VICTORIA — BC Conservative finance critic Peter Milobar has accused the BC NDP of using Trump as scapegoat after the party failed to deliver on campaign promises in Budget 2025.
He acknowledged the uncertainty of the current economic situation, but made it clear he would not give the government a pass since the formulations were made based on numbers from before the president threatened tariffs.
When asked how much blame the tariffs could take for the $10.9 billion deficit, Milobar said "none," citing the growth projections provided.
"September 30 this government said it would be a 1.9% growth in this coming fiscal," he explained. "Today this budget is built on 1.8% GDP growth, so their growth is the same. They've taken no meaningful steps to try to counter anything with tariffs, or actually help our economy even without tariffs."
Milobar pushed back on Finance Minister Brenda Bailey’s claim that the budget included adequate funds to mitigate damage caused by the tariffs, pointing out that the aforementioned contingency fund was only $112 million more than what was projected last year.
Among the promised items missing was the $1,000 grocery rebate, which Premier Eby had made a central part of his campaign. Milobar pointed out that other provinces had still managed to follow through on similar commitments.
He also noted that while the government has touted the jobs created by new projects, none of the projects show up on the revenue projections for the next three years because "none of them will be built that fast."
Milobar advised that the impacts of the tariffs could be mitigated somewhat by knocking down interprovincial trade barriers, saying, "it's about growing the economy in meaningful ways like that while actually being aggressive when talking about making cuts or making changes to administration and the bureaucracy."
Before tabling the budget, Bailey warned that it came "during the most consequential time in BC in generations, a time that few of us could have imagined just a few short months ago."