B.C. Conservatives says Budget 2026 is an “assault on seniors, working families, and the small businesses that drive our economy.”
The B.C. Green Party says the government is doubling down on a familiar approach of managing decline, while investing in industry-first growth, and going backward on forestry reform, Indigenous relations, and healthy ecosystems.
These comments came shortly after Finance Minister Brenda Bailey delivered this year’s B.C. budget in the legislature Tuesday (Feb. 17).
The deficit is set to rise next year to $13.3 billion from $9.6 billion, before dropping to $12.1 billion and $11.4 billion the following years.
Over the next three years, the provincial debt and interest bite will accelerate. Total debt for this current year is projected to hit $154 billion.
B.C. Conservative finance critic Peter Milobar called the budget the culmination of 10 years of NDP mismanagement and “decade of decline.” He said B.C. has gone from a surplus when the NDP first took government in 2017 to a projected deficit of more than $13 billion in 2026.
“I was quite disappointed actually, especially with how the government’s trying to characterize this as nothing to see here to seniors and working families and small businesses,” Milobar told media in the legislature.
Milobar said he’s not seeing any creativity out of the government “to actually try to meaningfully engage industry, to get get things rolling.”
“From 2022 till now, we’ve seen forestry drop by $1.3 billion. 2022 was long before Donald Trump.”
He added the NDP government “very clearly” has a spending problem and they don’t know how to get themselves out.
“We have a budget this year that has $200 million less in revenue than they were projecting last year for this time this year, yet we have an extra $3 million on the deficit that they were projecting.”
Asked about the government’s planned cuts to 15,000 public sector jobs over the next three years, Milobar said there’s no clarity on where those cuts will come from.
“But no clear timeline, no target of is it 3,000 this year and 7,000 next year and 5,000 in year three? Nothing like that whatsoever. And the only thing they’ve very clearly cut is six long-term care homes and hospital expansion redevelopment in Burnaby.”
B.C. Conservatives say the budget fails to address many issues throughout B.C.’s health-care system, including delayed long-term care projects. New data from the Office of the Seniors Advocate that shows the province’s population of people over the age of 65 is growing nearly four times as fast as the number of new care home beds.
B.C. seniors’ advocate Dan Levitt has issued several reports in recent years criticizing the gaps in long-term care beds in B.C.
Milobar said B.C. Conservatives will continue to press the NDP for a fiscal plan focused on affordability, safe communities, and fundamental support for the people and industries that power the province.
B.C. Greens Finance critic Rob Botterell said the budget “successfully maintains the status quo,” but that status quo isn’t working. He called it a “keep-industry-happy” budget.
“British Columbia needs a budget focused on the health of people and communities, not one that ties the province’s prosperity to LNG expansion and fossil fuel dependency. The BC NDP’s key financial strategy — Look West — looks lost,” Botterell said.
He said broadly speaking, the B.C. Greens are “deeply disappointed” in the budget.
The fundamental point the Green caucus is making, he said, is the government needs to look at tax reform.
“Everybody has to pay their fair share, and when you run the numbers, that would be a major contributor,” he said. “And then we need to move away from a fossil-fuel driven type of industrial strategy into a green economy strategy that moves away from focusing on LNG and all the associated health effects and moves into other areas.”
Botterell acknowledged Greens are pleased to see the amendments to the school property tax provisions. He said those are amendments B.C. Greens looked for in the 2024 election “and they don’t go as far as we’d like, but they’re a great step.”
– With files from Mark Page