 Good morning everyone. Welcome to budget 2021 lockup. Thank you for joining us today. I'd like to start by acknowledging I'm speaking from the territory of the Lekwungen peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt nations. The Minister of Finance will deliver her budget presentation shortly. Before she begins I want to address just a few details regarding this year's lockup. It was important to the BC government to ensure that media and stakeholders have access to subject matter experts like they are used to in previous years and are able to hear directly from the Minister of Finance. So this year's virtual lockup is designed to help provide that same level of access to subject matter experts while while keeping all of us safe. Budget staff will be doing their best today to ensure your questions are answered in a timely and fair manner. I'd also like to remind everyone about the waiver you signed prior to today's event. There's to be no communication from anyone outside the virtual lockup until it ends. And until the minister rises in the house this afternoon to address budget 2021. Once the minister finishes her budget presentation, government staff will be available in the budget questions room on this platform to help answer your technical questions. You can record video or audio of that staff while they answer your questions. But remember those answers are for information only and not for attribution. And finally Minister Robinson will return to the stage to answer questions from the media at noon today. I'd now like to introduce the Minister of Finance, the Honorable Selena Robinson. Thank you. Good morning everyone. And I'd like to begin by acknowledging the Laquangen peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, on whose territories we are gathered today. Even though it looks a lot different this year, I am glad to be here at our annual budget day lockup. And I'd like to welcome everyone who has joined me today, whether you're working from your home office or from your traditional work office, welcome. The very nature of this event shows that there is no doubt that COVID-19 is still very much with us. Many people are still feeling the effects of the pandemic and they will for some time. But there are good reasons for hope, including our vaccination rollout and some signs, good signs in our provincial economy. And I'm honored honored to present Budget 2021. It is about building today for a better tomorrow. This moment calls for action and Budget 2021 delivers for the people of British Columbia. It responds to the impacts of the pandemic, today's challenges and prepares us for future challenges by investing in health care, by strengthening the services that we all count on, and by building a bridge to recovery and the better days that are indeed ahead. The pandemic will end and when it does BC will be ready for the opportunities that come with recovery. And that is a powerful testament to the incredible resilience that people, that businesses and that communities have shown and continue to show. Before we get into Budget 21's fiscal plan, I'll start with a brief review of the fiscal year 2020-21. Budget 2020 presented a balanced fiscal plan. The COVID-19 pandemic took an unprecedented toll on government's revenues and it required us to take immediate action to ensure that our people and our economy remained healthy and safe. This created a deficit for fiscal year 2021. But I'll note that the deficit is going to be lower than the 13.6 billion that was projected in the fall update. This 5.5 billion dollar improvement is mainly thanks to higher revenues but also somewhat lower spending and improved operating results in government organizations including ICBC. The fact that our forecast has shifted so much from only four months ago is a reminder that we are still in the midst of a worldwide pandemic which continues to make it rather difficult to predict how things will develop in the future. The economic outlook for BC has improved since the fall. The swift development of effective vaccines together with stronger than expected economic activity in 2020 has improved the outlook. Recent data has shown that growth in retail sales, housing activity, exports and wages and salaries have outpaced expectations. In 2020 retail sales rose by 2.6% and home sales grew 21.5%. Housing starts were strong at around 37,700 units were well above the historical average of around 31,100 units. International exports of goods declined by 8.2% and wages and salaries fell by 0.7%. Both declines however were less than previously expected. Meanwhile employment declined by 6.6% and the unemployment rate averaged 8.9% last year. More recently employment gains in March 2021 have resulted in the province surpassing its pre-pandemic employment levels. The resilience in activity has been supported by a number of factors including government emergency response programs, adjusted business practices, a consumer pivot towards goods purchases while services have been disrupted by the pandemic, low interest rates and increased demand for larger homes as the pandemic were on and people continue to spend significantly more time at home. However considerable risks remain. There was uncertainty regarding how COVID-19 variants of concern may impact recovery here across the country and globally and the economic recovery is expected to continue to be uneven amongst among sectors in the community in the in the economy. As such it is expected that it will take until 2022 for the level of BC Real GDP to return to its 2019 pre-pandemic levels. It is important to note that this forecast was prepared at a point in time and and as we've never as we've seen over the last few weeks things can change dramatically due to the pandemic. There continues to be uncertainty regarding the degree to which the pandemic will have lasting effects not only here in British Columbia but across Canada and around the world. In budget 21 we are forecasting that BC's economy will expand by 4.4 percent in in 2021 by 3.8 percent in 2022 and growth will range between 2.1 percent and 2.5 percent annually over the medium term. Consistent with past practice we are lower than the average outlook provided by the Economic Forecast Council with one exception. There is 0.5 percentage points of prudence in both 21 and 22 and 0.2 