B.C. hides massive deficit under the cover of Trump tariff threats

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Of the many tactics U.S. President Donald Trump uses in his political communication is to “flood the zone.” His behaviour can appear erratic, his pronouncements are bellicose and his policy whipsaws on an almost hourly basis. While useful to Trump, this flood is a great danger for Canada for more than the obvious border chaos it creates. It also draws our attention solely to what’s going on down south, while ignoring serious domestic political problems.

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The issue is particularly pressing in British Columbia, where the NDP is ducking responsibility for unfathomable fiscal mismanagement and its latest $10.9-billion deficit by hiding under the cloak provided by Trump’s endless howling.

For B.C., this is no small matter. The figures are staggering by any measure. When Premier David Eby took over from John Horgan in November 2022, B.C. was on track for a $5.7-billion budget surplus. Somehow, by fiscal year end, under Eby’s new leadership, this huge surplus had been reduced to only $700 million. Still, a surplus is a surplus, so who was to quibble?

But it was then that Eby really got spending. By the next year — fiscal 2023/24 — B.C.’s deficit had ballooned to over $5 billion and accelerate in 2024/25 to a then-record of over $9 billion, before the latest mind-boggling $11 billion fiscal hole claimed top spot. This is not getting the attention it deserves, and Trump is the reason.

The B.C. NDP’s reputation for fiscal profligacy was well earned in the 1990s, and while John Horgan’s government was respected for its economic balance, Eby has returned B.C. to an era in which dollars have become meaningless figures on a page that can be endlessly spent, regardless of whether the province can afford it.

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Were all this set against a backdrop of flourishing business and bright economic prospects, perhaps the situation would not be so dire. But that is not B.C. under Eby’s NDP. While Trump’s gun to their head belatedly forced the NDP to “fast track” some resource projects they had been dragging their feet on, it was still not enough to turbo-charge B.C.’s resource sector. Where, for example, is the move to get LNG Canada Phase 2 moving in all of this?

While the fast-tracked projects are welcome moves for a government that had mostly abused the resources sector for years, many more projects remain in permitting purgatory, waiting for the NDP to sign off. The province, and its people, are poorer because of this.

This is the financial quagmire B.C. has descended into due to a government that has focused on an activist agenda, rather than pragmatic policies that benefit its citizens.

In a discussion earlier in the year at AME Roundup, a large mining conference in Vancouver, Eby noted that, “It’s not lost on me that this is a complex place to do business in British Columbia.” I beg to differ. It is entirely lost on the premier, as is any semblance of fiscal responsibility.

His recent rhetoric might sound good, but years of dumping on resources, making life more difficult for businesses and his complete and utter disregard for the value of taxpayer dollars are far stronger indicators of what the premier’s priorities truly are.

In our focus on, and staunch rebukes of, Trump’s assaults, we can’t let our own governments off the hook for their abysmal fiscal mismanagement.

National Post

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