There are no meaningful measures to reduce racial inequality in BC Budget 2025. Instead, it maintains a fragile status quo—an inadequate foundation for the moment we’re in.
The hesitation to critique a government already standing up against misguided pressures for spending cuts is understandable. Yet, it is important to consider the implication of turning concern for racial equity on and off like a switch—something we can afford to think about when times are good and something that we can’t afford to address when times are bad.
This approach reinforces the idea that poverty reduction is benevolent charity rather than a structural redistribution of wealth, while also fueling a false scarcity mindset that pits communities against each other.
“This isn’t just bad optics: rising inequality weakens our economy and fuels reactionary populism.”
We know inequality in BC is deepening and that it is racialized. Immigrants, Indigenous people, Black people and communities of colour face disproportionately high rates of poverty, job precarity and housing insecurity. This isn’t just bad optics: rising inequality weakens our economy and fuels reactionary populism.
When the government sidelines racial justice, it abandons a growing share of the population in pursuit of a “middle ground” that actually fractures rather than unites, weakening both social solidarity and economic stability.
Racial equity is not a luxury—it is essential to a thriving society and the foundation of real economic resilience.
Failure to respond to the closing immigration ‘faucet’
BC’s public post-secondary institutions have long relied on exorbitant international student tuition to offset chronic underfunding. With the drastic federal cuts to student visas, which meant a 35% reduction in international student enrolment for 2024 and a further 10% reduction for 2025, this problematic model is unraveling. While BC Budget 2025 marginally increases post-secondary operating grants—rising from $9 billion to $9.5 billion over three years—it fails to meaningfully reduce post-secondary institutions’ dependence on these predominantly racialized students.
Colleges and universities are in a dire budget crisis. Without substantive stable operational funding, the public post-secondary sector will continue to face large scale layoffs, service reductions and program closures. And while the province limits domestic tuition increases to 2%, there is no cap on international student fees, meaning institutions will likely push even higher costs onto a shrinking pool of students. This approach deepens precarity for the students who are here, while also undermining the role of post-secondary education in fostering research and innovation in BC.
“BC’s public post-secondary institutions have long relied on exorbitant international student tuition to offset chronic underfunding.”
Meanwhile, after years of record-high immigration that helped to keep our economy afloat, the federal government has now limited pathways to permanent residency. This leaves many racialized newcomers in BC in limbo, facing precarious working conditions and barriers to affordable housing. Despite these realities, BC Budget 2025 provides no additional funding for settlement services or resources for the Employment Standards Branch and Human Rights Tribunal to address their significant enforcement backlogs.
The absence of new investments in credential recognition further limits newcomers’ ability to secure stable jobs even as persistent staffing shortages in health care, early childhood education and construction create critical gaps where new immigrants could be working to improve patient care, childcare and building more homes.
At a time of economic turbulence and rising xenophobia, these omissions increase vulnerability among racialized newcomers—students and workers who are critical to BC’s economy.
Budget funds policing over poverty reduction
While other election promises have been scaled back or abandoned, BC Budget 2025 remains unwavering in its commitments to policing, allocating $325 million over three years in new spending for “community safety,” which includes increasing the number of annual police recruits by 50% and a new program that specifically targets petty theft, mischief and property damage.
The budget also misleadingly lumps $90 million for HEART/HEARTH—programs intended to move people from encampments into temporary shelter—under this “community safety” banner. This framing implies homelessness is a public safety threat rather than an outgrowth of failed housing policies and social inequities. In doing so, it reflects a deeper assumption about who is viewed as a threat, positioning people in poverty as needing to be policed rather than supported. At the same time, this funding prioritizes temporary emergency-response models over investments in permanent, secure housing.
“This framing implies homelessness is a public safety threat rather than an outgrowth of failed housing policies and social inequities.”
The budget adds $3 billion over three years to social services, including for children and youth in care, expanding alternative care models, for children and youth with support needs, for Community Living BC and income and disability supports. Yet this seemingly large funding increase only keeps pace with the government’s projections on the growing need rather than raising assistance rates. Income and disability assistance rates continue to keep recipients well below the poverty line.
In addition, a further $375 million over three years is budgeted to increase rent supplements. Average rent supplements will rise to $700 for low-income families with children (RAP) and $337 for low-income seniors (SAFER), but these will continue to fall far short of closing the gap on soaring rents. The eligibility restrictions also severely limit the access to these programs. The increased income eligibility threshold for RAP and SAFER is expected to bring the number of households receiving rental supplements to 31,000, yet at least 154,245 renter households in BC are in core housing need.
As 40% of people in BC who experience homelessness identify as Indigenous, “the biggest miss in Budget 2025 is the continuing failure to commit to a fully funded Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy,” writes the BC Non-Profit Housing Association.
By prioritizing policing while failing to transform social supports, BC Budget 2025 reinforces a cycle where poverty and homelessness are criminalized rather than eradicated. Expanding enforcement instead of addressing the root causes of poverty and housing instability only deepens systemic inequities and puts Indigenous, Black and racialized communities’ lives at risk.
Solutions that fortify us in a crisis
The BC government is calling for a united response in the face of US threats to our economy, but our economic system is already leaving too many people behind. Keeping large portions of the population in survival mode deepens inequality and weakens our entire economy by preventing full participation in the workforce and in society. We can’t let racial equity become a fair-weather promise. It isn’t virtue-signaling; it’s the practical strategy for an economy that can withstand external shocks and for a society that refuses to be turned against itself.
To build real resilience, BC must take bold steps to reduce poverty, precarity and housing insecurity by:
- Expanding eligibility and rates for income and disability supports, ensuring they rise above the poverty line and are indexed to inflation.
- Expanding eligibility for rental supplements and increasing rates to reflect real housing costs.
- Increase the availability of $10/day childcare, including improving wages for early childhood educators.
- Expanding free transit access for youth, seniors and low-income individuals.
- Drastically expanding investments in supportive, non-market and co-op housing.
- Fully funding the Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy.
- Increasing funding to ensure newcomers have access to adequate settlement services.
- Increasing funding for the Employment Standards Branch and the Human Rights Tribunal to strengthen enforcement of labour and social protections and eliminate the backlog of cases.
- Improving investments in credential recognition programs.
- Implementing a robust public funding model for post-secondary institutions to reduce reliance on international tuition and ensure BC’s institutions remain fair and future-ready.
