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“It doesn’t surprise me,” Greg D’Avignon, CEO of the Business Council of B.C. said of a delay. However, it could affect how government delivers last-minute grants and funding out the door at the end of the fiscal year up to March 31, he said.
“Groups like Genome B.C. and a bunch of other groups that have a big material impact on the economy, innovation and the government’s agenda, typically it can be 11th hour anyway before they find out in early March weather they get funded or not,” he said.
“So pushing it out another month, it’s a high-wire act for some of those organizations.”
B.C. is grappling with significant budget decisions at a time when the public is increasingly concerned about the economic cost of the pandemic, according to a new survey from the B.C. Business Council.
Roughly 83 per cent of people surveyed expressed worry about government’s ability to maintain services without increasing taxes. Yet at the same time, 81 per cent said the B.C. government has to do more to support businesses and create jobs.
