Just a day before the B.C. government releases its budget, Premier Gordon Campbell is warning that government revenue has been "clobbered" by the economic downturn.
He says natural gas and natural resource revenues are down by half a billion dollars each and corporate and personal income taxes are down by a billion dollars.
Campbell says the government has no control over those revenues, but it did make the decision to take $1.6 billion from the federal government to implement the harmonized sales tax -- and he doesn't regret it.
The premier says bringing in the HST was the right thing to do for the economy and our children's future, and people can judge the government on the issue in the next provincial election in 2013.
Campbell says the HST funds will help build a financial bridge over dropping revenues to protect government services.
The premier isn't revealing how big the deficit will be or how long the province will have deficit budgets, saying the finance minister will release that information on Tuesday.
