The BC NDP government started and ended the week preoccupied by the looming tariff threat from U.S. President Donald Trump. But it was the moments in-between, where it was hammered on provincial issues, such as the deteriorating health-care system, that the governing party really needs to worry about.

New Democrat ministers talked tough on Trump every moment they got, in preparation for what the American president reiterated Thursday would be a tariff date of March 4.

Premier David Eby mocked suggestions from Opposition Conservative Leader John Rustad that he apply a carbon tax to dirty American thermal coal shipped overseas using Vancouver ports – leverage in the trade dispute. Then, two days later, the premier turned around and proposed the idea himself to the prime minister.

All the Trump rhetoric helped distract from a troubled provincial budget set to land on the same date, March 4. The NDP’s latest run at the provincial books would have been awash in structural deficits even before Trump, but with the added $2.5 billion revenue hole Trump’s tariffs are expected to blow in the treasury, the budget is now threatening to be an economic bloodbath.

“Unfortunately, this is going to be a reality we have to live with for at least the next four years, and maybe longer,” said Kahlon. “And so things have changed.”

But elsewhere at the legislature, some things also remained very much the same.

The worsening state of health care in the province, specifically the weekend outage of Delta Hospital’s ER, dominated the start of the week.

Delta South MLA Ian Paton

© BIV