 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Budget Lockup 2018. I'm really pleased to be able to present our first full-year budget since becoming government seven months ago, and I also want to say what an honour it is to service finance minister for our government, but most importantly for the people of British Columbia. Now, before I move into the slides, I just want to take a few minutes to set the context for the budget that I'm going to present and the choices that we made. Many of you will remember in September, I said that a budget shouldn't be removed from the everyday realities of the people of our province, that a budget shouldn't stand alone, because a budget is more than revenue and expenses. A budget is about people. It's about the kind of communities we want and the kind of future we want. We're incredibly fortunate and I feel fortunate every day to live in a province that is so rich in resources, in diversity, in natural beauty and opportunity. But what's been so clear over the last 16 years is that opportunities have become further and further out of reach for so many. The choices that we've made in this budget put the focus on a path to prosperity for everyone. They support the people of this province and a strong sustainable economy that works for everyone. And there's no better example of that than our major investments, childcare and housing. In December, I was at a baby shower for friends in the neighbourhood and had an opportunity to listen to a lot of mid-30s folks talking about their childcare issues. And I think many of you have attended baby showers. You know that people share parenting tips and they share the kinds of things that are important for new parents to know. There are people who had just had babies, people who had one and two year olds and some folks who were pregnant and about to have babies. But this was a very different kind of discussion. It was a discussion that had panic in it. It was a discussion that talked about crisis. People weren't sharing tips about parenting. They were reminding people, get on a childcare list now before the baby comes. Make sure that you're on two or three lists because you may not be able to get childcare. A parent who talked about the childcare centre that she had found that ended up being not a good experience for their family and her quitting work because of it. And so I think it's important to recognise the kind of situation that families are facing in British Columbia when it comes to childcare. The other piece of course that is a major investment in this budget is the issue of housing. And I have to say that both as an opposition MLA and now as a government minister even the day that goes by where I don't have someone stopping me to talk about housing whether I'm out walking in my neighbourhood, whether I'm visiting with groups and organisations, we may be meeting on a completely different issue, somebody raises the crisis in the housing market. We've had a senior last year in my constituency office who was sleeping in her car, gave up her apartment, wasn't able to find affordable rent. The other piece that I find so often now particularly as finance minister is meeting with business organisations and groups who are looking at recruiting people to British Columbia who talk about it as their major issue when it comes to finding employees. They look at the price of housing here and they turn down the job offer. And so in a very tight labour market I think it's important to recognise that childcare and housing are two of the most important examples of the link between social programs and a strong economy and that the choices that we make today really put us on a path to what we want our province to look like in 10, 20 or even 50 years. That's why it's critical that we make investments in this budget that link to people and the realities that they face in our province every day. And that's the approach that I've used in building this budget. It's balanced fiscally and it's balanced in its approach. So now I'll get started with the slides. So first an overview of the economy. As you can see from the indicators up on the screen, BC's economy is strong as our major indicators economic indicators show. In 2017 employment growth in BC had the fastest annual increase since 1994. Our unemployment rate is now the lowest in the country. Retail sales continue their upward trend and a contributing factor to that is consumer confidence which in 2017 was at its highest average in a decade. We continue to see housing starts reaching the highest annual level ever recorded and I'll talk a little bit about that as we get into the housing piece. And again despite some moderation that we saw in recent months international merchandise exports grew by 13% in 2017. So what's the outlook? The outlook for BC's economy continues to call for stable economic growth. Data for 2017 has continued to show strength and because of that BC's real GDP growth for 2017 was revised up from 2.9% in budget 2017 that I presented in September to 3.4%. And we expect that economic growth to continue. Therefore the forecast for economic growth in 2018 has been revised up to 2.3%. And meanwhile if you look at 2019 and beyond again prediction is steady moderate growth unchanged from previous outlooks because of the balance of risks to domestic and global economies. That remains largely unchanged from when we presented the September budget. Therefore you see the continued