BC Political Discussion: Election 2024 & 43rd Parliament

[mcj]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said the province will trim the size of the public service, mostly through attrition, and slow the completion of capital projects as part of its efforts to bring its spending into balance...

Sacrifices are to be made for the austerity budget. This sucks for the UBC extension and SFU gondola, and everyone who wants to see more capital projects completed. Only sliver of light in this budget is that Simcoe Elementary is moved up somehow to 2028 completion from 2029, don't see that too often.

[whatnext]

For those living in condos, surprise, your strata management fees are now subject to PST!

[mcj]

Originally Posted by whatnext

For those living in condos, surprise, your strata management fees are now subject to PST!

Just the management fees to the management company that the strata pays though, should only have a small affect on the actual monthly fee people pay. Would mean a couple dollar increase per month for someone in a condo.

[WBC]

Originally Posted by mcj

Sacrifices are to be made for the austerity budget. This sucks for the UBC extension and SFU gondola, and everyone who wants to see more capital projects completed. Only sliver of light in this budget is that Simcoe Elementary is moved up somehow to 2028 completion from 2029, don't see that too often.

Given the state of provincial and federal budgets we will not be seeing extensions to anything for probably a decade or more. Feds will be mostly interested in projects that boost GDP (like mines, ports, pipelines, etc.).

And frankly nothing should be built until the government can reliably predict how much projects are actually going to cost and not end up with quadrupling of the construction budgets which seems to be par for the course these days.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by mcj

Just the management fees to the management company that the strata pays though, should only have a small affect on the actual monthly fee people pay. Would mean a couple dollar increase per month for someone in a condo.

Yeah, it's very small but still adds up.

For my building the management fee works out to be ~7% of the annual budget so the PST would be a 0.5% increase to budget.

[seamusmcduff]

Isn't the personal tax rate going up because we got rid of the carbon tax, which went into the same pot? The carbon tax became so vilified that most people didn't realize that in BC , for most people it actually kept their taxes lower.

Im sure many of the same people who were screaming to get rid of the carbon tax will now be screaming about taxes going up.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by madog222

Yeah, it's very small but still adds up.

For my building the management fee works out to be ~7% of the annual budget so the PST would be a 0.5% increase to budget.

Ours is around 4% and we don't have other expensive amenities. I hope you're getting a lot of value for that.

[whatnext]

The other real estate related tax increase is in the Speculation & Vacancy Tax. I wonder how many more Shaughnessy mansions will join the already substantial inventory for sale.

B.C. government increases speculation and vacancy tax rate for the second consecutive year
Kenneth Chan
Feb 17 2026, 6:56 pm

The Government of British Columbia is increasing its Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT) rate for the second consecutive year — a move aimed at pushing more residential properties back into the housing market, discouraging speculative ownership, and increasing provincial government revenues.

As announced in today’s 2026 B.C. budget, the tax rate for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners — as well as other groups specified under the SVT — will rise by one per cent from the existing rate of three per cent to four per cent, effective Jan. 1, 2027....

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-speculation-and-vacancy-tax-rate-hike-2027

[mcj]

Originally Posted by WBC

Given the state of provincial and federal budgets we will not be seeing extensions to anything for probably a decade or more. Feds will be mostly interested in projects that boost GDP (like mines, ports, pipelines, etc.).

And frankly nothing should be built until the government can reliably predict how much projects are actually going to cost and not end up with quadrupling of the construction budgets which seems to be par for the course these days.

Transit infrastructure is something that boosts GDP.

The issues really are inherent to building anything, construction budgets ballooning is what the private sector is also seeing. The stated reason in this budget for pacing infrastructure projects is that there is simply only a limited number of organizations that are deemed able to construct them. Which is true with the way things have evolved where government has gotten out of pretty much every aspect of project construction directly and has sub contractors on sub contractors adding cost-plus at every step of the way.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by whatnext

The other real estate related tax increase is in the Speculation & Vacancy Tax. I wonder how many more Shaughnessy mansions will join the already substantial inventory for sale.

B.C. government increases speculation and vacancy tax rate for the second consecutive year
Kenneth Chan
Feb 17 2026, 6:56 pm

The Government of British Columbia is increasing its Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT) rate for the second consecutive year — a move aimed at pushing more residential properties back into the housing market, discouraging speculative ownership, and increasing provincial government revenues.

As announced in today’s 2026 B.C. budget, the tax rate for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners — as well as other groups specified under the SVT — will rise by one per cent from the existing rate of three per cent to four per cent, effective Jan. 1, 2027....

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-speculation-and-vacancy-tax-rate-hike-2027

Good!

[Migrant_Coconut]

David Eby announces end of daylight savings

Link

British Columbians will adopt year-round daylight time, springing forward by one hour this Sunday for the last time.

In an announcement on Monday, B.C. Premier David Eby said that following the upcoming time change on Sunday morning, when the clocks will “spring forward,” there will be no further time changes.

The decision means that B.C. will be on the same time zone as the Yukon and will match Alberta from November to March, while it will remain one hour behind Washington state, Oregon and California during the winter months...

Well, that's one piece of good news.

[whatnext]

That was kind of…sudden. I thought they were waiting for the western USA to do it?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Guess we ran out of patience. Makes sense, given that we're starting to cut ties.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by whatnext

That was kind of…sudden. I thought they were waiting for the western USA to do it?

Eby was slipping in the polls. Might as well screw up every piece of software in the province hard-coded to adjust for DST and hope he wins the next election.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Eby was slipping in the polls. Might as well screw up every piece of software in the province hard-coded to adjust for DST and hope he wins the next election.

If the Yukon can do this and the world doesn't burn to the ground, I'm sure we can too.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Eby was slipping in the polls. Might as well screw up every piece of software in the province hard-coded to adjust for DST and hope he wins the next election.

This isn't the Y2K problem.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

This isn't the Y2K problem.

Buddy, lets not get into stupid time bugs. I have the 2038 bug staring me down and I can count the number other calendar bugs we've run into since Y2K with both hands. I unearthed a gem of a Y2K bug last month where the file timestamp was the year 19101.

Complaining about old software is its own can of worms (like how Apple's pre-System 9 RTC method broke on January 1, 2020) but while Windows has given the ability to let you manually turn DST on and off for decades I got a plate of other things under NDA that either now we have to beg the vendor to update it or start planning bi-annual PM calls to shift the time because it's hard-coded to shift the clock an hour twice a year.

I've always considered removing the time change stupid because it both causes incredible technical problems and was mostly people making excuses about waking up an hour early.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Buddy, lets not get into stupid time bugs. I have the 2038 bug staring me down and I can count the number other calendar bugs we've run into since Y2K with both hands. I unearthed a gem of a Y2K bug last month where the file timestamp was the year 19101.

Complaining about old software is its own can of worms (like how Apple's pre-System 9 RTC method broke on January 1, 2020) but while Windows has given the ability to let you manually turn DST on and off for decades I got a plate of other things under NDA that either now we have to beg the vendor to update it or start planning bi-annual PM calls to shift the time because it's hard-coded to shift the clock an hour twice a year.

I've always considered removing the time change stupid because it both causes incredible technical problems and was mostly people making excuses about waking up an hour early.

Buddy, this change amounts to joining an existing time zone: Yukon.

[MIPS]

Gross.

[LeftCoaster]

I think you might be the only person I've heard not excited about this. It's pretty universally liked from what I can see.

Personally I'm ecstatic to not have to drive home from work at 430 in the pitch dark next winter.

Hope California pulls their heads out of their asses and approves this soon too so we aren't out of step for too long.