VICTORIA-British Columbia’s auditor general has raised doubts about the accuracy of the province’s public accounts, saying the $1.3-billion surplus announced by the government this week should have been about six times bigger. The audit office says in a news release that its qualified opinion is “unusual and should not be taken lightly.” Auditor general Michael Pickup’s office says there were three departures from generally accepted accounting principles in the books that were released Tuesday, including the way B.C. records payments from other governments and non-government sources. It says if the financial statements followed Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards, the 2021-22 surplus would have been $6.48 billion higher, and liabilities would have been lower by the same amount. The office says a second problem meant there were incomplete disclosures of future expenditures,

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