The B.C. budget, unveiled on Tuesday, impacts everyone in the province, and the B.C. seniors advocate says the aging population is facing some new challenges.

“These projects aren’t nice-to-haves,” Dan Levitt told Global News.

“These are needed beds that are urgently needed from family caregivers who are really being pushed to the edge caring for someone.”

As part of the budget, B.C. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey announced the province is pausing some infrastructure projects, including seven long-term care facilities in Abbotsford, Campbell River, Chilliwack, Kelowna, Delta, Fort St. John, and Squamish.

Levitt said someone is already waiting an average of 10 months to get into long-term care.

“We need to urgently build long-term care,” he said.

“We’re currently short 2,000 beds, while 7,000 people are waiting. You fast forward a decade from now, when one in four British Columbians will be over the age of 65, and by then the Ministry of Health predicts we’re going to need 16,000 beds.”

2:15
B.C. budget features major debt and deficit increases

Levitt said now is not the time to be slowing down investments in long-term care or home supports.

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He said the province needs to be supporting children and growing families, but also supporting the aging demographic.

“We certainly understand that some of those projects were quite expensive, almost $2 million a bed,” Levitt said.

“In some cases, around $1.8 million a bed. The new numbers they’re closer to $1 million in some cases. But it’s still more expensive for government to build their owned and operated than for the private sector, for example, for for-profit or non-profit to build.”

Levitt said the province should be building homes that feel like a house, not an institution.

“There’s much more we need to do to have a provincial robust seniors plan that includes aging a place where you live,” he said.

Levitt said that over the past decades, the province has not built enough beds to supply the growing demand for seniors.

“If you think about it, in the past five years, we built five per cent more additional beds at a time when the population of seniors increased 19 per cent,” he said.

“Over the next decade, we’ll have 26 per cent more seniors and only 3,000 additional beds, about 10 per cent new bed stock.

“Family members are the ones who are hurting the most by the lack of investments in seniors care and their family members who are waiting for those beds are the ones really who are paying the price.”

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After the COVID-19 pandemic,  ridership on Toronto’s buses, streetcars and subways struggled to rebound.

But it surged back in nearby cities.

Brampton, Mississauga and parts of Waterloo Region were among the suburbs that rapidly recovered from COVID-19, setting records for the number of passengers and struggling with overcrowding.

Then, the federal government put a cap on the number of international students who could study in Ontario. The move appears to be directly linked to suddenly plummeting ridership in those cities, which are now recording millions fewer rides.

“In 2024, federal policy changes reduced immigration inflows and began to affect ridership,” the City of Brampton wrote in a statement to Global News. “Demand slowed late in the year and declines continued into Spring and Summer 2025, resulting in a revenue shortfall.”

Mississauga, for example, saw its student ridership drop 24 per cent last year and its total number of riders fall by 10 per cent.

“A 10 per cent drop in ridership does seem significant,” Mississauga’s Miway transit director Maureen Cosyn Heath acknowledged. “Certainly, the policy change is an impact on that.”

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In Waterloo, Grand River Transit provided four million fewer rides in 2025 than it had the year before.

“Decreases in ridership were mainly due to reductions in the local student population,” a recent report from the agency explained.

The cap on international students was brought in by the federal government in January 2024 and then tightened. It’s been blamed by the Ontario government for financial struggles at provincial colleges as even overseas students who can get visas begin to stay away.

Cosyn Heath said the long-term impacts of the policy would mean Mississauga has to change how it plans its transit system, perhaps dropping or reducing its routes serving campuses or student housing.

“We’re aware that the changes on international students are going to have a permanent impact on us in the longer term,” she said. “So we revise our ridership projections, and then we pivot and shift to figuring out what new markets exist that we need to serve better.”

Brampton, too, said it would be “aligning service delivery with demand and long-term sustainability.”

Despite the short-term hit to transit ridership around Toronto, one transit expert believes it’s a bump in the road rather than an existential threat.

