VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s NDP government tabled the province’s budget Tuesday, days after releasing a long-awaited economic report that laid out its priorities as it charts a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and a year filled with natural disasters.

While the budget pledged money for the province’s green transition and for some measures to address its labour crunch, critics found it lacking in ambition and detail on some files important to the tech sector.

Here’s what you need to know about what’s in the B.C. budget for the innovation economy:

The big picture

The budget projects a $5.5-billion operating deficit for 2022–23 and a $483-million deficit for 2021–22. In November 2021, B.C. expected a $1.7-billion deficit—down from $4.8 billion in its prior quarterly report and $9.7 billion in last year’s budget. The November estimate did not take into account the province’s recent flooding.

Tuesday’s budget also committed $2.2 billion to protect against climate-related disasters, and set aside $3 billion in pandemic and recovery contingencies between 2022 to 2024.

“There is a long road ahead, as we all rebuild and repaid the damage left by these difficult times,” said Finance Minister Selina Robinson in her prepared remarks.

Another $1 billion for climate-change initiatives

The budget promises $1 billion to CleanBC, the province’s green-economy strategy, and its Roadmap to 2030 plan. That includes $9 million for what the budget calls “two of the most effective measures in reducing emissions”: to expand the low-carbon fuel standard and develop a new emissions cap on gas utilities.

Some of the funds—$374 million—will go toward supporting cleaner transportation, including making used zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) exempt from provincial sales tax starting immediately through to 2027, and raising the threshold for luxury surtax on passenger ZEVs to $75,000.

The province plans to develop a B.C.-wide approach to carbon capture, utilization and storage as part of a $310-million effort to support industry to decarbonize.

It will invest $25 million in cleantech innovation and partnership opportunities with the federal government. It will also provide a temporary top-up to the small-business venture capital tax credit. 

The increased support for cleantech “delighted” the cleantech accelerator Foresight, whose CEO Jeanette Jackson called it “a step in the right direction” and noted the tax-credit change may help connect startups to private capital. “We continue to encourage increased supports for launching and scaling clean tech companies to help us become a global leader,” she said in a statement to The Logic.

Help wanted

Despite a well-known labour crunch in the tech industry, the budget is vague on plans for the future, though it alludes to something in the works. B.C. is developing a workforce readiness plan called “Future Ready: Skills for the Jobs of Tomorrow.” It will help fill an anticipated one million job vacancies forecasted within the next decade. A $67-million funding injection, however, focuses on health-care assistants, skilled trades and early-childhood educators.

Life-sciences sector boost

The province is providing $195 million in grant funding to Vancouver-based Genome BC, a non-profit, and Michael Smith Health Research BC. Both work to support the life-sciences sector in the province, which according to the budget consists of more than 2,000 companies that employ 18,000 people in the province. The province has already provided $200 million in grants to the two organizations this year. “This will create new scientific discoveries and economic opportunities.”

Funding the recovery plan

The budget sets aside $50 million for commitments made in the economic plan released last week, including creating a life-sciences and biomanufacturing hub, and an agritech centre. “Funding will help grow B.C.’s life-sciences, manufacturing and agricultural sectors, and support reconciliation through economic development,” the budget reads.

Advancing universal child care

The province plans to spend $284 million more on child care, lowering fees for before- and after-school care, as well as preschool, starting in the 2023–24 school year. As a result, child care will amount to about $20 a day on average, benefiting some 50,000 children. The budget also promises $33 million to create more spaces in before- and after-school programs. It also commits $11 million each to growing the Seamless Day program to 44 school districts and to supporting the Aboriginal Head Start program.

B.C. became the first province to partner with the federal government on $10-a-day daycare in July 2021. The two agreed to work to reach that average cost for kids under six years old in regulated centres before 2027 as part of the federal government’s $30-billion child-care pledge.

Other highlights:

• The budget commits more than $289 million to connect more than 280 Indigenous communities to high-speed internet over five years. This will mean 82 per cent of the province’s rural and remote communities, and 92 per cent of First Nations communities, will be connected to high-speed internet once the work is completed.
• The province will create a new accelerator program as part of the Indigeous Forest Bioeconomy Program to help Indigenous partners commercialize and scale up forest-based products with $4 million in funding.
• B.C.’s tourism sector will receive $25 million to help it recover from the pandemic.
• Following B.C.’s wildfires and floods, the province committed $145 million to help make the BC Wildfire Service a year-round operation, as well as $83 million to implement a Climate Preparedness and Adaptation Strategy that includes developing an extreme-heat response framework.
• The province will create a new Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship, with over $44 million to help stimulate economic activity and other government goals.

What’s missing:

Much like the economic report, the budget appears to be short on details. “Today’s budget lacks financial details to support many of the announced initiatives,” wrote Bridgitte Anderson, president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, in a statement. It also “does not address needed tax and regulatory reform, especially for our small and medium businesses.”

The Council of Canadian Innovators wanted to see “a tangible talent strategy” in this budget, wrote its B.C. director of government affairs Tessa Seager in a blog post ahead of Tuesday’s release. The group also wanted to see the province create “a competitive (and predictable) tax ecosystem” by implementing measures such as a patent-box regime. It also hoped for advancement of the promised intellectual property strategy. The latter two were not mentioned in the nearly 200-page budget document. “We were disappointed that the budget did not contain clearer plans and commitments to build the broader regulatory and strategic policy frameworks necessary to succeed in the global economy,” she wrote in a follow-up post after the budget was released. 

While the tech sector welcomes more investment into connectivity, child care and reskilling, the budget failed to address some of the sector’s challenges. “I wish this budget had been more bold and really seized the economic opportunities available for British Columbians,” said Jill Tipping, CEO of the BC Tech Association, in a statement to The Logic.