Moves to ease British Columbia’s housing crisis top the agenda in the first full budget brought in by the N-D-P government since it came to power last summer. The budget includes a new tax on property speculators and higher taxes on foreign homebuyers. The fiscal plan also aims to create 114-thousand affordable housing units over the next decade. Finance Minister Carole James says the government can’t fix the housing crisis overnight but it can bring in measures to improve affordability for those who most need the help. The provincial government says it’s getting rid of the unpopular medical service plan premiums paid by individuals and families for health care. The B-C budget calls for the premiums to be eliminated on January 1st, 2020. The government had already announced it was cutting the premiums in half on January 1st of this year. It says once the premiums are eliminated, individuals will save up to 900 dollars a year and families up to 18-hundred a year. The NDP also plans to spend an additional one billion dollars on child care over the next three years to lower costs, increase the number of spaces available and improve the quality of care.