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By Jim-beau Lieyeah STAFF GONZO

March 17%, 2000- As my eyes rise up from my snow covered Doc Martens, I see the silhouette of the Coles Building, lying in the shadows of Province House. It is 7:55AM and I have traded my sure to be snowstorm cancelled class to sit in with barely 20 other journalists. On this St.Paddy’s Day they will ingest and interpret some 230 pages worth of numbers and propaganda and the spin they take fromit will guide how the general public will take it. What I want to do is portray how a gig like this goes

down.

The first thing one needs is a press pass. I had secured this in November but waited until today to claim it. This necklace gives me privileged access and assures me guarded words from everyone from the security guard to the Minister. It also entitles me toa thick manilaenvelope of documents and unfettered access to coffee and other munchies.

On Thursday, I had been told that I should get involved

with what is known as the “lock-up.” What that means is my presence at 8AM Friday morning to get

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the information I need and give me time to digest it before the actual announcement in the Legislative Chambers of Province House. I sign aconsent form promising not to leak anything between eight and eleven. Leak is simply beating someone to the punch by getting the information out before the announcement is

see these journalists brain storm and discuss the varied content within the budget. Little groups huddle in corners. Credit must go where credit is due and the 4 French journalists were deep into the document when I walked in. I gota chuckle out ofhow things play out with the Franco contingent equivalent to 25%, kind of like their contingent in Canada. I mustalso point out

“lIt] reinforces what | think about

most journalists. hacks. 3

made. Then he asks

me for my cell phone.

Ionly need to smile and shrug before he realizes I am a writer

from the UPEI paper.

Itis an interesting exercise to

time looking over the speech the Provincial Treasurer Patricia Mella will give in the Legislature. Then I took a closer look at the numbers. What I see seems to be good news and I am not surprised by this because it has all the fixing ofan election budget. The one thing that stands out to me issomething called the Sinking Fund. What this really isis a contingency fund that the government can use to make sure they stay ina surplus area. The fund sits at $23 million

that I was the first Englishjournalist there which reinforces what! think about most journalists... hacks. I spent this

The Senior Class Awards are given to those graduates who have ‘seis .

a contribution to the Senior Class and to UPEI. awards to be given out. Nomination forms are included in the Gradua- tion Information Packages being mailed out next week. Please take the time to enter your choice of nominee for each award and retum the form to the “Senior Class Box” located in ue Breezeway before lait

April 7, 2000. Awards

Owen MacDonald Award - Student Excollanial

Service Awards Spirit Award

Class of ‘98 Leadership Award

Life Executive

Please renee ed nominations close on April 7, nee: end 2 will take place during ; Awards willbe prese!

Listed below are the

presently and the government has

decided to draw on it to make sure the

budget is balanced. What this little hoarding exercise is is aspecial slush fund that I expect to get used up in the course ofthe impending election campaign. Here are the key numbers that stand out. The government has revenues of $882 million and expects to spend just under that in its forecasts to arrive ata surplus of about $200,000 for the year 2000-2001. Revenues are down by about $11 million due primarily to cutting the provinces tax rate from 58.5%. to 57.5% of the federal tax take. This

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coupled with federal tax cuts accounts for most of the $11 million. The most alarming part of this is that federal transfers to the province _ amount to $340 million or about 38% ofall ofthe government of PEI’s revenues.

Last years budget (1999-2000) had a$16.5 million surplus which the Tories managed to bury ina manner that would make Paul Martin envious. Basically, they took $12.5 million of that surplus and set up 4 different funds to spend it with this year. This led to a $4 millionsurplus which was put against the net debt of the province which is $986 million. This level of debt is dangerous because the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP- which is the total value ofall goods and services produced on the © island- basically everything) is $2.99 billion. This creates a debt to GDP ratio of 33%. This high levei of debt means that the province must

- pay $108.5 millionin

interest charges which represents 12.2% of the budget the third biggest