Provincial spending under the microscope as deficit balloons $700 million past
projections.
B.C.’s premier has doubled down on a pledge to cut down on administrative spending as the province faces an $11.6 billion deficit — a figure some economists say warrants a reassessment of the public sector, which has grown substantially since the NDP took over government.
On a financial update Monday, finance minister Brenda Bailey announced the province was grappling with an $11.6 billion deficit, exceeding March budget projects by about $700 million.
The swelling figures were largely attributed to the end of the carbon tax program, a cooling housing market resulting in a drop in property transfer taxes, lower-than-expected prices in commodities like natural gas and lumber and overall economic uncertainty.
On Tuesday, B.C. Premier David Eby doubled down on a previously announced government spending review, while suggesting that billions of dollars worth of private investments in projects like LNG over the next year will help B.C. turn the tide.
“We’re going to cut the waste out of the health authorities, we’re already doing it, reducing the size of the public service, addressing administrative waste within the public service without affecting those frontline services that everyone depends on, and we’re going to grow our economy,” Eby said.
According to a June analysis by the Business Council of British Columbia, job growth in B.C. has skewed toward to the public sector with 612,000 jobs — about 134,000 above its pre-pandemic trajectory. “The public sector has grown by about 55 per cent since the NDP took office,” said Justin Wiltshire, a labour market economist with UVic. “There are questions that we do need to ask about whether we really do need all those people working in the public sector in British Columbia given the size of these deficits,” he said. “That’s not to say that the province is in dire straits. I don’t think we are, but we’re not trending in the right direction,” Wiltshire said. Eby says so far his government has reduced the public sector by about 850 full-time equivalent jobs…
Source: cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia
