The situation in B.C. is serious, and we do not have much time. Skilled young people are leaving.[1] Private-sector hiring has lagged while public-sector employment has surged. Business investment is weak, and B.C. taxes new investment more heavily than competing provinces because the PST hits the capital inputs businesses need to grow, whereas GST spent can be recovered.[2]
Neither the NDP nor the B.C. Conservatives have a solution to the underlying problem. BC taxes and regulates businesses until many stop expanding here, then it turns around and hands out grants, subsidies, and priority access to selected groups. But central planning by bureaucrats selecting “winners” often drives away other businesses.
OneBC’s alternative is simple. One set of laws, applied the same way to everyone. Transparency in contracts and grants. Accountability for results, not press conferences that assign blame.
I am an accountant. I would rather be in a spreadsheet than in a popularity contest. I am running because the books will not fix themselves. I have no career in the political machine, and that is the point. If I am elected, I will use my training and knowledge to dig into government spending: who gets the contracts, which groups get the grants, where the waste is, and which regulations should come off the books.