moderate growth. As well we built imprudence into this budget as we did in September. Budget 2018 forecast for real GDP growth is 0.2 percentage points below the outlook that we receive from the Economic Forecast Council for 2018 and 2019 and 0.1 percentage point below 2020 and beyond. So again making sure that we acknowledge the risks and making sure we build in those levels of prudence in the budget and I'll talk about a few of those others as we move along. So before I talk about the specifics of the commitment that we've made in 2018 budget, I just want to share an update on our third quarter financials. You will remember in the second quarter I talked about the challenges we faced with a significant decline in tax revenue, the adjustments that happen from the federal government that some years go up and some years go down. We had a challenge as you'll remember in the second quarter. This quarter we've seen some improvement. Those numbers are back up again when it comes to the adjustments. And we've also seen improvements in sales tax, property tax, natural resource and fee revenue. Now if you look at the commercial crown net income you can see a large negative change. And this points to a financial burden that we have inherited that should have been acted on earlier. So this shows the years of poor choices and neglected ICBC which meant that over a billion dollar forecast loss gets built into our budget in the third quarter of this fiscal year. We also faced an unprecedented wildfire season and I think those are the kinds of things that you can't predict. I think what's so frustrating about the issue of ICBC and the situation we're faced with is that that could have been predicted and there were changes that could have taken place to be able to address this crisis. But nevertheless this is an issue that we have to deal with in the third quarter and that we've had to build in. So build into our budget for 2017-18. So you will see as a result of these changes that we have lowered our surplus from 190 million to 151 million. The forecast allowance and the contingencies remain unchanged and you will have heard me say and I continue to say that I remain cautiously optimistic that we will balance the budget this year despite the kinds of challenges that we faced with wildfires and despite the kinds of challenges we faced with the unexpected loss at ICBC. So we'll now move on to the specifics of Budget 2018. We are tabling a balanced budget and we forecast surpluses across the fiscal plan even after ICBC's financial results and I think it's just important to note that ICBC doesn't have an impact simply in 2017-18. It continues to have an impact when you're looking at their debt. We have included in this budget a very conservative estimate of the impact of the product reform that has been announced by the Attorney General and so we have put in some resources that we believe will start improving the situation at ICBC but nevertheless it still means building in the kinds of deficits that you see coming from ICBC. We also maintain prudence. We have forecast allowances in this budget of 350 million, 500 million and 600 million in each of the years along with contingencies of 550 million and 750 million again in the out two years. We've also included and I think this is important to note we've included 1.4 billion in 1920 and 1.2 billion in 2021 for priority spending initiatives for future budgets. So this will include government's commitment to indigenous peoples for reconciliation. This includes case load pressure that may occur. As you know we're implementing some new programs and there may be case load pressure that occur and so we want to make sure we've got those dollars put aside and you will all know that in 1920 we began bargaining as well and so we built in some resources towards that. So again this is recognizing the importance of the pieces coming forward in the budget and the prudence when it comes to the forecast allowance recognizes risks particularly with ICBC. I continue to be concerned about what we're seeing in ICBC and so that's why we're going to have to watch. So one of the biggest challenges and I think you've all heard me say this often with our budget is that this is although this is our first budget and we will have been government for seven months the expectations are huge. The expectations that we will do everything in our first budget are huge and so it's even more important from my perspective to make sure that we're focusing in on our priorities and you will have heard these repeated and we will mention them again. We are focused on making life more affordable improving the services that people count on and building a strong sustainable economy. That drives the choices that we make and that drives the budget that you will see coming forward. All of our work as well is framed by our work with Indigenous people. As you know we have a commitment to fully adopting and implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Premier has given every minister the responsibility of adopting and implementing the Declaration and the calls to action so this doesn't sit simply with the Minister of Indigenous Affairs. This is a responsibility of all of us across government. Addressing reconciliation really is a shared responsibility for all of us. So you will see support for Indigenous peoples throughout this budget. We have invested in housing, childcare, skills training, Aboriginal Friendship Centers