Rob Shaw: Trump response, budget deficit and party implosions define B.C.'s political year |
It was a bruising year for B.C. politicians and political parties. The governing NDP was rocked by uncertainty — both of the global variety, and the homegrown kind it created for itself on Indigenous and economic issues. Yet 2025 was no easier for the other parties, either. The Conservatives and Greens went on the hunt for new leaders, and the OneBC party imploded just months after creation. A year of drama and turmoil. With 2026 looking to be just as turbulent.
With a wartime flourish, the B.C. government started 2025 vowing to defend itself against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats. “This feels to British Columbians and Canadians, and I think rightly so, like an unprovoked attack,” Premier David Eby said in February, after a throne speech that likened the U.S. aggression to the Second World War.
B.C.’s efforts, though, would yield mixed results by year-end.
A “trade and economic security task force” to unite business, labour and First Nations leaders on retooling the economy was quietly disbanded after seven months, having accomplished little. Similarly, a plan to fine American trucks using B.C. highways to travel to Alaska went nowhere.
A pledge to cancel U.S. contracts within government ended 2025 without any data to show anything had actually changed.
But B.C.’s booze ban did have an impact. The government yanked all U.S. wine, beer and spirits from public store shelves, and halted purchases from its alcohol Crown corporation. It stuck with it all 2025, even after some provinces like Alberta reversed course.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Congress in December the provincial alcohol efforts had stung American liquor providers, and called for them to be put on the table as part of re-opened trade talks.
As budgets go, the 2025 fiscal plan tabled by Finance Minister Brenda Bailey in March was probably one of the worst in British Columbia history.
A stunning $11-billion deficit, the largest ever for the province, anchored a spending plan drowning in red ink, as government revenues (led by the $2-billion cancellation of the carbon tax) totally decoupled from increased spending. Oh, and also a deep structural deficit and ballooning debt.
Bailey announced a plan to cut $300 million in administrative spending this year, while Health Minister Josie Osborne pledged to trim fat in health care, which accounts for almost half of government’s spending.
But after a six-month review of health authorities, the government was only able to end the year with