B.C.’s provincial budget is shaping up to have three broad takeaways: A big new record-setting deficit, large pots of unallocated cash to respond to American tariffs, and a protective barrier drawn around core government services.

That’s what the public can expect on Tuesday, based upon numerous comments by Premier David Eby and Finance Minister Brenda Bailey over the last few weeks.

It’ll make for a depressing read. And it means you can pretty much take the NDP election platform from October — along with its policies and promises to voters — and toss it right into the shredder.

As Bailey put it, when scrapping the platform’s marquee $1,000 grocery rebate last month: “It was a very different time than the world after Nov. 25 when President [Donald] Trump announced 25 per cent tariffs on their closest trading partner.”

The B.C. government has a weak starting position in this new post-Trump world due to its rampant over-spending the last two years that left the budget in a $9.5-billion deficit.

That aside, spare a thought for the impossible position the finance minister now finds herself in. It’s the most chaotic economic scenario since the COVID-19........

© BIV