A second-term David Eby BC NDP government is “marginally better” than the alternative that appeared to be in the cards on election night, business leaders said last week.
This came after Elections BC confirmed Eby and his party had secured a slender majority—barring any surprises from a judicial recount, that is.
The initial results suggested the BC NDP were headed for a minority government backed by a BC Green Party led by Sonia Furstenau, who has been described by former BC Green leader Andrew Weaver as an “eco-activist.” Though she lost her seat, Furstenau has announced she will stay on as party leader.
B.C.’s business community can only hope the election results will have chastened Eby enough to take their concerns about B.C.’s flagging prosperity to heart and address some of issues impeding economic growth.
In an open letter to the new government, seven business associations—including the BC Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of British Columbia and Greater Vancouver Board of Trade—urged the new government to take B.C.’s flagging economic health seriously, and get its fiscal house in order.
“Overall, B.C.’s fiscal and economic trajectory is deeply concerning,” they state. “As you shape the next government and plan your work in the upcoming legislative sessions, we urge you to give serious consideration to the state of B.C.’s economy.”
Jock Finlayson, chief economist for the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA)—one of the five signatories to the letter—said government needs to address its overspending and debt.
“B.C. is running the biggest deficit in the country, measured as a share of GDP,” he said. “That’s never happened before, to my knowledge. The net debt is skyrocketing. It’s slated to reach 29 per cent of GDP in the next three years, up from 14.4 per cent two years ago. That, too, is unprecedented for this province.
“I am almost certain our credit rating will be downgraded, again, in early 2025. The risk is that this could trigger a pattern of serial downgrades by the leading credit-rating firms, resulting in a significantly bigger debt-servicing cost going forward.”
Finlayson said the province also needs to rethink CleanBC, and pointed to economic modelling that suggests B.C.’s climate action policies under the plan could shrink B.C.’s economy by nearly $30 billion by 2030.
“The CleanBC emissions targets need to be revisited and extended,” he said. “And some of the specific measures in CleanBC also require a re-think. Hobbling our economy with costly taxes and regulations will do nothing to fix the global climate, but it is certain to damage our own prosperity.”
He also said the Eby government needs to “proceed more cautiously and thoughtfully with its land use and reconciliation agendas.”
“The aborted overhaul of the Land Act attempted in early 2024 was a fiasco that caused uncertainty and sparked conflict,” he said. “An open, deliberative approach to advancing reconciliation in the context of the management of Crown lands and resources is needed.”
Karen Ogen, CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance, expressed concerns over the Green Party’s influences on an NDP government, and what it might mean for B.C.’s nascent LNG industry—an industry strenuously opposed by the Greens.
“I am concerned, because we still have the Ksi Lisims LNG project with the Nisga’a Nation, which we continue to advocate for,” she said.
That project is still making its way through an environmental review, and will still need government approval.
There are also concerns about a cornerstone industry that has been in a state of accelerated decline under successive NDP governments.
At last week’s Global Wood Summit, Rob Schuetz, president of Industrial Forestry Services, said 16 sawmills, three pulp mills and four paper mills have been shut down in B.C. since 2020.
He gave a laundry list of NDP government policies that have reduced access to timber and increased costs and bureaucracy: old growth moratoria, new forest landscape plans, ecosystem-based land management, a 30 per cent target for parks and conservation areas, and Indigenous consent-based shared land use decision making.
Asked what he thought of the election outcome, one of the panelists, Don McGregor, vice-president of sales for Western Forest Products (TSX:WEF), summed up a sentiment that may be shared by the wider resource business community.
“Well, actually, if it sticks, the NDP have a majority and they don’t need the Green Party,” he said. “I would take that as a positive that they don’t have to work with the Greens.
He added: “This current government has not been very friendly to our industry, overall. They’ve kowtowed a lot to, I think, to some ideological pressures from the Greens, and so it’s basically status quo. We’ve ended up exactly where we started from, and it’s not the best outcome for the industry.”
