The goal of B.C.’s next budget is to reduce the deficit, keep personal income taxes for people earning less than $150,000 per year the lowest in the country and cut spending while maintaining core services.
This was the message in a briefing for reporters on Thursday (Feb. 12) in the legislature.
How these lofty and somewhat conflicting goals will be achieved is unknown. And what is included in core services was not well-defined beyond the fact that it includes, but is not limited to, frontline health and education workers.
Normally, the government would outline the elements and themes of the upcoming legislative session and budget in the throne speech, but the speech was altered and instead used to memorialize the victims of the Tumbler Ridge massacre.
This means less is known about the province’s priorities heading into Tuesday (Feb. 17) when the budget is set to be revealed with a speech by Finance Minister Brenda Bailey in the legislature at about 1:30 p.m.
The last quarterly update for the 2025/26 budget projected the deficit at nearly $11.2 billion and provincial debt exceeding $155 billion.
Bailey has already said this next one will be a “tough” budget, and both she and the premier have acknowledged it will include spending cuts. For the most part, both have blamed the province’s economic struggles on U.S. tariffs and economic uncertainty resulting from President Donald Trump’s evolving trade positions.
B.C. Conservative finance critic Peter Milobar put the blame squarely on Premier David Eby.
“He’s talking as if he just discovered yesterday that they’re heavy with management and the cost of the public service,” he said. “As if he wasn’t around when all of that took place.”
Milobar says he has been warning for years about the ballooning public service, that it is not sustainable.
B.C. General Employees Union President Paul Finch says he has heard conflicting narratives about what budget cuts will mean for the unionized portion of the public service. Some of what he hears is that the government is focusing on trimming union-excluded management positions, something he has long advocated for.
But he is still wary.
“We’re obviously concerned to ensure that the public services that British Columbians rely on, especially in an economic downturn, are preserved,” he said.
Finch said he has seen the recent letter that circulated from public service head Shannon Salter offering retirement incentives. He said a program of this sort for union employees would need to be pre-negotiated.
“That hasn’t happened, which leads me to believe that at least for the time being, the early retirement incentives that are being offered are not for the frontline workforce but for elements of management,” he said.
Still, he said some union positions are being eliminated by attrition.
In terms of future cuts and potential layoffs, the union’s public service collective bargaining agreement includes job security for employees with three years of seniority.
“We have very robust protections for our members in the civil service,” he said.