with more than $200 million across those programs dedicated to Indigenous priorities in those particular areas. But there's one other piece that I just want to mention and that's the $50 million that we are putting in this fiscal year for the preservation and revitalization of Indigenous languages in BC. We all know that our First Nations languages are in a state of crisis. Of the 34 languages in our province eight are severely endangered and 22 are almost extinct. This funding is going to flow immediately because there is no time to lose and will make a huge difference in support for Indigenous peoples in our province. So now I'm going to move on to our two main areas of focus in this budget and I'm going to start off with childcare. I'm so proud to be able to note that Budget 2018 marks the beginning of a Made in BC universal childcare program. It's going to take time to deliver and that's why we're starting right away in a big way in this budget. We're going to build a childcare system that is affordable and accessible. We all know, and I mentioned it earlier, that parents are anxious about finding childcare, that businesses are also feeling the impact of parents who can't get back into the workforce or aren't able to be able to come back to work after their children are born or they're struggling with days off because their childcare situation isn't working out. Businesses have told us that the economy and economic growth has hampered because of that. We've seen the BC Business Council, for example, the BC Federation of Labor, Chambers of Commerce, Vancouver Board of Trade, and municipalities across our province who've urged us to improve access to quality, affordable childcare. We also need to make sure that we heed the ever-expanding body of research that shows us the public spending on childcare is a wise social and economic investment. So let's look at the details. This budget, Budget 2018, offers the largest investment in childcare in BC's history with a billion-dollar childcare investment over three years. It will lower costs for parents, it will increase the number of childcare spaces, and it will make sure that those spaces meet the highest standards for quality care. The childcare plan is focused on two key investments to reduce childcare costs. First, we're introducing a new affordable childcare benefit starting in September of this year. It will provide up to $1,250 per month per child. This benefit will be paid directly to service providers on behalf of eligible families to reduce the monthly childcare costs of 86,000 families by 2021. Second, starting in April of this year, the childcare fee reduction program will provide up to $350 a month for a childcare space directly to licensed childcare providers. These fee reductions will benefit an estimated 50,000 families per year by 2021. The highest level of benefits, you'll notice I said up to, the highest level of benefits will apply to infant toddler care because this is often the least affordable and the most difficult to find. And families who are earning less than $45,000 a year will pay little to nothing for their childcare. Together, this is the largest investment that a government has made to reduce parent fees for childcare in British Columbia. But parents have also been clear that even if they could afford childcare, there aren't enough available spaces. And so that's why we're creating 22,000 new childcare spaces throughout this province. We're increasing grant funding to encourage building and maintenance of spaces where there need to most around BC. We're going to work with municipalities, with school districts, with not-for-profit operators to accelerate the creation of these spaces. And because family-based care is a choice made by many parents, we're also going to provide incentives to unlicensed care providers to become licensed. Our plan to build more childcare spaces also means a greater demand for early childhood educators. And we all know that we need to do more to support this critical field. So we're going to work with our partners to develop a comprehensive workforce development strategy that will examine early childhood education. It'll involve training, and it'll involve looking at compensation because we need quality early childhood educators to be able to provide quality childcare. We're getting started by growing the early childhood educators program in our colleges and universities. And with these commitments, we're setting ourselves on a path to universal childcare. This represents real transformational change in our society. Our plan will be affordable for families and the province. It'll be accessible for parents so they can get back to work. And most importantly, it will give children a safe, supportive place to learn and grow by meeting rigorous quality standards. So our second investment, priority investment in this budget is a housing strategy. You've heard us talk about the fact that housing affordability affects us all. And this problem has been ignored for far too long. The result in communities has meant that they've seen vacancy rates drop while prices rise. Young people attending school haven't had access to student housing. Young professionals are faced with moving out of their communities or the province. Seniors are struggling to meet rising housing costs. And they're on fixed incomes and face homelessness. And parents have certainly told me that they worry their children won't have a safe, secure place