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There have been some changes in government accounting since 2001 that explain the differences, the Education Ministry said in a statement.

“The reason the report’s GDP numbers are wrong is the CCPA ignores the fact that back in 2001 a number of items were included in the education budget that are not included now,” the ministry statement said. “For example, debt service costs ($363 million) and the amortization of prepaid capital expenses ($201 million) were included in the 2002-03 education budget as expenses. Since 2009-10, those two major expenses are found in the Ministry of Finance’s budget.

“When using the same comparable expenses from the education budgets for 2002-03 and 2016-17 … funding has increased slightly once adjusted for inflation.”

The ministry also disputes the per-student funding comparison, saying the Statistics Canada report from which the figures are pulled doesn’t compare apples to apples.

“The reason is that different provinces include different items (like borrowing costs) in education funding,” the ministry said. “B.C. does not. If we included the same expenses other provinces include in their education funding, we would rank about sixth for average per pupil funding.”

Hemingway said he stands by the numbers and said he did additional analysis of other figures that gives him even more confidence in the numbers.

“The Stats Can report where that comes from does have a disclaimer that cautions comparisons. They’ve put together the best numbers that they can,” Hemingway said. “That’s the compilation of interprovincial comparison of per-student funding that we have and I think it’s a good estimate.”