While the provincial government frames BC Budget 2026 as a “stabilizing” plan, community groups and labour experts agree that this budget is a retreat from the public services we all rely on.
We’ve rounded up responses and analyses from our partners, colleagues and allies across the province. They comment on the real-world impacts of the government’s fiscal choices and why we need a budget that puts people first.
Check them out!
Our analysis of BC Budget 2026: A slow retreat from public services that leaves people to fend for themselves. With Budget 2026, the BC government has prioritized deficit and debt reduction at the expense of public investment that could have made life more affordable for BC families and built a more equitable future for the next generation.
Watch: Making sense of BC Budget 2026. Our budget analysis webinar briefing with co-Executive director and senior economist Iglika Ivanova, Racial Equity Researcher and Policy Analyst Véronique Sioufi and special guest Stand.earth campaigns director Sven Biggs.
Battered Women Support Services (BWSS): Budgets Do Not Simply Allocate Dollars. They Design Risk Environments.Does Budget 2026 change the risk environment that determines whether leaving violence is possible?
BC Federation of Labour: BC budget misses crucial opportunities to help working people weather the storm. British Columbians will feel the impact of cuts and program pauses and the government left key revenue-generating opportunities on the table.
BC Federation of Students (BCFS): BC Budget 2026 Fails Students and will Deepen the Post-Secondary Crisis. Amid escalating financial crises across BC campuses, the 2026 Budget continues to withhold urgently needed investment in post-secondary education.
BC General Employees’ Union (BCGEU): BC’s ‘stability budget’ continues cuts to the public sector. While the government is calling this budget a stabilizing budget that preserves public services, the reality is that the failure to make the necessary changes to revenue and invest in these public services will amount to cuts to how public services are delivered.
BC Health Coalition (BCHC): Austerity on the Front Lines: Health Care Workers and Rural Patients at Risk Webinar with our co-Executive Director Iglika Ivanova. Though the Finance Minister declared it was “not an austerity budget”, there was no relief in sight for rural and remote communities. In health care, a marginal budget increase effectively amounts to a cut in services over the duration of the fiscal plan.
BC Non-Profit Housing Association: When a Budget Falls Short, the Costs Add Up. The community housing sector in BC has gained significant momentum and development capacity in recent years, due in no small part to the historic investments made by the province of British Columbia. BC Budget 2026 raises considerable questions about the province’s ability to meet its own housing targets and maintain momentum on delivering affordability.
BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF): BC government delivers maintenance budget for public education. While it’s positive that public education was not a target of dramatic cuts, the budget doesn’t address long-standing issues like the overall funding shortfall for inclusive education, and it adds pressure on families who need more support.
Canadian Mental Health Association – BC (CMHA-BC): Mental Health Leaders at Budget 2026 Urge Government to Not Forget Community-Based Care. The one additional mental health and substance use investment added to Budget 2026 commits $131M to the most expensive form of mental health care possible, with a strong focus on expansion of involuntary treatment. Real costs come when we wait for crisis or severe illness to provide care. Housing and upstream, community-based mental health investments are among the few that both save money and improve lives.
Centre for Family Equity: BC backslides on targeted measures to eliminate child, youth and family poverty. BC Budget 2026 marks a backslide for the province on its important commitment to tackling child, youth and family poverty. A lack of evidence-based innovation in province-led policies and programs to tackle poverty, a pause to BC’s $10-a-day child care system expansion and no increase to the BC Family Benefit and income and disability assistance rates worsen poverty for the 149,370 children and youth living below the poverty line across BC as the cost-of-living continues to rise.
Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC: No Cuts to child care. Not a celebration – just a sigh of relief.
Council of Senior Citizens’ Organization (COSCO): Struggling seniors call for a seniors strategy. We are truly dismayed that the 2026 budget does little to assist seniors in their day to day lives. And there is even less for the community organizations and seniors centres which provide programs and information that enable older adults to live healthy lives and reduce demand on our over-stretched health care system.
Disability Alliance of BC (DABC): BC Budget 2026: Staving off debt; no new funding. Budget 2026 may be considered one of the more austere budgets tabled in the past decade. Due to rising debt, the BC government focused on measures to retain core services and find ways to increase revenue, rather than announce any new initiatives or investments into new services.
Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC (FPSE): Post-secondary education sector left in holding pattern. Budget 2026 contains only a nominal mention of the post-secondary education sector, with a reannouncement of $241 million for skilled trades from Fall 2025 and delays to several ongoing capital projects. The Finance Minister is projecting a deficit of $9.6 billion this fiscal year, increasing to $13.2 billion for the next fiscal year. The government says it is unwilling to consider any new funding for the post-secondary sector.
Health Sciences Association (HSA): Budget is an important step but pressures on system remain significant. The Health Sciences Association welcomes the government’s decision to maintain frontline health care funding in British Columbia despite mounting economic challenges. While the budget signals a commitment to health care, significant pressures remain. Workforce shortages and burnout continue to affect nearly every stage of care, contributing to extended wait times and cancelled procedures across the province.
Hospital Employees Union (HEU): Budget 2026 Protects Public Health Care in Challenging Economic Times. With public health care under pressure across the country, BC Budget 2026 protects frontline health care services in British Columbia. The Hospital Employees’ Union says the government’s ongoing financial commitment is critical at a time when the health care system continues to face unprecedented demand from a growing and aging population.
Housing Central, including BC Non-Profit Housing Association (BCNPHA), the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) and the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC (CHF BC): It’s disappointing that BC Budget 2026 scales back investments into community housing when the need for affordable housing is more critical than ever.
Stand.earth: BC budget reveals Lotto is safer bet than LNG. Energy analysts have warned that LNG’s long term viability is in doubt due to growing concerns about a glut in the global market. Today’s budget reveals that BC taxpayers are still propping up this industry through low royalty rates, cheap access to other resources like water and electricity, and expensive new transmission lines, like the $6 billion North Coast Transmission Line. If oil and gas companies actually paid its fair share, taxpayers wouldn’t need to prop the industry up.
Vancity Community Foundation: What we saw was a budget defined as much by what it scales back as what it invests in. The headline numbers are real: $2B+ per year in housing, $330M for child care, nearly $6B for income supports. But so are the reductions: 15,000 public sector positions eliminated, affordable housing completions dropping nearly in half over three years and new families locked out of the $10-a-day child care program.
Vancity Credit Union: While it prevents further erosion, the budget does not meet the moment on affordability; tax changes and limited relief mean most households see little tangible improvement.
Wilderness Committee: Budget 2026 deepens austerity on climate and environment. The Wilderness Committee is criticizing Budget 2026 as a failure for the provincial government in terms of its responsibilities to fight climate change and protect the nature and biodiversity that make BC so special. A budget characterized by spending cuts or freezes across the board continues the trend of underfunding the ministries responsible for BC’s commitments to lower emissions and protect the environment.
YWCA BC: What Budget 2026 Means for Women, Families and Our Community. This year’s provincial budget is being described by the government as careful and disciplined. As the deficit grows, the government says it is protecting core services during uncertain economic times. But there are also no major new investments targeted at women and families.
