VANCOUVER, B.C.: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Premier David Eby to scrap his PST expansion entirely after the government announced it is pausing the tax hike.

“Pausing the PST expansion is a good step and it shows the premier is finally listening to British Columbians,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the CTF. “But a paused tax hike is still a tax hike and Eby needs to cancel this thing outright.”

Leger polling commissioned by the CTF found 66 per cent of British Columbians want the expansion cancelled, 15 per cent want the government to proceed and 19 per cent are unsure. 

Among those with an opinion, 82 per cent say cancel it. Opposition held across every region, age group and gender. 

The legislature’s all-party Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services also recommended the government “repeal the planned Provincial Sales Tax expansion.”

The expansion is projected to cost British Columbian taxpayers nearly $1.5 billion over three years. 

Starting Oct. 1, the seven per cent PST was set to apply to services like: accountants, security and private investigators, architects, engineers and geologists. That tax expansion has now been “paused through temporary regulation,” according to a government press release. 

Pausing the PST expansion will save taxpayers $260 million in 2026-27. 

“Every dollar of this tax would have come out of a family’s grocery budget or a small business’s payroll,” Binda said. “When a corner store pays more tax to hire a security guard or an accountant, that cost gets passed down to customers at the till.”

The CTF is warning the government not to replace the tax hike with more borrowing and to find savings instead. The government’s first quarter fiscal update showed higher-than-projected spending alongside bigger deficits and higher interest payments that will total $6.6 billion this year. 

“Eby can’t cancel a tax hike with one hand and pile on more debt with the other so he needs to buckle down and find savings for taxpayers,” Binda said. “British Columbians already pay interest on the debt every single day, and every dollar of interest is a dollar that doesn’t go to a hospital or a highway.” 

-30-