percentage points of prudence in both 23 and 24. The level of prudence is slightly more than we've seen in recent years given the unprecedented circumstances and high degree of uncertainty. The outlook for 2025 is slightly higher than the average EFC forecast as LNG production is anticipated to provide more support to the economy in that year. While members of the EFC have incorporated LNG into their projections assumptions may vary and the average of the 13 members is slightly lower than our forecast in 2025. The outlook is conditional on assumptions which could change substantially over the coming months. Underpinning our budget 2021 projection is the assumption that large scale immunization campaigns will be well underway around the world and that global travel restrictions will ease. The exact timing will vary by jurisdiction and industry. High contact service industries such as tourism, hospitality, recreation and retail will likely be challenged by the need for containment measures for some time. This slide shows a private sector growth forecasts for Canada and the provinces. All provinces saw significant impacts last year as shown on the chart on the left. A recovery is expected for this year and private sector forecasters have revised up their near term economic growth projections for BC in recent weeks. A subset of the economic forecast council now expects BC's real GDP to grow by 5.8% in 2021 as shown by the chart on the right. This is better than the national average and speaks to the resiliency of BC's economy. Budget 2021 is focused on the province's response and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Budget deliberations took a thoughtful approach to make sure that government continues to protect the health and safety of British Columbians, support people and businesses as we continue to manage through the effects of the pandemic. And to do the important preparation work so that we can be ready to seize the opportunities that recovery will hold. In addition to new permanent investments of $8.7 billion over the fiscal plan, the province will continue to maintain a pandemic and recovery contingencies to support time-limited COVID-19 measures of nearly $4.6 billion over the next three years with a $3.25 billion dollar allocation in 2021-22, which tapers to $300 million by the third year of the plan. This will ensure that the province can continue to deliver COVID-19 response and recovery measures and builds additional prudence into the fiscal plan to help manage the ongoing uncertainties and risks with the pandemic. Budget 2021 sets the path for the work ahead towards fiscal balance and I'll start with a very high-level summary. From the top you'll see that government revenues are expected to recover as the economy returns to pre-pandemic levels. The plan prioritizes record level investments for people, which I'll speak more about in detail later in this presentation. Budget 2021 provides $3.25 billion for the pandemic and recovery contingencies and a billion dollars forecast allowance in 2021-22. As the temporary spending for the pandemic and recovery tapers off you will see the deficit declining from $9.7 billion in 2021-22 to $4.3 billion in 2023-24 and I'll speak to these measures of fiscal prudence in the next slide. Budget 2021 also makes significant new capital commitments in the health, transportation and education sectors. Taxpayers supported capital spending on hospitals, schools, post-secondary facilities, transit, roads and other infrastructure around the province is expected to be $26.4 billion over the fiscal plan period. Debt is expected to increase to finance the operating and capital investment needs of the province. Taxpayers supported debt at the end of the three- year fiscal plan in 2023-24 is forecast to be $92.7 billion. You will note that in spite of this increase our debt burden remains manageable for a province of our size. With taxpayer debt to GDP ratio remaining below 30% across the fiscal plan this compares favorably with other jurisdictions that are also having to deal with the impacts of the pandemic. For example provincial counterparts have forecast net debt to GDP ratios of 45.5 and 48.8% in 2021-22. And in spite of the debt level increase debt servicing costs remain at a historically low level due to prevailing low interest rates. Lastly you'll see that after a decrease in GDP growth in 2020-21 our province's forecast to continue to grow over the course of the next three years. In light of the ongoing pandemic and the uncertainty related to the economy the fiscal plan includes increased levels of prudence. This includes a prudent forecast for BC's real GDP growth that is lower than the outlook provided by the Economic Forecast Council. General program contingencies allocation of a billion dollars in 2021-22 tapering off to $700 million by the third year of the plan to help manage unexpected pressures related to existing programs. Pandemic and recovery contingencies allocation of nearly $3.3 billion in 2021-22 tapering off to $300 million by the third year of the plan to continue to fund short-term initiatives to address health and economic recovery needs related to COVID-19. Notional allocations of $1.5 billion in 2022-23 and $2 billion in 2023-24 for case load pressures and priority initiatives that may require funding in future budgets. And annual forecast allowances of a billion dollars in 2021-22 to $400 million by year three of the plan to guard against volatility including revenue changes. These additional prudence measures will help the province continue its effective financial management practices and mitigate risks in the fiscal plan. Our top priority is protecting the health and safety of British Columbians. Budget 2021 continues to do this by providing more than $4 billion in new funding including allocating over $3.1 billion in new base funding over three years to expand services people rely on and continue and to continue to protect British Columbians. Providing $900 million in 2021-22 for the continuation of our pandemic response. This includes our vaccination program, ongoing testing and contract tracing and maintaining programs to ensure that British Columbians can receive services outside of a hospital and to provide services in rural and remote communities. We are also continuing support for