{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"ICBA Coffee & Construction","title":"C&C #16: Jock Finlayson on What Actually Went Wrong in B.C.","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/b86bb989\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":681,"description":"Not that long ago, British Columbia was an economic leader in Canada. No more. Too much debt and bloat, not enough investment and revenue. In less than a decade, B.C. has gone from leader to laggard.\nEpisode 16 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. A special edition: a full sit-down with ICBA Chief Economist Jock Finlayson on From Leader to Laggard, the report he co-authored with consulting economist Ken Peacock.\nIn this episode:\n☕ \"THIS IS NOT A CYCLICAL DOWNTURN.\" Jock's own line — the province is in the grip of a structural slowdown. What's the difference, and why is the second one so much harder to climb out of? From 2022 to 2024 the government side of B.C.'s economy grew 6.6% a year. The private sector grew 1%.\n👷 THE 223,000 JOBS THAT DON'T EXIST. If B.C.'s private sector had kept growing the way it did before the pandemic, we'd have roughly 223,000 more private-sector jobs today. Since 2019, the province has added about 1.3 government jobs for every one private-sector job — more than double the national pace.\n💸 SOMEBODY PAYS. The public-sector wage bill has gone from $26.7 billion to $53.2 billion in seven years. Taxpayer-supported debt is on track to TRIPLE in six. Jock and Ken went looking for another province that ran up debt like this — any province, any time — and couldn't find one in half a century.\n🇺🇸 DON'T BLAME TRUMP. Everybody in Victoria wants this to be somebody else's fault. The report is blunt: blaming the tariffs is tempting, but B.C. was already on a weaker footing well before the trade fights started in 2025.\n📊 Read From Leader to Laggard — free — and subscribe to the ICBA EconoBot briefing: https://icba.ca/economics","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/cbYnPby-34WwINekPZoHv9aYI0-XpmtKJrtNbyowe78/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81NThm/ZGE3NTk0NmVmNTFj/MjNjZmIwOGRjM2Vm/YzMwOC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}