The latest provincial budget and three-year fiscal plan represent, according to Finance Minister Colin Hansen, a status quo approach for British Columbia. There are, he says, no significant announcements.

True, the budget is replete with stillness on a host of critical public issues. It is the silence of the Liberals that is most noteworthy in the budget introduced Tuesday.

If the 2011 budget has a vision for the province, it is a mixture of governmental complacency and partisan calculation.

The main messages of this "standpat budget" are maintaining the core services in health, education and social services; keeping tax rates low; and moving to a balanced budget over the medium term. We are told that B.C.'s economy is improving, but still vulnerable to uncertain global economic activity.

But the vulnerabilities of tens of thousands of citizens in B.C. society are absent from the government's plan. Indeed, the utilization rates for children and family services and income assistance are identified in the budget as risks to the government's fiscal plan. Describing the use of public services as risks, rather than as rights or resources, diminishes the character of citizenship in our province.

The dominant partisan strategy of this fiscal plan is the creation of contingency funds of $1.1 billion in 201112 and another $2 billion over the subsequent two budget years.

No mere wiggle room this; the three-year total of $3 billion is the governmental equivalent of an immense discretionary account available to the next Liberal leader and premier.

So, while there may be no major new announcements, there are these major new allocations for unspecified programs, budget choices and policy initiatives.

Where there is silence in this budget, we urgently require dialogue; whether on the need to increase the shelter allowance in income assistance programs; on the employment programs for assisting people into the labour force; on the state of children and families in the province; or on steps to tackle wait lists for a range of essential personal supports and community services.

As to be expected, there is the usual rhetoric of maintaining core services, yet there is no real discussion in the budget speech and plan of what are core services and priority funding areas.

Social development programs are claimed to be a core service in this budget.

However, by 2013-14, the Ministry of Social Development's budget is planned to actually decline by $20 million, compared to 2010-11. With a growing provincial population and slowly recovering economy, this can only mean mounting deprivation and persistent poverty.

A status quo spending plan continues the approach of ignoring British Columbians struggling on the margins of our communities. For many British Columbians this stand-pat budget stifles new plans, curbing possibilities for expanded actions and new opportunities for individuals and families in need.

A status quo budget tells families who are on wait lists for vital services to keep waiting; in effect a form of rationing, for example, for safe housing, quality child care or appropriate mental health services.

A status quo budget suggests no additional investments in prevention or early interventions or supports are required to protect vulnerable aboriginal and other British Columbian children and youth or to strengthen the caring capacity of families and communities.

This status quo budget tells persons with disabilities that they will continue to grapple with life on inadequate income support, unmet needs and little help with employment aspirations and rely on segregated services. This is the case, even as persons with disabilities represent over half of all the people in B.C. dependent on income assistance.

We can only hope that the new premier will present a more imaginative and concrete agenda that will address the array of social and economic needs of individuals, families and communities in the province.

We need more than hope though. In order to renew the quality of democracy in our province, citizens must demand that legislative committees and the legislature actively engage the public in urgently needed discussion.

Such a fundamental dialogue of future directions might well warrant a general provincial election sooner rather than later.

Michael J. Prince is Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy at the University of Victoria.