If you’re worried about how US President Donald Trump’s tariffs might hurt B.C.’s economy, just wait until you hear what Premier David Eby has planned. According to a new report from the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, (ICBA,) Eby’s CleanB.C. plan is two-and-a-half times worse for B.C.’s economy than are Trump’s tariffs.Let this sink in for a moment. Washington’s tariffs could shave $43 billion off the province’s GDP between 2025 and 2029. But that pales in comparison to the damage Eby is planning on doing: Eby’s CleanB.C. plan will wipe out nearly $110 billion from the province’s economy during that same time period. That’s on top of more than $29 billion worth of GDP loss that’s already been caused by Eby’s environmental plan since 2019, according to ICBA estimates..The B.C. government has launched a review of the CleanB.C. program. It is to “examine, evaluate and update current climate targets, and recommend policies, programs and initiatives to achieve significant emissions reductions.”There’s no shortage of bad policy in the plan that needs to be cut. Eby is also using the CleanB.C. plan to ban all new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035. That means British Columbians in the market for a new car will have to buy a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV).Most ZEVs use an average of 4,500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity every year. That’s the equivalent of nine refrigerators.There are roughly 3.3 million gas and diesel cars and trucks on the roads in B.C. If all those cars and trucks were replaced with ZEVs, B.C. would need to build three new Site C dams just to charge them all..It cost B.C. taxpayers $16 billion to build the original dam. Multiply that by three and we can assume it would cost B.C. taxpayers $48 billion just to build enough dams to charge all the ZEVs that Eby wants to force on British Columbians through the CleanB.C. plan. The CleanB.C. plan will also increase hidden, backend carbon taxes and gas taxes which make it more expensive to get goods and groceries onto store shelves. Examples include the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which is a stealth gas tax that adds about 18 cents to every litre of gasoline sold in B.C.Meanwhile, foodbank usage in B.C. has exploded, with a 32 per cent increase between 2019 and 2024, according to Food Banks B.C. When normal families are lining up at food banks to feed their kids with donated peanut butter and crackers, it’s unacceptable for Eby to make those pressures worse through tax hikes. .CleanB.C. also lays the groundwork for Eby to shovel away taxpayer dollars on corporate welfare for a slew of “green” initiatives. Eby’s green slush fund has already thrown away $244 million taxpayer dollars. Recipients of the provincial corporate welfare include global behemoths like Shell and Conoco Philips.The federal government had a similar green slush fund called Sustainable Development Technology Canada. That federal fund was canceled and RCMP investigations launched after an Auditor General report found “significant lapses in governance,” that led to tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars going to ineligible recipients.Remember that next time you pay PST or notice the provincial income tax taken off your pay stub. Money is being taken right out of your pocket to give to massive multinationals..Here’s the kicker: British Columbians can’t control Washington’s whims. But we can control what happens in Victoria. And the CleanB.C. plan is bad policy that hurts families and businesses that are already having a hard time making ends meet.With the stroke of a pen, Eby could undo economic damage he’s inflicting on B.C. through the CleanB.C. plan. Carson Binda is the B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
