“This could be the worst downturn experienced in our province in recent history,”:Fiscal update for 2020-21

VICTORIA—B.C. Minister of Finance, Carole James announced this morning in Victoria, the province’s latest economic and fiscal update for 2020-21, providing a summary of COVID-19 investments to-date and a scenario of revenue and deficit projections.

The scenario of B.C.’s economic recovery released to British Columbians takes into consideration that employment will remain slow, that health guidelines will remain in place, global travel will remain somewhat restricted and that businesses, and tourism will continue to be impacted. Minister James says that B.C.’s economy could decline by 6.8 per cent in 2020; as the economy recovers it could grow back by 3.1 percent by 2021.

“We started 2020 with zero operating debt triple A credit rating and some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.”—Carole James, Minister of Finance

James mentioned how quickly our unemployment rates suffered due to the pandemic, with unemployment sitting at the highest rate since 1987. The sectors hardest hit by this are the retail and hospitality sectors, which James says are heavily occupied by youth and young adults.