Vaughn Palmer: Three months after making his major election promise, the premier can’t even say yet when he might deliver on it
VICTORIA — The cheques are still not in the mail to cover Premier David Eby’s election promise of $1,000 in “immediate” relief from grocery bills for B.C. families.
“It’s a challenging Christmas for a lot of families,” Eby conceded at the end of 2024. “They’re facing really high costs, high interest rates, other impacts. I know it’s urgent, I know they want to see it as quickly as possible.”
But the New Democrats are just not ready to deliver on the promise and won’t be for some time.
“The fastest way we’re likely to be able to deliver it is a partnership with the federal government using Revenue Canada tools to get it out to British Columbians,” explained Eby in a year-end interview with Richard Zussman of Global TV. “We’re working with them on logistics.”
By spring? Fall?
“It will be in 2025 and the goal is as quickly as possible,” Eby replied.
Three months after rolling out the biggest promise of the NDP election campaign, the premier still doesn’t know when he can deliver.
The New Democrats concocted the promise to one-up a B.C. Conservative proposal to phase in tax relief starting in 2026.
If the New Democrats were re-elected, the dollars would flow “right away,” according to Eby.
“It’s challenging times out there for families right now,” the NDP leader declared in the Oct. 2 radio debate. “They’re facing high interest rates, the impact of global inflation, they’re seeing it at the grocery store.
“That’s why we’ve put forward a middle-class tax cut, $500 per taxpayer, $1,000 for the average family. 90 per cent of British Columbians will benefit right away. People need support right now.”
In contrast to Eby’s current claim that the province is having to work with the federal government, he said the opposite during the campaign.
“This is something we can do right now for families. Not down the road. Not if the federal government does this or that — right now because people need support right now,” he said.
The so-called “grocery rebate” was derived from a Statistics Canada report that indicated the “average increase in grocery (bills) that people have been facing is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $750,” said Eby.
The platform document generalized the promise as “a $1,000 boost for household budgets, with a middle-class tax cut each and every year.” The first instalment was to be paid in “early 2025.”
That was as close as the New Democrats came to specifying a timetable before the votes were counted. After the election, they continued to suggest that the first payout would soon be at hand.
“The first year will be a rebate, so that we are not as constrained by Revenue Canada rules,” the premier told Jas Johal on CKNW in early November.
The New Democrats also indicated that there would be no need to call the legislature into session to approve the rebate. Rather, the cabinet could make it happen by signing an order to tap the unspent contingencies in this year’s budget.
By the end of November, the premier had to concede that the stroke-of-the-pen option wouldn’t work.
“We would have to pass legislation so that we’re able to provide that grocery rebate to people,” Eby told reporters. “So, we’re going to have to do that.”
The date was Nov. 27. There was still time to call the house back and pass the necessary legislation before the end of the year. But the New Democrats, reeling from the near loss of their mandate, had no appetite for that.
The grocery rebate remained “a priority for me,” Eby insisted. “We will deliver it.”
However, the plan to get it done in early 2025 was abandoned.
The New Democrats have held off calling the legislature until the second half of February. Budget day is delayed to early March. It takes time to pass legislation.
And as regards the premier’s presumed “partnership” with the federal government, Ottawa is somewhat distracted these days.
Compounding the NDP’s embarrassment is the way this promise contradicts the Eby government’s sudden conversion to the need to get provincial finances in order.
New Finance Minister Brenda Bailey announced the latter goal the day she was appointed.
“We will come up with a plan to help us get back to balanced budgets,” she said Nov. 18. “We know we have to responsibly manage public resources and you will see us doing that,” she added in releasing a financial update Dec. 17.
Yet, she says the grocery rebate is also a priority.
“The premier has been very clear that helping people address affordability is a priority for our government.”
The New Democrats have costed the rebate at $1.8 billion the first year and $1.3 billion in forgone revenue every year after.
So, in coming up with a plan to reduce a deficit currently estimated at $9.4 billion, they are first going to pay out several billion dollars more in rebates and tax relief.
Perhaps they should just revive the previous B.C. Liberal government’s much-mocked claim that tax cuts pay for themselves.