The Hospital Employees’ Union is pleased to see expanded government support of public health care, including stepped-up capital funding of $15.5 billion for critical health care infrastructure.
Secretary-business manager Lynn Bueckert says the budget will increase investments in public health care and provide a measured plan for the province to move forward together in a time of economic uncertainty.
The HEU applauds the government for boosting health care investments over the next three years to ramp up capacity in the health care system, as well as build new and upgraded care facilities.
“In this budget, we’re seeing the government continue to renovate and build hospitals and long- term care facilities,” says Bueckert. “While Conservative provincial governments across Canada are privatizing health care, this government chose to protect people and public health care, while safeguarding the economy.”
The BC Chamber of Commerce says the budget does not deliver the economic incentives, tax changes, programs or policy shifts required to kick-start the economy.
Chamber president Fiona Famulak says ongoing investments in health care, education, and safety are important priorities that will deliver key services.
However, she says investments in tax credits for film production, additional support for highway maintenance, BC Transit services and the expansion of the Integrated Marketplace Initiative pilot program, are only a small fraction of the overall provincial budget.
Famulak warns they are not consequential enough to create significant economic impacts.
The BC Chamber says it’s concerned about a continued reliance on significant deficits, approximately $10 billion in each of the next three years, and says the budget does not consider the expected impacts of US tariffs, which could result in $1.4 to $3.7 billion of loss in revenue annually.
The Business Council of British Columbia warns the province’s public finances continue to deteriorate in the absence of a credible path to restore fiscal sustainability, and a missed opportunity to improve conditions for private-sector investment and hiring.
David Williams, BCBC’s Vice President of Policy, says BC is in a deep fiscal hole, one that is likely to get deeper.
“Record deficits were already a concern, but once the full impact of U.S. tariffs is accounted for, the province’s financial outlook worsens significantly.”
BCBC’s Director of Policy, Jairo Yunis, says despite the Premier’s commitment to fast-tracking approvals for specific projects, “this budget missed an opportunity to improve conditions for private-sector investment and hiring in the face of the Trump administration’s threat to B.C.’s industrial base.”
As the US proceeds with tariffs, the BC Business Council is looking to the government to quickly follow up with bold action to improve our competitiveness and strengthen the economy.
BC Policy Solutions senior economist Alex Hemingway says the BC budget maintains social spending and capital investment, but under-invests in key areas like childcare, housing and social assistance and disability rates.
Hemingway says with President Trump’s trade war underway; the government should focus on increased investments where people most need them—housing, health care, poverty reduction, childcare and diversifying the economy,
He says it’s necessary to build and protect British Columbia with support for affected workers, a bigger role for public investment and a more diversified and self-reliant economy.
Hemingway says shortchanging social spending and infrastructure would only weaken BC’s long-term economic growth and productivity.
“In the years ahead, the government needs to ensure provincial revenues increase—both by growing the economy and taxing the rich—including the wealthiest landowners.”
Hemmingway says there are some modest positive steps on housing, including an additional $318 million over three years for BC Builds as part of the government’s goal to deliver thousands more rental homes for middle-income people.
However, commitments to increase critical investments in affordable, non-market housing are missing, as well as an election platform promise to create a new annual infrastructure fund for municipalities tied to increasing housing starts.
