Fiona Famulak, president and chief executive officer of the BC Chamber of Commerce, said the budget missed an opportunity.
“The in our view is an affordability budget, meaning that it helps British Columbians to navigate the cost of living, which is obviously increasing, so it is important for that help to be available,” she said. “However, it does not offer much help to businesses, who are struggling with the cost of doing business in British Columbia.”
Two weeks ago, the chamber pushed government officials for “urgent and meaningful steps” to reduce the cost of doing business. “We gave them example, encouraging them to increase the payroll threshold for the Employer Health Tax from $500,000 to $1.5 million, therefore providing small businesses..some financial bandwidth with which to invest in people, with which to invest in innovation,” she said. “That didn’t happen yesterday and we are disappointed that opportunity was missed.
“We are also pleased to see that the government is addressing some societal issues — societal issues, which are also business issues, such as the lack of housing, the lack of mental health supports in communities, particularly rural communities, that are really in need, ” she said.“However, we still would have liked to have seen an increase in the EHT threshold in order to put money back into the pockets of small-to-medium businesses directly.