Proposal seeks mandatory financial and economic literacy course for new B.C. MLAs | Daily Hive

Gavin Dew. (Conservative Party of B.C.)

A member of the opposition party in British Columbia’s legislature is proposing to require newly elected MLAs to attend what would essentially be a 101 course on Economics and Finance in Government.

Next week, the legislature is expected to consider the private member’s motion by Gavin Dew, the MLA for Kelowna-Mission under the Conservative Party of B.C, outlining such a policy for incoming legislators. He is also the opposition party’s critic for Jobs, Economic Development, Innovation, and Artificial Intelligence.

To better ensure accountability to taxpayers, he wants new MLAs to be required to attend a mandatory course on economics, public finance, and numeracy for the decisions they make on taxes, spending, debt, and regulation.

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“If you’re going to vote on taxes, spending, debt and regulation, you should probably understand economics well enough not to confuse a budget with a wish list,” wrote Dew, who has a background in business, including in tech and as a consultant for large companies and organizations.

“Apparently this now counts as a bold reform,” he continued.

Upon being elected, new MLAs are provided with a multi-day, in-person orientation session that includes a model sitting in the legislature, with the officials learning debate process and procedures under the parliamentary system. They also have to set up their offices in the legislature and within their constituency, and hire staff. Such a course would be added on top of all of this.

This appears to be directly targeted at members of the BC NDP-led government, which has been greatly criticized for not doing enough to balance the budget by reducing spending further and catalyzing economic growth and investment attraction to increase government revenues. The opposition and other critics have been blasting the BC NDP for their approaches and policies that inhibit economic confidence, including the deep uncertainty related to First Nations reconciliation.

This past February, Premier David Eby’s administration unveiled its controversial 2026/2027 fiscal year budget, which calls for an all-time high annual deficit of $13.3 billion — up from $9.6 billion in 2025/2026.

The next few fiscal years will see similarly concerning budgets, with a projected deficit of $12.2 billion in 2027/2028 and $11.4 billion in 2028/2029.

With continued major operating budget deficits and a heightened capital budget on the construction of new facilities and infrastructure, provincial debt will jump from $154 billion in 2025/2026 to $183.4 billion in 2026/2027, $209.9 billion in 2027/2028, and $234.6 billion in 2028/2029.

The cost of paying interest on the staggering growth in provincial debt will soar to $6.5 billion, which would be equivalent to the Ministry with the third highest operating budget — behind healthcare and education, and ahead of social services/poverty reduction.

Weeks after the budget announcement, both Moody’s Ratings and S&P Global downgraded its credit rating for the provincial government, citing concerns that the government did not make enough progress towards a balanced budget. This adds to the previous credit rating downgrades in 2025. Moving forward, this increases the provincial government’s future borrowing costs.

As well, according to Statistics Canada’s latest jobs report, B.C. led the country in job losses in March 2026, with the province seeing 19,000 fewer jobs — the second consecutive month of similar job losses, with B.C. also seeing 20,000 losses in February 2026. Meanwhile, other provinces saw job growth or at least stability.

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