long-term care and assisted living facilities so that they are prepared to keep seniors safe. We're building on prior investments to expand urgent primary and cancer care across the province and increasing capacity and diagnostic imaging and surgery to accelerate the surgeries the people need. And we are funding the health care access program to train and hire up to 3,000 people in the health care system as carades targeting people who lost their jobs in other sectors as a result of the pandemic. We are making record investments of more than $500 million to continue and expand mental health and substance use services to better connect people to culturally safe and effective care and to respond to the overdose crisis. Funding will support BC's progress to our mental health and addiction strategy a pathway to hope. This will improve access to mental health services prevention and treatment. It will provide $97 million in funding to build a network of mental health supports for youth through increased mental health funding in schools, new foundry centers, sorry in schools new foundry centers that provide young people health and wellness resources in their community and integrated child and youth supports for 15 more school districts. Budget 21 provides $330 million to provide the full spectrum of substance use treatment and recovery services, including $152 million for opioid treatment. This will create new substance use treatment and recovery beds in communities throughout the province to help more people get on a path to recovery. Budget 2021 continues to focus on helping vulnerable British Columbians who have been severely impacted by the pandemic. It funds the largest permanent increase to income and disability assistance rates ever and doubles the senior supplements rates. Since 2017 income and disability assistance rates have increased by $325 a month. This represents a 53% increase for a single person on income assistance and 38% for a single person on disability assistance. These changes are needed and we continue to make progress towards meeting our poverty reduction goals of reducing the overall poverty rate by 25% and the child poverty rate by 50% by 2024. Our government is also continuing to support people experiencing homelessness by providing more than 3,000 temporary shelters and hotel spaces for people experiencing homelessness and providing the meals, the support staff and the equipment needed to maintain safe shelters. In 2018 we launched Child Care BC to bring affordable accessible and quality child care to families across the province. Since then we have funded the creation of over 26,000 new child care spaces with 2,500 to 3,000 more new spaces funded each year under the new spaces fund. Government has also reduced fees by up to $350 per month per child for over 69,000 spaces through the child care fee reduction initiative and has supported an estimated 63,000 children from low and middle income families to receive up to $1,250 a month per child through the affordable child care benefit. This is in addition to our support for families of up to $1,600 per child through the child opportunity benefit. Budget 2021 builds upon these gains by investing more money to double the number of universal child care prototype sites, adding 75 new centers and enabling thousands more children to receive child care at less than $10 a day and I'm excited about the newly announced federal funding which will help us to go even further. We are also supporting the creation of 400 new spaces for the Aboriginal Head Start Program and increasing access to supportive childhood development programs. We are also supporting the workforce behind the workforce, our early childhood educators, by doubling the ECE wage enhancements to $4 per hour. In 2017, median ECE wages were $18 per hour. With this, median wages will reach nearly $25 per hour this year. In all, we have allocated nearly $2.3 billion of the course of the fiscal plan. Child care will continue to play a key role as our province moves towards recovery from the pandemic. The events of this past year have shown how child care supports families by enabling parents, especially women, to go back to work. It supports business owners and it helps build strong local economies that benefit everyone. These investments have positioned our child care sector to support families so our economy can recover from COVID-19. And we are continuing to invest in services and other services that people count on and this includes $1.2 billion in funding to the K-12 education sector to support teachers, schools and families. $85 million for family, children and youth services including investments that provide alternatives to ministry care and keep children connected to their families and their communities. $367 million to support adults with developmental disabilities including funding to expand services for more than a thousand new people a year. $206 million to support timely justice services and public safety. This includes supporting equitable access to justice services including providing funding for parent legal centres and legal clinics throughout the province and making some court procedures accessible outside of the courthouse. And we are meeting government's commitment to implement free transit for all children 12 and under throughout our province starting in September 2021 which will decrease the burden on families and lead to increased transit ridership for a cleaner future. This benefits all transit users across the province but just to provide an example lower mainland families that rely on TransLink can save up to 672 dollars per child per year and families using BC Transit can save up to 400 dollars per child per year. Now this pandemic has been hard for workers and for businesses who've had to pivot and adapt over the past year. Government responded by providing supports that were crucial to help business weather the impacts of the pandemic and keep people employed. Our fall 2020 stronger BC economic recovery plan included helping businesses create an e-commerce presence or investments to support the supply chain and manufacturing sectors. Budget 2021 allocates over 800 million dollars in spending and other support measures to provide ongoing supports to help businesses recover. This includes ongoing funding for