in the housing crisis. It's also businesses in the economy as I mentioned earlier that are feeling the impacts here. Three out of five Vancouver Board of Trade members cite housing unaffordability as a barrier to recruiting and retaining employees. People want government to take action and that's why today we're setting out a 30-point plan that commits to long-term solutions. It starts with taking action to stabilize the market and the economy. We will introduce a new annual speculation tax starting in BC's urban areas. It will tax foreign and domestic speculators and the tax will apply to property owners who don't pay income tax in our province, including those who leave their units vacant. And satellite families with households with high worldwide income, the paid little income tax in British Columbia This tax will penalize people who have been parking their capital on our housing market simply to speculate driving up prices and removing rental stock. Tax notices will come out before the end of this year and primary residents and long-term rentals will generally be exempt and be able to claim an upfront exemption. Additional details about the tax and information about how to apply for the exemption and the tax credit will be provided prior to the tax coming into effect. This is a major important step to end speculation in our market. To curb demand, we're also increasing the additional property transfer tax rate. This is known as the foreign buyers tax, 15% Currently we are increasing it to 20%. We think that foreign buyers should contribute more for the quality of life that they enjoy when they move to our province. Currently this tax as you may know only applies to Metro Vancouver extending it to the Fraser Valley, Central Okanagan, Nanaimo and Capital Regional Districts. Extending it to other communities ensures that we don't push the speculation into neighboring markets and we're also improving tax fairness. We're asking those who benefited from high prices to give a bit more back. We're also going to increase the property transfer tax and school tax rates on the assessed value of properties more than $3 million. We're also making sure that online rental platforms pay their fair share of provincial sales tax and municipal regional district taxes known as the hotel tax. With these changes, we're working to bring stability to housing prices and raise revenue for affordable housing. Our goal is fairness. Fairness for the people who live here, who work here and who pay their taxes here. And that's why we're also taking steps to counter tax fraud and money laundering. That starts with closing loopholes and with better access to information. All of us have heard the stories of condo units being sold multiple times before they're even lived in. We wonder if people have paid their fair share of taxes. It's unfair to people who are trying to buy into the condo market. So we are going to change legislation and require developers to collect short comprehensive information about pre-sales. Through that tracking of pre-sales we can assure that people are paying their fair share of taxes and we can also develop future housing and tax policies. There's another loophole that's also being used and that's hidden ownership. Numbered companies offshore and domestic trusts stand-in owners often hide the true source of capital that's flowing into our real estate market. A lack of transparency in our land registry means true ownership is unclear. We're also going to change that. We're going to require additional information on beneficial ownership on the property transfer tax form. We're going to establish a registry, a beneficial ownership in BC that will be publicly available and shared with law enforcement and tax auditors. We're also going to introduce requirements for corporations to hold accurate and up-to-date information on beneficial owners. This information is going to help prevent tax evasion and inform future housing policies. We're also changing tax laws to help us verify the information that people actually provide on that property transfer tax and income tax forms. Again, this will strengthen our audit and enforcement powers along with the federal government. Taken together, these steps will return a sense of fairness to the real estate market for the people of British Columbia. So demand is one half of the affordability equation. Supply is the other. We are going to build the homes that people need. These homes are going to be a mix of housing for families, people with disabilities, seniors, and they're going to range from supported social housing to market housing for people with moderate incomes. We're also making significant investments to preserve and protect our existing social housing for the people already living in them to make sure that we don't lose that housing because of neglect to the market. I'm also pleased to say that the government is going to allow colleges and universities to borrow, to be able to build much-needed student housing, and together will finance 5,000 new housing beds. That not only helps students who want to live on campus, but it also frees up rental units in communities that students are living in now. We can't fix the housing crisis overnight, but we can act, and we can plan now for the future. That's why we're going to invest more than $7 billion over the next 10 years. It'll be the largest investment in housing in the history of our province, and it's going to support