The B.C. government says it has spent $121 million to fight fires so far this season.
That figure is 80 per cent less than what was spent to fight fires for all of 2018 ($615 million) and 81 per cent less than 2017 ($615 million). Provincial fire crews have responded to more than 780 fires that have burned just over 21,100 hectares of land.
Finance Minister Carole James was asked if this year has been a lucky break financially for B.C. residents.
“We had a contingency budget of $750 million. That’s much larger than any of the average budgets over the last decade… Budgets tend to have between $300 and $400 (million) built in as a contingency. So we have in fact built in a larger contingency, wildfires were certainly one of the risks.”
James says the province had initially budgeted $101 million dollars to fight fires this year but raised that budget an extra $92 million dollars.
“So we believe, again, that we’re in good shape for the fire season, given that we’re past the critical place. It doesn’t mean that the risk is gone, but certainly we’re past the most critical time when it comes to the challenges of wildfires.”
Meanwhile, the B.C. government is expecting a smaller budget surplus and less economic growth this year because of global uncertainty.
During a first-quarter update for the first quarter of the 2019-20 fiscal year, the Finance Ministry which shows a projected surplus of $179 million which is down from $274 million when the budget was first announced in February.
James says we are seeing changes in the global economy.
“The global economic winds are shifting, there is uncertainty out there. That’s going to impact British Columbia; it impacts every province across the country. We are all impacted when there are global economic changes. Commodity markets, export markets, uncertainty for investment. All of those things have an impact on our budget. But I think… B.C. will continue to be a leader because we built in prudence in our budget, because we’ve been prepared, because we built the fundamentals that are critical to being able to weather the economic storm.”
The economic growth is now forecast for 1.7 per cent this year compared to 2.4 per cent when the budget was first announced.
