How is the new government doing for small business? Well...

July 18, 2018 marked an important date.

It marked the one-year anniversary of the new B.C. government having been sworn into office. You may have caught CFIB on your local radio this month discussing recent survey results where we asked you your thoughts on the provincial government’s first year in office.

Most notably, we asked you to give the government a grade. Of the 833 survey responses we received in June, 36% gave the government an “F” grade, 32% “D”, 21% “C”, 8% “B”, 2% “A”, and 1% were unsure.

Earlier this month on July 5th we met with Minister Ralston; the Minister responsible for small business affairs. We presented our findings to him in advance, highlighting the fact that the BC government had, on average, received a “D” grade for their first year in office. The Minister will be taking your survey results and comments to his colleagues at the Legislature as we continue to push for your priorities.

Mackenzie Cumberland (B.C. Intern), Samantha Howard (Director of B.C.), Muriel Protzer (Policy Analyst), Minister Ralston, Laura Jones (Executive Vice-President and Chief Strategic Officer), Aaron Aerts (Western Economist)

Your Priorities

On the same survey earlier, we also asked you about your priorities for the upcoming year – you pointed to important policy changes are on the horizon, like the review of the Employment Standards Act and any potential legislation arising from it.

To continue fighting for your voice, we will be lobbying on your top priorities. As indicated from the survey, this will include:

Ensuring that any changes to the BC Employment Standards Act are fair;
Refunding the over-funded position of WorkSafe BC;
Removing the PST on business inputs;
Reducing red tape; and
Slowing down the proposed increases to minimum wage.

Moving Forward

Already, we have sent meeting requests to more government officials and will be hearing back shortly to meet with them, and advance your priorities. We have also secured a meeting with the WorkSafeBC Board to share our data, ideas, and continue to fight for you! Click here to learn more about the WCB’s over-funded position, or, if you would like to share your thoughts with the WCB you can reach out to us at [email protected] .