If the phone rings, it's not a telemarketer ... it's the Finance Minister!

Residents of the North Coast will have an opportunity to have their say on the provincial budget preparations next week, as Mike de Jong the province's Finance Minister hosts a Telephone Town Hall for Northern BC.

The Telephone Town Hall Forum is scheduled for Monday evening at 7 PM and Prince Rupert has been slotted in with a range of other northern communities for a chance for some access to the Finance Minister and a discussion on issues in the lead up to the Provincial Budget.

The notice outlining how to participate was released through an information statement on the Government of BC website  today, providing a link to a registration form for participants.

You will only be called if you register for the Telephone Town Hall, with the registration process a fairly simple thing requiring only a few details before you're added to the call out list.

And while it's easy to sign up, whether you will have much success in asking any questions will probably depend on the level of participation across the North.

Besides Prince Rupert, communities set to take part in the Budget discussion include:

Prince George, Vanderhoof, Williams Lake, Terrace, Kitimat, Quesnel, Chetwynd, Fort Nelson, Tumbler Ridge, Lillooet, Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Fort St. John and Dawson Creek.

Something which makes for a potentially large pool of participants, all of them with a fairly diverse range of local interests looking to try and grab some time with Mr. de Jong.

If you don't get a chance to ask a question during the phone in portion of the forum, you can still get your comments through, by submitting them by email through an engagement forum at citizenengagement@gov.bc.ca. 

As part of that process, Minister de Jong is expected to respond to many of the questions and post responses following the telephone forum.

You can also share some thoughts on a number of Discussion topics that the Government is looking for feedback on, with three Discussion issues currently listed and seeking contributions.

Those themes include:  Housing Affordability, Government priorities and Economic Growth and BC Jobs Plan.

You can find out more about that engagement process here.

Should residents of the province wish to be kept up to date on the budge preparations they can also sign up for Updates from the province from the Budget 2017 home page.

More background on Provincial politics can be found on our Legislature archive page here.

The 2017 budget will be the last one before the province's voters head to the polls in the upcoming May British Columbia election, you can find the latest items of note on the North Coast election trail from our North Coast Votes Election archive page here.