Premier David Eby is promising what he calls a “reset” in his relationship with B.C.’s business community, including a government hiring freeze to curtail years of enormous public-sector job growth, and a commitment to start looking at internal cost-cutting to bring down the record deficit.
The premier’s address to the B.C. Chamber of Commerce in Vancouver on Tuesday marked a U-turn in political tone since BC New Democrats almost lost the October provincial election to the upstart Conservatives.
“I want you to hear me say this, it’s important you know that I know this is true — in order for British Columbia to succeed, we need British Columbia’s businesses to succeed,” Eby told the audience.
“I’ll paraphrase our finance minister, but you can’t pour from an empty cup. You can’t deliver high-quality services that people need without a way to pay for those services. And that payment is generated through the prosperity and wealth generation from our province, through the economy.”
The NDP has had a rocky relationship with business groups over seven years, piling on extra costs in the form of tax increases, new employee medical premiums and mandatory paid sick days for employees.
Small business confidence is now at record lows, businesses are reeling under rising vandalism and rent, economists warn of a cooling provincial economy and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is promising tariffs that could devastate entire sectors.
Eby told the audience that the challenges of Trump, especially, require him to take a different approach.
“You will find a government that is hoping, with your support, to hit reset on this relationship,” he said.
“To move forward with the tariff threat we’re facing in an unified way.”
The business community could be forgiven for being skeptical, given that the seven major business groups that wrote a letter last month asking for a meeting on economic issues have had trouble even getting a reply from the new finance or jobs ministers.
In a subsequent “fireside chat,” chamber CEO Fiona Famulak pressed Eby on the sector’s other big complaint: Massive growth in public-sector employment.
The size of the public sector has ballooned almost 68 per cent since 2017, to more than 520,000 people. Since 2019, the NDP has created five new public-sector jobs for every one job businesses created in the private sector, according to the Business Council of B.C.
“Many people in this room again are concerned about the rate of public-sector job creation compared to private sector,” said Famulak. “It’s driving up wages, benefits and salaries. It's making it very difficult for the private sector to fill the seats and fill the vacancies they have right there.”
Eby put the usual NDP counter-spin on the argument, about the jobs being new nurses, doctors, child-care workers and long-term care employees repatriated back to health authorities.
“Might we see a public-sector job freeze?” asked Famulak.
At this, the premier offered something new.
“There is currently a hiring freeze among the public sector,” he said. “Not in the frontline services like health care and education … but among the administration of the public service.”
That’s news to the public, which to date hasn’t heard anything about a government hiring freeze. Nor, apparently, has it been communicated to the broader civil service in a formal way either. Instead, it appears to be more of a loose guideline from Eby’s head of the civil service, Shannon Salter, since the Oct. 19 election.
There are no layoffs from the hiring freeze, the NDP stressed. And it doesn’t apply to key priority areas, like new permitting staff. Presumably, it doesn’t apply to the growing army of highly paid partisan New Democrat political staffers either, but nobody said that part out loud.
The hiring freeze is being accompanied by internal cost-cutting, said Eby.
“There is absolutely work for us to do around the administration of government services and ensuring that is right-sized for the work that is actually out there,” said the premier.
However, the two examples the premier provided — BC Ferries and health authorities — aren’t actually part of core government spending. And the cost-cutting comes with the giant asterisk that “we’re not going to be taking that from the frontline services,” said Eby.
The goal is to try and address B.C.’s record $9-billion deficit, as well as ballooning debt that has resulted in two credit downgrades. New Democrats scoffed at the idea of tackling either before the election, saying anyone who wanted to see either would be clawing back vital services out of the hands of vulnerable people. But unhappy voters forced a change in tune.
“We know we have to bring down our deficit over time and we know we need to ensure the fiscal sustainability of the province of B.C.,” said Eby.
“We are going to do that through growing the economy, through sound fiscal planning, and ensuring the government that we have is entirely focused on delivering solutions and focuses for British Columbians. But we won’t do it through harsh austerity cuts and we won't do it underfunding service we know people rely on now more than ever.”
It’s possible the hiring freeze and cost-cutting are just political smoke and mirrors. And it’s possible the change in tone is just a momentary blip in an otherwise strong string of uninterrupted NDP hubris.
Still, the assembled crowd will hold the premier to his word.
“When you have a near-death experience as a politician, it focuses the mind,” Eby said, of losing his massive majority and squeaking by with a single seat majority won by only 22 votes.
Yet for a business community that’s spent seven years mostly getting the cold shoulder from NDP premiers, it will be the premier’s actions, if any, that speak louder than his words.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