“Brampton was the transit success story of North America long before the international boom,” Jonathan English, principal at Infrastory Insights, told Global News.

“They experienced a 250 per cent ridership bump before international students arrived. Is it a significant drop? For sure. And will that have financial consequences? Definitely. But I think we need to keep it in perspective.”

In Mississauga, the transit agency is taking a pause to assess the impacts, but not scaling back. After increasing ridership hours, MiWay will freeze them for 2026 as it works out how to address a 10 per cent drop in travellers.

“You’re not going to see service cuts unilaterally across the system as a result of one pocket of our ridership,” Cosyn Heath said.

English said that’s the right approach, urging cities to ensure service improves to attract new riders who aren’t as reliant on transit as students might be.

“It’s hard to change routes before ridership data comes in. Now the ridership data has come in and there is an opportunity for the systems to respond — and they need to respond,” he said.

“Are some routes going to permanently or, for the foreseeable future, have less ridership? Absolutely… but overall the cities continue to grow, people continue to travel to work, to play, to school, so the key goal has to be here ot make sure we maintain a basic quality service level.”

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The Bank of Canada announced on Tuesday that it has issued a temporary order to XTM Inc. to immediately cease performing any retail payment activities.

This comes after more people in the hospitality industry across B.C. are coming forward about tips disappearing from the third-party program that manages them.

XTM provides a payment service for restaurant owners to gather and distribute tips to staff using pre-paid cards through a platform called Everyday, previously called AnyDay.

In early February, members of B.C.’s hospitality industry started reporting that the company stopped distributing money and some were missing thousands of dollars.

Eric Griffith, owner of Alta Bistro and Alpha Cafe in Whistler, told Global News they were missing $4,500.

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Matthew Upton, one of the owners of The Broken Seal restaurant in Squamish, told Global News they are missing $12,000.

Dan Webster with Container Brewing in East Vancouver said they are missing $3,100.

The Bank of Canada said in a statement that the order applies to XTM and its affiliated entities and “prohibits XTM or its affiliates from conducting any transactions or withdrawals from accounts associated with the AnyDay platform.

“The Bank issued this order under section 94 (4) of the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA). The Bank has serious concerns that XTM failed to safeguard client funds in its possession and has reason to believe that allowing XTM to continue to perform retail payment activities could be prejudicial to the public’s interest.”

CEO of Toronto-based XTM, Marilyn Schaffer, did not answer multiple emails from Global News last week about what happened to the funds from the B.C. restaurants and when merchants might get their money back.

2:04
Restaurants missing tips from third-party program

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B.C.’s Finance Minister, Brenda Bailey, has delivered the 2026 budget.

Here are five things you need to know.

Bailey has promised there would be years of declining deficits, but first it is projected to spike by a hefty 38 per cent to a record $13.3 billion next fiscal year, compared with an updated forecast for the current year of $9.6 billion.

While the deficit is forecast to increase $3.7 billion year on year, Bailey said a “guiding principle” was that the deficit would decrease “over time,” with the ongoing impact of structural changes such as the tax increase and public sector cuts.

But even that does not change the fact that the deficit remains stubbornly high — under the budget’s three-year plan, it would be $11.4 billion in the 2028 fiscal year.

B.C.’s debt is going to continue to grow, with no cuts in the budget this year.

The cost of servicing programs like child welfare, social assistance, and pharmacare is rapidly escalating.

“The cost to providing care is increasing,” Bailey said in the budget.

“Our government has been working hard to make sure that British Columbians can access the care they need, when they need it. A lot of progress has been made.

“This summer will welcome the very first class of medical students to the new SFU Medical School in Surrey. And in the year ahead, we expect to break ground on the school’s permanent home.”

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Bailey said more British Columbians are getting a family doctor, which is in addition to the hundreds of maintenance and renovation projects to modernize and upgrade hospitals throughout B.C.

“These projects represent the largest investment in health care infrastructure in B.C. history,” she said.

