the province from the worst effects of the world economic crisis and create up to 88,000 jobs over the next three years, according to the provincial budget released Tuesday.

The following are highlights of the budget:

• Deficit forecast to be $495 million for 2009-10; $245 million for 2010-11.
• No new increases or cuts in personal income taxes. A planned rate reduction of three per cent for the two lowest income tax brackets was made retroactive to January 2008.
• No wage increases for government employees.
• Fully 90 per cent of all new spending in three-year fiscal plan is devoted to health care. The remaining 10 per cent goes to improving education.
• Infrastructure projects: $14 billion to build and upgrade housing, hospitals, schools and roads. The projects are expected to generate as many as 88,000 jobs across the province. About $2 billion of that figure — earmarked for new projects to be accelerated over the next three years — will be cost shared with the federal government. And $1.4 billion in local infrastructure projects are being built in partnership with local governments and the federal government. The remaining $10.6 billion is for approved projects within the province's capital plan for the next three years.
• Public services: $110 million in new funding for income assistance; $110 million for families and children; $73 million for programs and services for adults with developmental disabilities; $47 million in additional funding for families and for children in care; and $58 million for policing and victim support.
• Community investments: $81 million for economic and regional development; $213 million to support local government; and $58 million for community safety programs.
• Education: $228 million over three years to boost post-secondary education, including $165 million to increase access to educational opportunities at universities, colleges and other institutions; $40 million to expand education in the health-care sector; $23 million to boost the number of doctors trained in B.C.; and $16 million for assisting immigrants to achieve professional qualifications.
• Increase in industrial property tax credit to 60 per cent from 50 per cent.
• Deferred property tax program, effective 2009-10, to allow homeowners experiencing financial hardship to defer their property taxes if they have 15 per cent equity.
• New northern and rural homeowner benefit funded by the carbon tax to begin in 2011. Grant increased by $200 a year.
• Cutbacks: 76 per cent cut in budget for advertising publications; 22 per cent cut in travel expenses; 23 per cent cut in contracting services. Cuts in many other ministries, including an 85 per cent cut to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, largely due to the completion of the Vancouver Convention Centre. Also cuts to the ministries of Aboriginal Relations, Community Development, Environment, Finance, Forests, Healthy Living and Labour.