John Rustad and the BC Conservatives waited until 94 hours before election day, after more than half a million people had voted, to reveal to people that he doesn’t have plans to fund the bulk of his promises.

The wait was not worth it.

From infrastructure and child care to public safety and supports for seniors, John Rustad’s platform costing grossly underfunds or entirely leaves out commitments - showing that he’s been making it up as he goes along and has no intention to keep his promises to British Columbians.

While ballooning the deficit to give breaks to penthouse owners in downtown Vancouver, Rustad confirmed he will cut supports for people.

Missing: all kinds of promises

If it seemed to you that Rustad was making promises with the carelessness of someone who never expected to explain how he’d pay for them, turns out you were right. The costing is perhaps missing more of Rustad’s promises than it actually contains funding for.

Here are just a few (I’m sure you can find more):

• No new capital funding for hospitals, schools, housing, BC Hydro, roads, bridges or transit
• No new health spending to cover any of his promises
• No money for flagships commitments like redeveloping Riverview, building a new Surrey Children’s Hospital, Skytrain to Newton or adding patient care towers in Nanaimo and Prince George
• No funding for SAFER housing supplement increase for seniors
• No funding for new community parks for seniors
• No tax incentives or infrastructure for mining (even as he’s overcounting the revenue)
• No funding for BC Ferries flat-fee for commuters
• No investment in wildfire prevention or response
• No money for Rustad’s magical promise to “build new towns”
• No money for rural infrastructure to support agriculture
• No investment in forestry communities, workers or operators
• No funding for social workers in schools

Child Care Cuts for Families

Rustad says he will give new tax credits for unlicensed child care and stay-at-home parents - but his costing reveals he will fund this by taking away existing childcare supports from families.

• With just $37 million over two years for all of their childcare measures combined, it is clear that the only way to pay for his new tax credits is to cut funding from existing programs like the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative. This will cost parents between $550 - $900 every month.
• And while the platform claims he’d do “everything possible” to bring new spaces online, he has no new capital funding for creating new child care spaces - $0.
  • David Eby has committed $500 million in a capital fund to create tens of thousands of new spaces.

Public Safety Underfunded

John Rustad’s plan to direct police to not enforce federal gun laws will make communities less safe – and their platform shows they don’t have a plan to fund their public safety promises.

• A paltry $27.5 million per year won’t come close to covering their promise to hire more front-line officers, let alone all the other high-priced items they say it will cover, like increasing the number of sheriffs and judges and creating a whole new court system.
• Further, there is no money allocated for their commitment to expand capacity to train more officers.
  • The BC NDP’s budget to hire over 250 police officers is $230 million over three years.
• There is no money for Rustad’s long-trumpeted involuntary care plans. The costing document has no mention of Riverview restoration or other involuntary treatment.
• Rustad's platform claims to make the largest-ever investment in care capacity, but there’s no sign of it in the costing with just $19 million per year to supposedly cover all his other treatment and recovery promises.
  • David Eby’s Action Plan for You commits an additional $262 million over the next two years to provide support for people with addictions.

Make believe mining revenues

Rustad continues to claim that the 16 proposed critical mineral mines will generate “$11 billion in provincial tax revenues” (p. 31) and he’s repeatedly claimed this as annual revenue.

• But the Mining Association of BC study he’s pulling from estimates the same mines could generate a one-time total of $10.9B in revenue for all levels of government - BC would only get 1/3rd of the revenue.
• And what’s more, the revenues are one-time during the construction of the mines - not ongoing annual revenues, as Rustad claims.

The bottom line is that Rustad has no plan to follow through on his promises, and B.C. families would pay the cost.