Can’t we just have less talk, and more action?

It’s day number three of the Christy Clark “Can You See Me Now”, province-wide, media extravaganza.  Today it touched down in Surrey with the promise of an additional $3 million dollars to be invested in the Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit program.

It’s not a lot of money, but apparently that $3 million infusion to the Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit program can eventually end up creating up to $10 million in additional equity capital for eligible new small businesses.

Here’s the question though, and please forgive me if it seem rather obvious, but is the current $30-million annual tax credit budget, for venture capital programs for small business, being tapped out?  Like I say it might seem obvious that it would be; however there has been no mention of it in today’s announcement, which causes me to wonder.  After all, this is a government prone to blowing their own horn.

The Investment Capital Program Guidelines actually offers a pretty sweet deal for people trying to make money by saving on their taxes – that’s because there is a 30% tax credit on an investment to the governments venture capital fund.  Given a bank rate of 1% or less, for savings and investment accounts, that’s a pretty sweet deal!!

I do want to say that I am sure there have been many success stories, for eligible businesses, that have been able to acquire needed equity capital.  Regardless, government generally seems to have a bad long-term track record when it comes to determining good investments (anyone remember BRIC which the Social Credit government set up with all the businesses the NDP bought up or invested in??).

So … what then has been the success rate, in creating new long-term business and jobs, through this program?

Also, I have to wonder with the investment money available from banks and other financial institutions … as well as from other government programs ... if this $3 millions is really needed?  If not then I guess we simply have a BC Liberal government saying "Look at us --- see what we did". After all ... we also have the BDC Venture Capital which as they say is, “a major venture capital investor in Canada, active at every stage of the company's development cycle, from seed through expansion, with a focus on technology-based businesses that have high growth potential and that are positioned to become dominant players in their markets.”

IF this additional $3 million is needed then good on the government for making it available … but to date I have not heard this fund was already tapped out.  And again, what about other sources of investment revenues that won't cost the government 30% of tax revenues?

Hopefully we will soon hear more on these questions, and what I am sure will be others, regarding today's announcement.

There was another part to today's announcement as well -- the always talked about, “we’re cutting red tape – we’re looking at taxes."  Here’s what Finance Minister Kevin Falcon had to say …

"This government has been a leader in cutting red tape, and we're committed to further streamlining government so that hard-working British Columbians can focus more time on running their business, and less time on paperwork and bureaucracy.  Drawing on this experience, I will ask an expert panel to take a broad look at BC taxes to make recommendations that help support business competitiveness, economic growth and jobs for British Columbians, as well as propose common sense administrative improvements to streamline the PST."

OKAY … tell me ONE political party that doesn’t promise this (and yes I know it is part of the BC Conservative platform).  Can’t we just have less talk, and more action?

AND … did we really need to have a big razzle dazzle announcement on this --- this is the ROLE OF GOVERNMENT is it not??

Well day number 3 of Christy Clark’s “Can You See Me Now” tour is over.  Tomorrow’s a brand new day and we’ll hear and see what she has to say.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll have an anno0uncement that really will indeed provide opportunity for real growth in the economy --- and in jobs.

I’m Alan Forseth in Kamloops, and those are the thoughts of one conservative.