B.C.’s finance minister says it’s not true that the NDP government is fudging the province’s budget numbers to try and make a record deficit look smaller by booking money that was supposed to come in over two decades into one lump total this year.

Brenda Bailey said “it is a very normal accounting treatment” to take a $3.6 billion court settlement with tobacco companies that will be paid over 18 years as $2.7 billion this year instead. Finance officials admitted that amount does not actually exist in cash, and so the province will borrow the bulk of it — almost $1.8 billion — and pay itself back over time as the cash flows in annually.

As a result of the move, the provincial deficit projection released Monday sat at $11.6 billion, instead of almost $14 billion.

“This isn’t a magical num

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