British Columbia’s 2026 provincial budget is drawing sharply divided reactions, as the government defends tax changes as necessary for long-term growth while business organizations warn they will raise costs and discourage investment.
The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade said the budget will not only affect B.C. residents’ affordability but also their jobs.
“It is clear the government and the business community are not on the same page,” said Bridgitte Anderson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade at a press conference on Tuesday, adding she believes the province does not have a revenue problem, but a spending problem.
Ryan Mitton, director of legislative affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the cost of doing business in B.C. is already too high.
“B.C. is experiencing an entrepreneurial drought,” he said. “More businesses have closed shop or left B.C. than have opened in the last five consecutive quarters.”
The B.C. construction industry, which employs more than 240,000 workers, is experiencing “an affordability crisis that has turned into a jobs crisis,” Chris Gardner, president and CEO of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, said.
Get breaking National news
He added that thousands of people across all levels of employment have already been laid off and more layoffs are expected.
“At the subcontractor level, the individuals who wake up every day and build homes and build everything around us, we are seeing layoffs that we have not seen in a generation,” Gardner said.
The budget, released on Feb. 17 and set to take effect in October, will raise PST on many services such as accounting, security and engineering.
When it comes to the housing market, Mike Drummond of the Urban Development Institute warned developers are stepping back. He said the message to builders is clear: “Building in this market is not a priority.”
Drummond added the pipeline of new construction applications is drying up and cautioned the slowdown will affect more than the construction sector, impacting both homeowners and prospective buyers.
Finance Minister Brenda Bailey defended the budget in a legislative scrum on Tuesday. “We are addressing the government spending issue by reducing the size of the public sector,” she said, adding when it comes to revenue the government is focusing on long-term economic growth in areas such as mining, LNG and biotechnology.
“It’s really important to recognize that these small changes in taxes allow us to protect the services that everyone in B.C. relies on,” Bailey said.
“We all need a high-functioning health-care system, and we need to make sure kids are having a good experience in their education system, which also helps attract people to work in businesses.”
BC is a basketcase. Fiscally, socially. And much of it can be lain at the foot of Mr. David Eby. The single most completely detached Premier this Province has ever had to bear…
Doug you’re so hot to baby. Mmm yeah we’re old and white and we know everything. Oh yeah Doug you bad boy. I wish I was there to smell your finger
Say it again while I finger myself…. oh yeah James…. oh yeah baby
Mmmm yeah James you’re turning me on so much. Key words like rhetoric and hypocrisy. The NDP and the Indians are destroying this province and the greedy white people are the victims. Yeah baby say it again… You’re so hot. I love you James
Anyone can see this province is dying. Dying a slow, economic W E F based death. The climate change rhetoric of the NDP is killing this province. The anti oil anti LNG anti everything twofaced Indians, have done the rest. Tanker bans, yet they are going ahead with exploration etc on ‘their’ lands. Using the coast to ship. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Any taxes the NDP put on businesses will be passed down to the consumer. The NDPs motto has always been tax and spend but now they are wasting taxpayers money faster than ever and our healthcare system is breaking down
NDP have put this province into a flat spin.
Massive debt, to tax revenue out of control spending zero business development.
Without any new or old industry to reap taxes off they can think up to add tax the services that people rely on to do business in the first place.
seniors also taking the brunt of the bad NDP