Photo credit: Gavin Dew
Gavin Dew is the MLA for Kelowna-Mission and the BC Conservatives' shadow critic for jobs, economic development and innovation and artificial intelligence.
Where Has All the Money Gone?
The NDP is preparing people for pain.
Finance Minister Brenda Bailey told the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade last week that she’s about to be “the least popular person in the province,” and admitted, “We must do better things with our dollars.”
That’s not confidence. It’s a confession. And the crime is a fiscal hatchet job.
Since David Eby took over as Premier, provincial debt has rocketed from $89 billion to $155 billion, on pace for $208 billion by 2028. Taxes are among the highest in North America. Families, nurses, and young professionals are leaving for places that charge less and deliver more. Spending up, debt up, confidence down, credit ratings sliding. If this is success, why does it feel like decline?
Look at the results. Our health care system has faced issue after issue, and closure after closure, for months. ERs are jammed and waits drag on. Housing feels more out of reach each month as the cost of living spikes. Classrooms are bursting while employers can’t find the skills they need. Street disorder keeps communities on edge and saps business confidence. Forestry and other backbone industries are still on the ropes. After record spending, outcomes are worse, not better.
Kelowna is a flashing red light. Unemployment spiked into double digits in late 2025 and only clawed back into single digits recently, still far too high for a city that should be setting the pace. A province-wide public safety crisis is taking its toll. Ask shop owners about smashed windows, brazen theft, and repeat offenders back the next morning. Business owners are out of patience and out of pocket, left pleading for help while the provincial government issues empty press releases and drags its heels on hiring Crown prosecutors, expanding involuntary care facilities, and strengthening addiction recovery supports.
Photo credit: Province of BCDavid Eby meeting with Mark Carney earlier this year.
And the promises? Still missing. The Premier’s $500 “grocery rebate” for every working British Columbian, plus $1,000 for working couples in 2025 and another $1,000 in 2026, never landed.
In 2023, the NDP pledged nearly $500 million for community safety and 250 more police officers. Where are they?
There’s a way out, but it doesn’t run through another Victoria photo op. Let the people who build things build them. Get government out of the way of growth in the resource sector, construction, small business, and tourism. That’s how we generate the revenue to pay down debt, deliver housing people can afford, and fund care that will shorten waits and lengthen lives.
In her speech, Minister Bailey said, “We cannot allow this to continue.” She’s right. This isn’t the fault of tariffs, or any other entity the NDP will look to shift the blame to. It’s the result of decisions made under David Eby and nine years of NDP government.
We need a government that will take accountability for its actions and start supporting job creators, or at the very least, get out of their way.
Until then, the question only gets louder, from Kelowna’s store aisles to hospital hallways and kitchen tables across B.C.: Where has all the money gone?