“But we know there is still much more to do. We must remain focused on protecting what we’ve built and delivering better, faster health care for people. This spring, as part of a national pharmacare agreement, B.C. will provide enhanced public coverage for both menopausal hormone therapy and a wide range of diabetes medication and devices. We are also continuing to fund in vitro fertilization treatments so people can start a family.”

Bailey said a comprehensive review of health authorities has identified administration duplication and redirected savings to the front lines of health care. She said that since the review began, 1,100 administrative positions have been eliminated, closed or left vacant, with those savings to be invested in frontline patient care.

B.C. will pace infrastructure projects “carefully,” Bailey said, to deliver them efficiently without driving up costs.

The completion or construction of some long-term care homes will be delayed, along with phase two of Burnaby Hospital.

There are delays to seven long-term care projects from Abbotsford to Fort St. John, as well as the second phase of Burnaby Hospital and Cancer Care, and student housing at the University of Victoria.

“Our priorities are clear,” Bailey said. “Protect and improve core public services that people rely on, like health care and education. Keep B.C., one of the lowest taxed provinces for middle and working class families. Reduce the deficit responsibly over time while protecting what’s working.”

She said three steps will help the province achieve this — make the public sector leaner, pace infrastructure projects carefully and make changes to generate revenue, while taking action to grow the economy and secure the long-term impact of major projects.

Bailey said growth in B.C. has not kept pace with the cost of delivering public services, therefore, the province needs to rebuild a stable and sustainable revenue base.

“People earning under $149,000 will continue to pay the lowest personal income taxes in the country,” she said.

“Budget 2026 includes a change to the first income tax bracket of about half a percentage point. We’ll offset the extra costs for lower-income earners by increasing the B.C. tax reduction credit.

“We’re also updating some household-related taxes, some housing-related taxes; those with homes above $3 million in value will be asked to contribute a little more. The property tax deferment program is being changed to help those who need it most, and the vast majority of homeowners don’t see a change.”

The tax rate on the lowest bracket is being increased by 0.54 per cent, with government staff saying 60 per cent of tax filers will face higher bills, and the average taxpayer will be hit with a $76 hike.

The budget says increasing the bottom tax rate to 5.6 per cent means a maximum impact of $201 on people earning more than $140,000 without additional credits, while credits for some lower earners are being raised.

B.C.’s 2026 budget expands the province’s PST tax base to include professional services, such as accounting and bookkeeping, architectural, geoscientist and engineering services, commercial real-estate fees and security and private investigation services.

Bailey said that this change generally aligns B.C. with how other provinces apply sales taxes to these services.

PST exemptions will also be removed from some goods and services such as clothing repair materials, services related to clothing and footwear, basic cable television and landline telephone services.

Bailey said that expanding the tax to these services is generally consistent with how tax applies to these services in most provinces.

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade is giving this budget a ‘D’ rating.

–with files from The Canadian Press

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The outlook for Canada’s provinces is difficult to chart but some surprising resilience to U.S. trade pressures and historical revisions to economic data have most provinces on better footing heading into the 2026 budget season, argues a new analysis from Desjardins.

Randall Bartlett, deputy chief economist at Desjardins and one of the authors of the report published Tuesday, said a number of developments since even the provinces’ fall fiscal updates have shown what a fraught time it is for economists and policymakers alike.

“It is a much more difficult time to be doing forecasting for any economy, really,” he said.

British Columbia kicks off provincial budget season on Tuesday with Alberta on deck next week and other provinces expected to follow with their own fiscal updates in the coming months. The federal government shifted to a fall budget schedule last year, which it justified in part as a way to give provinces more clarity on Ottawa’s spending plans in advance.

Bartlett said at this time last year, the outlook for the provincial economies was “much worse than it is today” as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened waves of tariffs and Canada stared down an uncertain future.

