British Columbia had the fastest provincial spending growth in Canada even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country, a new Fraser Institute study has found.
The study, titled “The End of Spending Restraint in British Columbia,” analyzed the province’s fiscal development since the election of John Horgan’s NDP government in 2017 to gauge whether or not the incumbent leadership continued the trajectory of frugal spending practiced by its various predecessors.
Published on Jan. 4, the study noted that B.C. had been characterized by spending restraint compared to most other provinces from 2000 to 2017.
“In 2017, after years of spending restraint and general prosperity in B.C., the government decided to ramp up spending,” said co-author Ben Eisen, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a press release….