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Good morning! Wendy Cox in Vancouver here.

Every budget the BC NDP has delivered has had to be pre-election-style, offering something substantive in case of a snap election.

A refresher: The NDP governs because it formed a partnership with the BC Green Party following the 2017 election. The agreement gives the NDP the slimmest majority in the Legislature: 44 seats, including 41 for the NDP, plus two Green MLAs and Andrew Weaver. Mr. Weaver has resigned as Green leader to sit as an Independent, but he has shown no indication he will abandon the working arrangement with the government.

On the other side are 42 Liberals. Then there’s the Speaker, Darryl Plecas, who sits as an Independent after originally being elected as a Liberal and remains in a relationship of deepest acrimony with his former colleagues for several reasons. Should he ever be called upon to break a tie in the Legislature, it’s highly unlikely he’d side with the Opposition.

Still, while the NDP has governed with little political turbulence over the past three years, privately NDP politicians know that each throne speech and each budget must be geared for the potential that the government could fall.

So it was a bit of a surprise this week when the throne speech, which is supposed to provide an overview of the government’s agenda for the session, offered almost nothing new. Were it not for the loud protesters blockading entrances to the legislature and hurling verbal abuse and insults at anyone trying to enter, it would have been a difficult assignment to find news out of the speech.

The authors must have been aware they had to say something. How else to explain this pledge: “This spring, new legislation will give police more tools to block the use of illegal firearms and ban guns from schools, colleges, universities, and hospitals.” Apparently, there is no specific provincial law banning guns from such places. Not surprising as gun control and the Criminal Code are federal jurisdiction. One wonders why current federal laws with tight restrictions on firearms wouldn’t do the trick.

So the budget to be delivered Tuesday is expected to be a stay-the-course kind of blueprint, with heavy references to policies the government has already announced to much fanfare but which are now churning along, making progress but with incomplete results.

Among the government’s main initiatives were measures to address the housing crisis in the Lower Mainland. Reporter Mike Hager has spent some time compiling a report card on how things are going.

He examined official housing data and spoke to industry players, analysts and academics to determine how the government has handled this signature file.

He found the province is lagging well behind the pace of creating an average of 11,400 affordable units a year needed to eclipse the 10-year goal of 114,000 new units for families earning a median household income or less, Indigenous people, students, homeless people, and women and their children fleeing domestic violence.

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Selina Robinson told him her government has now enacted 16 of its 30 housing policies, though she acknowledged that hitting the ambitious supply targets within the 10-year time frame will be a challenge.

These homes often take at least a year from getting financing to welcoming their occupants and Ms. Robinson says her government has moved swiftly on the supply side, despite the relatively small number of units now complete.

The taxation measures introduced by the government, along with other federal measures, has helped cool the market, but that has also meant slowing sales activity last year led to a $475-million drop in expected revenue from the property-transfer tax. That hurts a treasury that has committed billions to increasing supply.

Finance Minister Carole James indicated last fall at the release of the government’s first-quarter results that belt-tightening would be needed to meet the government’s targets: the projected surplus was revised downward to $179-million from $274-million and the growth forecast dropped to 1.7 per cent in September from 2.4 per cent in February of 2019.

The NDP has committed to fiscal prudence. On Tuesday, Ms. James will reveal how she balances a budget in financially constricting times with legislature math that requires everyone to be in election-ready form.

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here. This is a new project and we’ll be experimenting as we go, so let us know what you think.

COASTAL GASLINK: The Prime Minister is defending his government’s handling of the anti-pipeline protests that have shut down rail lines and disrupted commercial use and passenger travel across the country. Justin Trudeau says politicians should not be telling the police how to enforce the law, but that his government has been in contact with provincial premiers to find a solution. The B.C. project at the heart of the protests is a 670-kilometre pipeline that will feed a $40-billion liquefied natural gas plant in Kitimat. Several First Nations support the venture, except for the ones who have defied a court order and blocked construction. Follow the latest developments with our explainer on what’s happening and why.

