With the provincial legislature now once again sitting, on Tuesday Premier Christy Clark kicked off the last session before the coming election Tuesday with a throne speech focusing on "securing a brighter future for British Columbia families."

To do so, Clark touted the creation of the British Columbia Prosperity Fund, which would go toward eliminating provincial debt and reducing taxes across the board. The fund would be made up of revenues collected from exporting B.C.'s natural gas to Asian markets, and could raise between $130 to $260 billion over the next 30 years, according to Clark.

"The path forward is one that continues to strengthen our economy, that doesn't burden our children with debt, where British Columbians have jobs in their communities and where every British Columbian can prosper," Clark said.

However, while the initiative was aimed at making this easier for British Columbia families, the NDP opposition were having none of it.

For Surrey-Green Timbers MLA Sue Hammell of the B.C. NDP, Clark's speech was no more than a display of how out of touch the current government is with today's issues.

"They have no plan around the film or television industry, they appear to have no plan around tourism," said Hammell. "Then there's the forest industry, we don't even know what the inventory on the land is anymore because it's been so badly neglected and, really, it seems to be it's like the Liberals have lost their drive and energy and they don't have much vision for how to move forward with British Columbia."

As for the Prosperity Fund initiative, Hammell said she found it odd that Clark and the Liberals could be so certain about funds decades into the future when they've had troubles predicting such revenue in the past.

"Over a six-month period just last year, they were half a billion dollars out on the revenue that they were expecting from natural gas, so how they can look into ll some kind of crystal ball and say we're going to have all this money so many years out is really quite bizarre," said Hammell.

"It lacks credibility and certainly doesn't help the person looking for childcare tomorrow or someone with a disabled child who needs assistance or teachers trying to cope with class size or composition - none of those issues are being grappled with."

Calls to local Liberal MLAs were not returned by press time.

Twitter @questionchris

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