almost 34,000 units of affordable rental, supportive, and student housing. But it's clear we can't do this alone. We're charting a path to help build 114,000 affordable housing units over 10 years, but this can only be done through partnerships. It's going to require a focused effort on our part and everyone's part. And that's going to be spearheaded by a new housing hub office at BC Housing. This office is going to bring everyone together to facilitate the building of affordable homes. It's going to help develop partnerships to find, to use, to redevelop available land in communities that have been hardest hit by the housing crisis. Just to give you an example, there are faith groups who have large church properties that are willing to look at building affordable housing, but they're not in the business of affordable housing. They're not sure how to go about it. This will provide them an opportunity to be able to come to the housing hub through BC Housing, use the expertise that's there and be able to look at expanding affordable housing with existing land coming in as part of the partnership. That's the kind of partnership that we're looking at across this province. In tackling the crisis, I mentioned building homes for those most in need. We're investing in supported housing units for people who are struggling with homelessness. We're going to work with Indigenous housing societies and First Nations and we're going to support women and children who are leaving unsafe situations. We know that their housing affordability really hits renters the hardest, and most of our vulnerable citizens who are at risk. And so we put forward a number of ideas on rental properties. Sorry, just make sure we move that. Thank you. We put forward a number of ideas on how to increase supports for renters, everything from supporting tenancy law, strengthening tenancy law, boosting housing supply, closing loopholes, a renters rebate and a number of other ideas have come forward, including an interesting idea about looking at the homeowner grant and perhaps making that more fair, more fair tax and using some resources from that to be able to provide support for tenants. And so we're going to continue our work on options for renters but we're beginning with the most vulnerable. We are making improvements to our two rental programs, rental assistance program which is known as RAP, and the shelter aid for our elderly renters known as SAFER. We are going to expand eligibility and increase the benefits of RAP so that low income working families will see their average payment increase by approximately $800 per year. Seniors who receive SAFER will see their average payments increase by more than $930 a year. Our current program changes will help more than 35,000 households and as you know we made changes in September to increase funding to the residential tenancy branch and we'll be taking the next steps to strengthen protections for renters and manufactured homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes. The actions our government is taking will give British Columbians greater choice in finding housing near where they work and go to school. So I've outlined changes that will be made to the tax system to help housing affordability. It's clear that the people in our province want a tax system that's fair and that's why we took initial steps in the September budget update. We reduced the small business tax from 2.5 to 2%. We cut PST on electricity for businesses in half that year and will fully eliminate it on April 1st, 2019. And we also as you know reduced MSP premiums in half of January this year. BC continues to be an outlier across our country is the only province that levies MSP premiums which is a regressive and unfair tax. Whether a person earns 60,000 or earns 200,000 a year they pay the same amount. We also know that MSP premiums impact businesses. They're complex, they're tough to administer, we've heard that over and over again. And that's why when we came in as government we committed to eliminating MSP premiums within four years. We've been consulting British Columbians through our MSP panel and it's clear the public wants us to complete this work. So I'm proud to announce today that we will be eliminating MSP premiums all MSP premiums effective January 1st, 2020. This means families will save $1,800 per year and individuals will save $900 per year. A huge savings for families. It'll help make our tax system more fair and more progressive. Now it goes without saying that eliminating the MSP also eliminates a large portion of government revenues. We're making sure in this budget that we can continue to deliver the services people count on and maintain fiscal responsibility. That's why we'll replace MSP revenue with an employer's health tax similar to what other provinces have done. The tax will be levied on medium to large businesses in BC that are benefiting the most from the elimination of MSP and it will be the lowest payroll tax rate in Canada. Small businesses with payrolls less than $500,000 will not pay the tax. Businesses with payrolls between $500,000 and $1.5 million will pay a lower portion of the tax and businesses with a payroll over $1.5 million will pay the full rate and the revenues raised that will replace the MSP revenue will be invested in people and the services they count on most importantly healthcare. So continuing with our work to improve fairness we are going to be raising the luxury surtax on