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VICTORIA — Just three months into the budget year, Finance Minister Carole James has added several billion dollars worth of hospital, school, housing and other projects to the capital plan.

James took the wraps off the expanded plan Tuesday, all the while insisting that the additions were affordable within the NDP budget and the province’s vaunted triple A credit rating.

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“This is the largest capital plan that we’ve seen in B.C.’s history,” she told reporters in releasing the report on the first quarter of the 2019 financial year. “We know the difference that it’s making in communities that haven’t seen this kind of investment.”

The changes added 19 projects with a combined price tag of $2.66 billion to the plan.

Many were announced piecemeal earlier. This was the first time they were been gathered together in a single quarterly update on the budget.

While governments sometimes add projects and tweak others in quarterly announcements, the sheer scale of Tuesday’s changes was unusual.