Sharp tariffs have materialized on some sectors, weighing heavily on Ontario steel and automaking and Quebec’s aluminum industry, for example. But thanks to an exemption for goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade, Trump’s blanket tariffs on Canada have not had as much of an impact on the economy as first feared, Bartlett said.

Also giving provincial economies a lift are recent historical revisions to gross domestic product published by Statistics Canada in November. Those updates, based on new information received by StatCan from the pandemic recovery era, raised previous estimates of GDP in 2022 and 2023 across the board.

2:15
Province keeps advisors amid budget crunch

Bartlett said the revisions helped to assuage some concerns about stagnating per capita GDP and productivity growth and put the provinces on better footing than first expected entering the trade war.

“Overall, the provinces, I think, economically have fared better than we had previously expected in our last provincial outlook,” he said.

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How a better-than-expected 2025 will set up the 2026 budgets will vary province to province as new risks have materialized since the fall.

Trade tensions with the United States are expected to reach a tipping point this year with the scheduled review of CUSMA now underway.

Central Canada remains most exposed to Trump’s tariffs, Bartlett said, highlighted by the U.S. president’s recent attempts to target Quebec’s aerospace industry. But he said British Columbia, Saskatchewan and most Atlantic provinces are better positioned with diversified trade portfolios.

Many of these provinces could see dividends from the federal government’s renewed diplomacy with China, which is expected to reduce tariffs on canola — a big boost for Saskatchewan in particular. Increased trade could also see increased exports head overseas from B.C. ports.

Reduced Chinese tariffs on seafood and peas should also improve the respective outlooks for the Maritime provinces and Manitoba, Bartlett said.

2:19
Ontario consumers could see higher alcohol prices in the new year

Regime change in Venezuela could threaten the fiscal picture of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, Desjardins argued. Canadian producers could get less for their product if more heavy oil from Venezuela eventually makes its way up the U.S. Gulf Coast, the report said, which risks delaying investment in domestic production and lowering GDP in future years.

“That leads to reduced profitability for energy companies, which can lead to reduced production, reduced employment and also reduced revenues for the provincial government,” Bartlett said.

Despite the risks to Alberta, Bartlett noted the Wild Rose province comes into 2026 with perhaps the cleanest fiscal positions among the other provinces as it implements cost-cutting measures.

“I think there is an opportunity to find further savings for Alberta and ultimately position themselves well for when we get hopefully a more certain and less volatile regime for global energy prices,” he said.

Bartlett said each of the provinces took a different approach this time a year ago when accounting for the possible impact of Trump tariffs on their fiscal paths.

Despite the ongoing trade headwinds, Bartlett said Ontario and Quebec in particular baked a strong degree of “prudence” into their budgets last year and should see relatively rosier fiscal outlooks by comparison when they offer their updates in the coming weeks.

“We’re expecting some (provinces) to have underperformed or overperformed their Budget 2025 numbers when budget season’s over. But ultimately we’ll probably come around pretty close to where the budget numbers were in 2025, with the exception of maybe Alberta and some of the other energy producing provinces,” he said.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press

The co-founder of a group that supports victims and their families after mass shootings says a top priority when bringing students back to school in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., is to make them feel safe again.

“No kid can learn in fear,” said Anita Busch, with the U.S.-based organization Victims First.

The British Columbia government has announced that a series of portable facilities will arrive throughout the week, so students at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School don’t have to learn in a place were six people were killed, five of them students.

A government statement says a date for the resumption of classes hasn’t been confirmed.

Chad Anderson, chair of the Peace River South school board, said in the statement that it would “use a compassionate, trauma-informed approach” to the resumption of classes.

Busch said her experience has shown that there will be fear around the return to school.

“Even going back to something that you can say is completely safe, it’s still going to be a lot of fear there.”

The B.C. government said 14 portables will begin arriving in Tumbler Ridge this week, and they’ll be placed on the grounds of the local elementary school.

“It is expected to take several days to set the units up for water and heating and to furnish them for returning students and staff, depending on weather conditions and other factors,” the statement said.

