BC’s public accounts put last year's deficit at $7.7 billion, and a larger shortfall is projected this year.

Trump’s economic turmoil and threats to Canadian sovereignty create real fiscal pressures. But they cannot explain away a challenge that successive provincial governments failed to address long before he returned to office: the predictable rise in medical costs as our population ages.

Governments knew these costs were coming but did not adequately prepare revenue systems to cover them. When we blame these deficits on Trump's economic turbulence, we overlook this real, made-in-BC challenge. The longer we postpone that conversation, the higher the bill. 

Every party should explain how it will fairly fund the medical care our aging population needs. Without that plan, younger generations — already squeezed by BC’s exceptionally high housing costs — will inherit growing bills while investments in their own wellbeing fall further behind.