the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program and for tax incentives for employers that have hired or increased compensation in the last quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter. There's also new funding of 120 million dollars to support the tourism sector which is one of the largest employment sectors and generator of small and medium businesses in BC. This includes funding our community tourism infrastructure supports for anchor attractions that bring tourists to British Columbia and for marketing our province to domestic and international markets once it is safe to welcome visitors back. Other ongoing supports include the PST exemption for select machinery and equipment to help businesses expand operations and the permanent change that allows restaurant operators and hospitality licensees to purchase beer wine and spirits at the wholesale price which is anticipated to save businesses over seven million dollars annually. Businesses will also benefit from recovery investments that support a highly skilled workforce and community infrastructure stimulus and I'll be discussing our plan for this as part of the discussion on economic recovery. Our government has made reconciliation with indigenous peoples a cross government priority and every cabinet minister shares this mandate. We have worked with First Nations communities to start to build a more prosperous future with game gaming revenue sharing delivering affordable housing supporting language revitalization and having the care of children in indigenous communities where it belongs. Working in collaboration with the First Nations leadership council we became the first province to pass legislation to implement the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The declaration recognizes and respects the human rights of indigenous peoples and ensures that they are involved in decisions that affect them and their territories. Budget 2021 continues to make progress towards the implementation of our commitments to this legislation and includes 200 million dollars in stable funding to support engagement with indigenous peoples on a range of matters including land and resource activities and legislation and policy. This will provide more certainty for resource sector investment. In addition we are providing more funding to create more childcare spaces for indigenous families and to deliver the skills training initiatives that will lead to long-term employment for unemployed and underemployed indigenous peoples. And racism has absolutely no place in this province and in the delivery of its services. Our budget provides funding to implement recommendations from the in-plane site report and to implement cultural safety and humility training across health and mental health addiction services. This is in addition to ongoing anti-racism and multiculturalism training initiatives that continue to be employed across the spectrum of services government provides. We know the road towards reconciliation and addressing racism is long. This government will continue to work with indigenous people and First Nation communities to create a stronger and inclusive BC for everyone. Affordable housing is a key priority for our government and the pandemic has highlighted the need for BC families to stay safely housed and to be able to access the housing market. We have worked hard to tackle the crisis by addressing speculation and having and have maintained the freeze on increasing rent during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, we initiated our 30-point plan to build over 114,000 affordable homes over 10 years and are working towards meeting that commitment. To date, more than 26,000 new homes have been completed or underway and budget 2021 will continue to fund new low and middle income housing units over the three years through operating funding to nonprofit providers and $1.6 billion of provincial capital investment. As a whole, the province is projecting around 100,000 housing starts to be constructed over the course of the next three years. And we have known that partnering with individuals and organizations is a key step to creating the supply necessary, the right supply necessary to solve the housing affordability crisis. Because of this, we are providing $2 billion in additional financing to expand the housing hub program. This will help to create 9,000 more rental homes for families over the course of the next three to five years on top of the thousand homes that have been completed to date. Now climate change has been and is one of the most pressing issues facing British Columbians and we must make sure that a post-COVID future is a greener and more sustainable one. Through Clean BC, our government is ensuring that we are doing our part to build a cleaner, more sustainable future. Budget 2021 includes an additional $506 million in new investments, bringing the total investment to $2.2 billion since 2019-20. This includes nearly $200 million to continue progress towards cleaner transportation and more efficient buildings and communities. A further $60 million is included to support clean technology innovation and leverage federal investments helping to drive emissions reductions through technology development and create good quality jobs for British Columbians and BC's rapidly growing clean tech sector. The Clean BC program for industry provides funding to incent large industry to reduce emissions and invest in new more efficient technology and budget 2021 includes an additional $96 million to the program for a total of $519 million over the fiscal plan. Budget 2021 also includes a tax exemption on e-bikes making it more affordable for British Columbians to choose greener more active forms of transportation. We are working for a post-COVID economy. We are preparing for a post-COVID economy by providing British Columbians who are looking for work to those who have lost jobs with the opportunity to gain the skills and employment opportunities that they need to thrive. This budget provides $96 million over three years to support the province's longer-term strategy to build health sector capacity. As we have seen in this pandemic youth have been disproportionately impacted as they often work in the service sector in the service sectors that have been hardest hit. There is a 30 there is 32 million