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Environment Canada posted a winter storm warning for the southern Peace region with up to 25 centimetres of snow by Tuesday and wind chills down to minus-40 through to Wednesday.

Busch, whose cousin was killed in the Aurora, Colo., theatre shooting and who has a family member who survived the Route 91 concert mass shooting in Las Vegas, said there should be counsellors available to support the students and teachers coming back.

“It’s all about putting the building blocks in place to make the kids and the educators feel safe,” she said.

“Whether it’s security, visible security, and also to have trauma counsellors there to help them.”

The government says counsellors will support staff and students in the safe transition to the new buildings and counselling will continue to be available afterward.

Busch said those at schools that have had shootings in the United States have made a variety of decisions on what to do with the buildings. Both Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida were demolished and rebuilt.

Those in charge of the Columbine High School site tore down the library where many of the victims were killed, and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was torn down and rebuilt at a different location.

Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, shot and killed her mother and half-brother at their home in Tumbler Ridge before going to the school and killing six people and then herself.

The current portables being moved to the elementary schools are single-wide, but the statement says double-wide trailers will be arriving in the coming weeks “and will serve Tumbler Ridge Secondary until community input, expert advice and future plans can be confirmed.”

Busch said the community should be involved in any decision around when and where to start school again.

“You have to talk to those directly impacted. You have to have an open forum that’s safe and let the voices rise and get input,” she said.

Any new school should be built with safety in mind and those measures need to be clearly visible so that students can see that the location is safer, she said.

Busch, who has assisted on 56 mass casualty events over 13 years, said people in Tumbler Ridge are still going to be fearful.

“Everything that people are feeling right now is a very normal reaction to an incredibly abnormal situation,” she said.

“So, not wanting to leave the house, being scared to go anywhere, having recurring thoughts (or) nightmares. This is what happens after a mass shooting. Don’t feel like you’re losing your mind. You’re not.”

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Ontario’s finance minister is expressing concerns about the rate of health-care spending in the province, calling the current $91.5-billion budget both “unprecedented” and “unsustainable.”

When Peter Bethlenfalvy addressed the Mississauga Board of Trade in January, he outlined some of the issues that appear to be weighing on his mind as he crafts the upcoming budget set to be delivered in late March.

“We’re in unprecedented territory in terms of the concerns of people. People are scared, they’re worried, they are concerned,” Bethlenfalvy said of the current geopolitical and economic climate fuelled, in part, by U.S. President Donald Trump.

At the same time, Bethlenfalvy warned that the province was facing a “big headwind, on top of the uncertainty” that threatens to squeeze Ontario even further.

“The economic environment is slowing down, there’s just no question,” the minister said. “We’re growing at the slowest rate we’ve grown post-COVID.”

Adding to the GDP concerns, the finance minister pointed out that “flattening” population growth is another factor his department is closely watching as it decides how to allocate billions in spending.

“Eighty-five per cent of the spending in the budget is actually for social spending. About 15 per cent is for infrastructure and the economy,” Bethlenfalvy explained.

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“We have a slowing population and a slowing economic growth and a trajectory of social spending that’s been, frankly, unprecedented. So we’re going to have to manage that challenge.”

Later, during a fireside chat, the minister put it more clearly: “Our health-care spending is unsustainable. We just have to deal with reality that we can’t keep spending, particularly when our population is flattening.”

The comments come at a time when hospitals warned the government they are facing a billion-dollar structural deficit and are now preparing for “difficult decisions” unless the Ford government increases health-care funding in its upcoming budget.

The Ontario Hospital Association said health-care costs have risen by six per cent a year, largely due to a growing and aging population and inflation, forcing health-care institutions to erode their capital and borrow money to stay afloat.

Rob Cerjanec, a Liberal MPP from Ajax, said the finance minister’s comments are “incredibly concerning,” especially for residents who want assurances that health care will be available when needed.