WAR ROOM: The CEO of the Alberta government’s “energy war room“ has been forced to apologize after a bizarre series of tweets attacking the New York Times over an article about the oil sands. The tweets from the Canadian Energy Centre, which have been deleted, brought up a 17-year-old plagiarism scandal at the New York Times and accused the paper of anti-semitism. It’s the latest embarrassment for the centre, which launched with a stolen logo and faced criticism after its writers were identifying themselves as reporters without disclosing their affiliation to the government.

HOUSING: Developers and numbered companies are increasingly the owners of land where Vancouver’s small retailers operate, prompting concern about the health of commercial streets that define the city’s neighbourhoods. The city looked at the issue with a new study about commercial vacancy and who owns Vancouver’s commercial space.

TECK FRONTIER: The Alberta government is accusing Ottawa of changing the rules for an oil-sands project at the last minute while not keeping the province in the loop. Alberta has been increasing pressure for the federal government to approve the mine by the deadline later this month. But the federal government has warned that the environmental impact from the project, including emissions, would need to factor into the eventual decision. Alberta Environment Minister Jason Nixon says Ottawa needs to pick up the phone.

ALBERTA ENERGY REGULATOR: The Alberta Energy Regulator laid off scores of people this week as part of an effort to drive down staffing costs and cope with budget cuts. The AER said in January that under the new design, employees would be focused on four main functions: adjudication and regulatory decisions; environmental, energy, and safety oversight; energy information; and stakeholder engagement, which is industry and community outreach.

‘GAMING CONSCIOUSNESS’: A B.C. Supreme Court judge says she’ll consider expert evidence that a man charged with killing a pair of strangers may have been in a “gaming consciousness" at the time of the crime. The defence has come up in the trial of Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam, a video-game fanatic charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of the husband and wife couple in their Vancouver home in 2017.

OIL SANDS: The Alberta government is arguing in court that it can take as long as it sees fit to approve an oil sands project that has been waiting 19 months for a decision. Prosper Petroleum Ltd. is suing the government over the delay, asking a judge to order the provincial cabinet to make a decision.

MOO...DY COWS: New research out of the University of British Columbia has found that adolescent cows go through mood shifts just like human teens.

Opinion:

Andrew Coyne on resource development and First Nations: “The government’s strategy had been to present the issues of climate change and resource development, the environment and the economy, as at worst a trade-off, at best a virtuous circle.”

Gina Starblanket and Joyce Green on the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs: “The failure to respect the decision of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs represents a broader statement from Canada: that it is not willing to bear the political costs of reconciliation, but it is willing to incur more decades of political estrangement between Canadian governments and Indigenous nations.”

Robyn Urback on the Coastal GasLink protesters: “The voices of band members from 20 First Nations along the Coastal GasLink project route who want it to continue – those who have indicated, through elections or other means, that they want construction on the natural gas pipeline to move ahead – have been eclipsed by the views of a small group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who hold jurisdiction over just a portion of the land the pipeline will cover.”

Adrienne Tanner on turmoil at Burnaby City Hall: “The [Burnaby Citizens Association] has lost its leader, and it’s not clear who will be able to take his place. It has failed to inject new life into its ranks.”

Kelly Cryderman: “To walk this fine balance, the federal Liberals are likely to attach significant conditions if they approve the Teck Resources project by month’s end. It will be an inelegant political solution to a difficult problem.“

Eric Reguly: “Mr. Kenney is crying wolf. Rejection of a project that can’t go ahead unless oil prices are sustainably higher, and can’t go ahead unless it finds a partner and is connected to pipelines, will hardly devastate the Alberta economy.“

The Globe and Mail Editorial Board: “However, if Frontier is built – and at current oil prices, that’s a big if – it would become a significant new source of carbon emissions. That’s true of any new oil sands development. As a result, approval of Frontier and other projects is only possible with stringent conditions for reducing emissions.”

Max Fawcett: “By giving it the green light and linking the decision to Mr. Kenney’s promises about the project’s environmental performance, [the Prime Minsiter] can claim to be a champion of both the environment and the economy.”

Letters: “It’s extremely frustrating to me that Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson seems to be playing politics in tying the approval of the Teck Frontier project to Alberta’s climate-change commitments.”

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