cars valued over $125,000 ensuring that those who benefit from our roads and public services have a fair share. For passenger vehicles with a purchase price between $125,000 and $150,000 the rate will be increased from 10 to 15%. For passenger vehicles over $150,000 the rate will be increased from 10 to 20%. So I'm now going to speak to a number of other areas in the budget that are focused on affordability. Drug prices have risen and in our province Colombians can't afford to take their medication as it's prescribed. People are making choices between filling their prescription and filling their fridge with groceries. We know we can do better. In this budget we're eliminating deductibles and family maximums for low income families. Approximately 240,000 families will benefit from this expanded coverage. Budget 2018 also delivers on the government's commitment to make ferries more affordable. Ferry costs of skyrocketed putting coastal communities at a disadvantage that is both costly and unfair. Businesses are feeling the pinch too. That's why we're freezing ferry fares on all three major routes and we're rolling back fares on non-major routes by 15%. We're also fully restoring Monday to Thursday 100% fare discount rates for seniors. In addition you'll remember we ended the bus pass clawback restoring transportation for people receiving disability assistance in our province. This means that more than 100,000 people with disabilities can travel more freely in their communities and connect with the services that they count on. Another critical service that people in our province rely on of course is healthcare. To sustain and improve our healthcare system we'll be investing 548 million of those funds in services for seniors. Seniors are living longer fuller lives than ever before. They contribute to our province and they deserve to live their lives in dignity and respect. This investment is going to increase specialized primary care services help seniors stay in their home with more than $1.5 billion in new funding over the next three years. Help seniors stay in their homes longer and fund more staff to improve the quality of care in our seniors homes. And recognizing as well that many British Columbians do not have a regular family doctor we're expanding access to team-based care to help people get the care that they need. Continuing on with enhancing services we all know that investing in our children means investing in our future. We deserve the best education from dedicated teachers and teaching assistants throughout this province. That's why we're hiring more teachers in this budget bringing our total to over 3,700 new hires across this province in September. We're investing in enrollment growth to ensure our children have the resources they need. Now to continue on with our work to enhance services for people we're also improving access to families. In many years we know that families have been left without access to legal aid services. So in this budget we're expanding legal aid including indigenous and family law services with 26 million over the fiscal plan. We're investing another 10 million dollars for family dispute resolution and digital access to justice services to help reach people in all corners of our province. We're also adding 15 million dollars for our sheriffs and court administration staff to reduce court delays. And we are going to be standing with women and children who are survivors of violence with an 18 million dollar commitment for ongoing funding for counseling, outreach and support. And this is in addition to the 5 million dollars that we put in the September budget. Our government's focused on building a strong economy in every corner of our province and I've spoken about that earlier in the impact that that has on families but also on businesses and hampering their ability to be able to retain a reliable workforce. The lack of housing is also a real barrier to business growth and that's why we're making significant investments in these two priorities both as a social investment in our province and an economic investment in British Columbia. We're also in this budget investing 15.8 billion dollars in capital projects in schools, hospital, hospitals and transit. Significant capital investments are going to support 50,000 direct and indirect jobs in every corner of BC. In addition, we're investing 484 million dollars to enhance the economy and its sustainability and I'll just run through a few of those examples in the next couple of slides. As I mentioned investments in people are investments in a sustainable economy and that really is the impact that we are making from the previous government in our budget is that they are inextricably linked. That's why we restored free tuition for adult basic education and English language learning. It gives people the opportunity and the access to education. In September, we also expanded the tuition waiver program for young people who are formerly in care to attend post-secondary. Since last September's investment in expansion of this program 129 young adults received tuition waivers in just four months. Now in Budget 2018 we're building on that work with an added 30 million dollars over the fiscal plan to enhance agreements with young adults. These changes are going to increase the monthly financial support that's provided to over 800 children, former youth in care. We've seen what these young people can do when they have the support they can do