Years ago, Premier W.A.C. Bennett said the NDP “couldn’t run a peanut stand.” The BC Auditor General’s report on the province’s 2023-24 financial statements may reinforce that opinion. The Auditor General qualified his opinion of the province’s financial statements for the seventh time in the last seven annual Public Accounts released by the NDP.
The Auditor General holds that British Columbia’s method of accounting for external contributions is not appropriate under Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards. The AG states that if revenue reporting standards were followed, the province’s surplus would have been higher by $7.67 billion.
Additionally, the AG said that the government is not accurately reporting contractual obligations. These represent commitments to make expenditures for services and facilities for a considerable period into the future. These ways of downplaying debt became popular under BC Liberals. Before 2017, NDP leaders claimed to be disturbed by privatizing ownership of facilities that were being paid for by the public. In government, the NDP found inaccurate reporting of contractual obligations was politically convenient.
According to Financial Reporting & Assurance Standards Canada:
Accounting standards are authoritative standards for financial accounting and reporting developed through an organized standard-setting process and issued by a recognized standard-setting body. …The objective of such standards is to meet the needs of users of financial statements by providing the information needed for accountability and decision making.
Accounting standards are the primary source of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
Like previous BC Liberal administrations, the NDP government wants financial reporting to serve political purposes. While issues that trouble the Auditor General may seem unimportant to many citizens, governments owe a duty to citizens to manage finances with maximum correctness and transparency.
Ministries, government organizations, and even the Office of the Comptroller General have been found by the Auditor General to have significant areas needing improvement. Financial accounting and control should be strengthened to protect the public. Accountability needs accurate and timely disclosures.
10 GAAP Principles
- Principle of Regularity: GAAP-compliant accountants strictly adhere to established rules and regulations.
- Principle of Consistency: Consistent standards are applied throughout the financial reporting process.
- Principle of Sincerity: GAAP-compliant accountants are committed to accuracy and impartiality.
- Principle of Permanence of Methods: Consistent procedures are used in the preparation of all financial reports.
- Principle of Non-Compensation: All aspects of an organization’s performance, whether positive or negative, are fully reported with no prospect of debt compensation.
- Principle of Prudence: Speculation does not influence the reporting of financial data.
- Principle of Continuity: Asset valuations assume the organization’s operations will continue.
- Principle of Periodicity: Reporting of revenues is divided by standard accounting periods, such as fiscal quarters or fiscal years.
- Principle of Materiality: Financial reports fully disclose the organization’s monetary situation.
- Principle of Utmost Good Faith: All involved parties are assumed to be acting honestly.
Categories: Accountability
in-sights.ca 
Again Norm, it is so disgusting to read how willfully deceitful are governments we think we can trust. The old saying that comes to mind, fool me once , shame on you, fool me twice , shame on me. Maybe we need another provincial vote. No wonder the international purchasing power of our dollar is heading towards zero. Thanks for this disclosure Norm. Regards Erik
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I have to laugh, especially at those who support the NDP, who believe they are are somehow pristine clean, when it comes to politics and that Rustad Conservatives were Beelzebub incarnate. Both politcal parties have Pandora box’s full of skeletons that party brass want to remain hidden.
When it comes to provincial finances, politcal BS rules the accounting and it has been ever thus.
Example, the 16 km Expo line extension to Langley, which just 5 years ago was said to cost no more than $1.65 billion is now a whopping $6 billion or even more dizzying $7 billion if one includes the Operations and Maintenance Centre #5, which is needed to maintain the problematic 5-car trains now being used.
The hype and hoopla for the 5.7 km, $2.8 billion Broadway subway, which opening has been delayed by a couple of years has now spiraled to around $4 billion according to what TransLink is saying back east, when they were on their knees begging for more federal cash.
Our local media, with no reporters back east missed that one.
In fact to complete the Broadway subway to UBC in 2024 dollars is nearing $8 billion and rises by 2 to 3 times more the rate of inflation (due to the cost of cement and specialty steel), demonstrates why Translink is begging for more and more money.
In fact the total costs for extending both the Expo and millennium Lines a mere 21.7 km is now topping $16 billion!
Yet there is no mention of this by the provincial NDP or any the financial statement from the government.
One wonders how many more provincial projects suffer from cost creep, kept hidden by government.
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Bent Flyvbjerg, provides many examples such as those you cite in his book “How Big Things Get Done”. A couple of excerpts:
“An American politician said the quiet part out loud in a 2013 column for the San Francisco Chronicle about transportation infrastructure in the Bay Area. ‘News that the Transbay Terminal is something like $300 million over budget should not come as a shock to anyone,” wrote Willie Brown, a former San Francisco mayor and California state assemblyman. ‘We always knew the initial estimate was under the real cost. Just like we never had a real cost for the Central Subway or the Bay Bridge or any other massive construction project. So get off of it. In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment. If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved.’ Needless to say, Brown was retired from politics when he wrote that.”
“With contracts signed, the next step is to get shovels in the ground. Fast. ‘The idea is to get going,’ concluded Willie Brown. ‘Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.”
Does that remind anyone of Christy Clark’s vow at Bill Bennett’s memorial service? “Premier Bennett, you got it started and I will get it finished. I will get it past the point of no return.”
Notwithstanding the repugnant politics at a memorial service, she signalled her intent and did her part to take an ill-conceived project with an initial budget of around $6 billion to $16 billion and counting.
Closer to home, Metro Vancouver’s North Shore wastewater treatment plant has experienced a cost overrun of $2.83 billion, with the total cost now estimated at $3.86 billion.
There comes a point where this sort of abuse of the public purse transcends incompetence and moves into territory whereby a very close look at section 380 of the Criminal Code should be undertaken. I believe we’re past that point.
Mr. Flyvbjerg calls it strategic misrepresentation. I call it fraud on the public. These people can’t possibly be that stupid.
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I find it interesting that the North Shore wastewater treatment plant gets so much angst and ink, yet the Expo Line extension to Langley, which went from about $1.65 billion to $7 billion (this includes OMC#5) and nary a news report on this. In fact the extension, which will increase in cost about 2 to 3 times the rate of inflation, due to the increasing costs of cement and steel, is glad handed by almost all.This tells me the media is very selective on reporting which major mega projects are money-pits and which are not deemed not money-pits.By comparison, the originally planned for 1978 LRT construction plan from Vancouver to Richmond and Vancouver to Loughheed Mall and Whalley would have cost $1.88 Billion to $2.45 Billion in adjusted 2024 dollars!
Something to think about!
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