BINDA: British Columbians are overpaying for subpar politicians

BC taxpayers are paying premium prices for provincial politicians who are delivering bargain-bin results. 

MLAs are taking some of the highest salaries for state and provincial politicians in North America. But our provincial politicians aren’t worth that premium price tag when they’re hiking taxes and piling a mountain of debt onto our balance sheets.

The median Canadian provincial politician made nearly three times the salary of the median American state representative’s salary at $113,637 and $45,002 respectively, according to the report.

BC MLAs took a base salary of $119,500 in 2025, more than double the median American state representative and above the median Canadian provincial politician.

But that base salary is just the tip of the iceberg. Premier David Eby took an additional $107,600, bringing his total up to $227,100.

Ministers took an extra $59,800 in addition to their base salaries. Ministers of state, opposition leaders and a variety of other MLAs with specific appointments also took big salary bumps. 

And it gets even worse. MLAs voted to give themselves a pay raise in 2026, bringing the new base salary to $122,000.

That means MLAs are making $4,681 every two weeks. The average British Columbian makes about $2,825 on that same biweekly paycheque. So our politicians are paid far more than their peers and the constituents they’re elected to represent.

Former opposition leader John Rustad once said that if you pay politicians peanuts, then you get monkeys. That’s unfair to monkeys. Only the homo sapiens in the BC legislature could possibly hike taxes, run up the provincial debt by billions and hamstring the economy all at the same time.

BC has one of the highest combined top marginal tax rates of any province or state in Canada and the United States alongside one of the lowest levels of per capita GDP, according to a new report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

BC has the fourth-highest marginal tax rate and the 15th-lowest GDP per capita of American states and Canadian provinces.

This year’s provincial budget hikes taxes by 16 per cent on working families of four making $100,000. In Budget 2026, government MLAs are hiking taxes on everything from knitting supplies and cable television to security guards and architects. That’s on top of big tax hikes to the lowest income bracket.

Tax hikes are bad enough, but government MLAs are also leaving taxpayers with a mountain of debt. Every British Columbian owed the equivalent of $16,700 towards the provincial debt in 2023. That has nearly doubled to $32,500 this year.  

Credit rating agency S&P Global warns that “BC’s budgetary performance will be the weakest of peers, both domestic and international.” 

All of those metrics point to a serious mismanagement of our public money by government MLAs. In any other sector of the economy, you’d be handed a pink slip with performance like that.

But MLAs are still planning on taking more.  

MLAs are in line for an automatic pay raise every April, regardless of their performance or how normal families are doing. MLAs voted to cancel the automatic pay raises in 2020 and 2023.

That’s not good enough. Our MLAs are being overpaid for poor performance. Politicians should show they’re serious about saving taxpayers money. To bring down our debt and cancel tax hikes, the government will need to find real savings across ministries. Politicians should show leadership by finding savings on their own bloated paycheques first.

MLAs who hike taxes on families and double the debt, while wasting billions should be shown the door, not take pay raises on their already bloated salaries. 

Carson Binda is the BC Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.