after they leave home. Another key investment in this budget will be 30 million dollars for an Indigenous Skills Training Program. A First Nations-led program that connects Indigenous individuals with training and job opportunities. And we're establishing a new Indigenous law program at the University of Victoria. Lastly, we're supporting newcomers to BC with 9 million dollars to help them get started and contribute to our economy. Our industries have so much to offer to the rest of Canada and the world and we all know that diversification is critical to a strong sustainable economy. So with Budget 2018 we're investing 29 million dollars over three years in BC's agriculture, food and seafood sectors through Grow BC, Feed BC and Buy BC programs. We know that enhancing local marketing efforts is going to drive consumer demand and sales here at home and internationally. And bolstering our brand is going to support our vital agricultural land reserve, increasing food marketing efforts and improving the brand recognition of the food we bring to overseas markets. We're also supporting strong vibrant communities in our creative economy with new funds for the BC Arts Council and Creative BC. And our new labour market funding federal government is going to further help British Columbians who are seeking employment. So while our economic growth has remained steady it's been a tough year for people particularly in the interior where many of our individuals and communities faced unprecedented wildfires. We need to do more in those communities to support our province's response to wildfires and that's why Budget 2018 invests an additional 50 million dollars to help communities better prepare for and respond to wildfires. An additional 22 million is dedicated to land based recovery and activities to provide further support in response to the catastrophic 2017 wildfire season. We're also providing funds to work with indigenous people, communities, industry and government to modernize land use planning processes bringing our support to 72 million dollars. We're going to develop an energy roadmap to support the transition to a low carbon future and we're going to improve protection and recovery measures for wildlife populations. These investments will support our resource sectors and our rural communities building a sustainable economy for the future. So Budget 2018 invests in people and creates jobs with record levels of capital spending as I mentioned on schools, hospitals post-secondary institutions roads, bridges and other infrastructure across this province. Taxpayer supported capital spending is expected to total 15.8 billion over the next three years the highest level ever. This includes the Patello bridge replacement which we just announced as many of you know 70,000 cars and trucks cross this bridge every day bringing people to work and home and goods to market. So we're going to develop an energy roadmap to support the transition to a low carbon future and we're going to develop an energy roadmap for the future and we're going to develop an energy roadmap for the future as I mentioned earlier these investments are going to support 50,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction building to again build a strong sustainable economy. So let's look at a couple of indicators earlier than forecast in budget 2017 update. This will be the first time government has been direct operating debt free in over 40 years. Let's look at debt affordability. Government is also able to make record levels of investment in priority infrastructure again because of our strong growth, higher revenues, improved cash flows and a higher near-term GDP outlook. This means that our taxpayer supported debt remains affordable. Debt to GDP and our debt to revenue have improved in budget 2018 compared to the forecast we had in September. So to summarize, budget 2018 is balanced with surpluses forecast each year. Our debt remains affordable and it incorporates several layers of prudence including robust forecast allowances and contingencies. We are economic leaders in Canada. But I do not believe that we can consider ourselves leaders if we're not sharing the prosperity of our province with the British Columbians who helped create it. This budget is balanced in its approach and it's fiscally balanced. In January of this year 2.49 million people had jobs. That's a near record level for British Columbia. Retail sales, housing starts and exports exceeded expectations in 2017. And private sector forecasters expect BC to rank near the top of provincial rankings in economic growth in 2018 and 2019. This is good news for British Columbians and our future. These positive economic indicators translate into good jobs and growth opportunities in our community. And they go hand in hand with key investments in people and the services that will help drive future economic growth. Budget 2018 puts people first. It makes an historic investment to take care of our children. It takes bold steps to tackle the housing crisis. It invests in record levels of infrastructure to create jobs and spur economic growth in every corner of our province. And it adds value to our province and to our future as a progressive society. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the opportunity to address you. I know you'll have a chance to be able to ask some technical questions over the next while and I look forward to coming back for your questions. Thanks so much.