“When we hear a minister of finance talking about health-care spending being unsustainable, I mean that could be the difference between life or death for somebody,” Cerjanec said.

“We have great pride in our public health-care system. We need to strengthen our public health-care system.”

Recently, Ontario’s financial accountability officer revealed that the province was projecting a “significantly slower pace” of health-care spending in the next few years compared with the previous three.

The 2025 budget projected that health-care spending would grow by an average rate of 0.7 per cent between 2025 and 2028.

By contrast, the health-care budget grew by 6.6 per cent on average between 2021 and 2024.

“Over the 34-year period from 1990-91 to 2023-24, health sector spending grew at an average annual rate of 5.0 per cent,” the budget watchdog notes. “If the Province’s health sector spending plan in the 2025 budget is achieved, it would be the slowest three-year growth rate since 1993-94 to 1996-97.”

When Global News asked the finance minister whether his “unsustainable” remark meant he was considering cutting spending, Bethlenfalvy rejected the notion.

“We’re not going to cut health-care spending,” the finance minister said, before adding that his goal is to deliver health spending in an “efficient, effective and innovative way.”

Bethlenfalvy said that includes focusing on reducing surgical wait times, easing hallway health care and expanding access to family doctors.

The minister added that the use of artificial intelligence to help physicians take notes and using tracking devices on gurneys and wheelchairs are examples of innovation to free up resources and stretch precious health-care dollars.

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In early February, a joint operation by Alberta Sheriffs, Calgary Police Service and the provincial government conducted more thorough inspections of commercial vehicles at the Airdrie, Alta., vehicle inspection station north of Calgary.

Insp. BJ Bjornson with Alberta Sheriffs says plenty of vehicles were dealt with.

“We had 20 of the 23 vehicles not pass the actual inspection qualification process,” explained Bjornson. “Five of which were able to (be) fixed locally on site, whereas the other 15 weren’t able to be fixed locally and had to remain on site, and placed permanently out of service until that could be removed in a safer manner.”

Alberta Sheriffs operate more than 40 vehicle inspection stations and mobile inspection stations across the province. On any given day, officers perform upwards of 40 commercial inspections each day for a total of more than 15,000 taking place in 2025, resulting in more than 4,000 vehicles being removed from Alberta roadways.

“We actually have two levels of inspections we’re looking for. Our level two inspection would qualify as similar to what a driver would do for their inspection,” Bjornson noted.

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“On that specific day we conducted a level one inspection where we do that preliminary inspection on the outside of the vehicle, but then we get underneath the vehicle and we start looking at the components.”

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Alberta Sheriffs Police Service aims to decrease rural wait times

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When issues are found, Alberta Sheriffs primarily focus on education, but can escalate if necessary.

“Depending on what the infraction is, or the deviation or defect that we find, it could be anything from a fine that is nominal in nature, or it could be anything up to a long duration to have that vehicle seized,” said Bjornson.

“That impacts the drivers, that impacts the carriers, which is why we focus more on the collaborative approach with our industry partners.”

At Heavy Wrenching Diesel, co-owner Joseph Saoud tells Global News choosing not to stay on top of servicing their equipment can result in serious repercussions.

“When the truck is not operating, they’re losing money. The guys who are set up for success are doing preventative maintenance rather than waiting for it to blow,” Saoud remarked.

“These are killing machines if they’re not being paid attention to.”

And it’s not just the drivers or carriers that can face consequences.

“If there’s any proof that a shop has recently looked at it, and allowed it to leave, or worse yet passed the safety inspection with that damage? They will come here and fine us, remove licensing,” said Saoud.

“So there are consequences to bending the rules.”

Saoud says he’s heard of potential bad actors within the industry, but says the province is good at nipping problems in the bud before the grow into an issue.

“I don’t know how they get away with it, but they do,” notes Saoud. “But they don’t last long, it’s just dangerous while they’re in operation, and DOT (Department of Transportation) does a pretty good job of finding them and catching them.”

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