dollars to create thousands of more opportunities for students and youth including expanding skills training for indigenous peoples adding 30 more microcredential programs and providing more work experience placements. Budget 2021 also provides 37 million dollars for more opportunities for our youth to gain valuable work experience while contributing back to our communities. This includes approximately 3,000 new job opportunities and placements for youth in the technology and natural resources sector. Government is also establishing a $500 million strategic investment fund called NBC to attract and keep businesses here. These investments will provide the financing for businesses to meet their visions while also delivering government's economic, social and environmental policies priorities. Budget 2021 also adds to the $400 million in community infrastructure investments from the stronger BC economic recovery plan by providing 147 million dollars more in communities. This includes new funding to improve internet connectivity across rural and remote communities, enhance BC parks and expand campsites, and to invest in community infrastructure including new investments to help mark BC's 150th anniversary of entry into confederation. These recovery investments will support people, businesses, and communities throughout BC to help build a better tomorrow today. A central commitment of government is to make life more affordable for people and with the pace of new supports and measures in the context of the pandemic it is easy to forget some of the previous measures taken and how they are making a real difference for people every day. Many families and individuals are seeing ongoing savings as a result of measures introduced through previous budgets like more affordable child care that we are continuing to expand on in this budget or the elimination of MSP premiums. This year we are building on those initiatives and delivering more savings whether it's the BC child opportunity benefit that families started receiving last October but which will deliver full savings for the first year in 2021 or some of our more recent measures that you see in this budget like free transit for our children, savings for people buying e-bikes and also more affordable auto insurance that you see more recently. These measures all make life more affordable for British Columbians. Now budget 2021 includes record levels of capital investment with 26.4 billion dollars in funding over three years and increase of 3.5 billion dollars when compared to budget 2020. These investments support a strong and sustainable economy with investments in roads, transit, schools, housing and hospitals to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to deliver the services that people count on in communities around the province. Included in the plan are hospitals in Cowichan, Surrey, Stewart Lake, Dawson Creek and the replacement of St. Paul's Hospital. There are also projects designed to exceed the energy performance typically achieved in lead gold buildings including UVic student housing project and the Glenmary Elementary School in Trail. Our three-year plan is 3.5 billion dollars higher than the budget than budget 2020 and is focused on infrastructure recovery investments in the areas of health, education and transportation. Rising capital investments are needed to replace older infrastructure protect existing assets and build new ones. By leveraging existing capital project planning the capital plan is well positioned to support the recovery with shovel ready projects spanning all sectors and regions across the province. Overall our capital investments are anticipated to create over 85,000 jobs in the fiscal plan period. These benefits ripple out into the broader economy with the additional income being spent in the community and further supports recovery. Now I've touched on debt earlier as part of the overall fiscal plan slide but let me return to it briefly here as I'm sure it's been a question for some of you. Increased borrowing is necessary to finance our pandemic and recovery spending. Debt will increase but as a percentage of our GDP it remains below 30 percent which is lower than other comparable jurisdictions. And debt affordability in terms of our annual interest cost to service the debt remains low. As you can see in the second chart the cost of servicing our debt remains at very low levels. Our province entered the pandemic in a strong financial position which allowed us to respond quickly to address the unprecedented impacts of COVID-19 and to keep British Columbians safe. We prioritized the health and safety of our people and our economy while recognizing the importance of longer-term fiscal sustainability. In the absence of a balanced budget framework we implemented fiscal guardrails to guide our budget 2021 decisions and this included ensuring declining deficits, targeting spending to address our top priorities, increased levels of prudence given the continued uncertainty, maintaining pandemic and recovery contingencies for shorter-term initiatives, and to maintain a reserve for unanticipated urgent health and recovery measures that if not needed will help to reduce our deficits. Best in class debt metrics in comparison to other peer jurisdictions and continued commitment to fiscal transparency through increased pandemic and recovery related reporting. A robust economic recovery is the fastest way to make sure we return to balance. In the fall we will detail additional plans to grow important sectors of our economy that will ensure that our post-COVID economy is innovative, that it's inclusive, and that it's sustainable. Given the uncertainty around the pandemic it is difficult to forecast exactly when we can return to balance. Preliminary Ministry of Finance analysis suggests that this can happen in seven to nine years which is consistent with timelines presented by other provinces budget 2021 projections but I must stress that there is significant uncertainty. We are still we are still in this pandemic and we want to ensure that we are taking a responsible and thoughtful approach to make sure we get to balance while protecting the momentum of our economic recovery. For budget 2022 government will commit to provide detailed timeline and approach to return to fiscal balance guided by economic indicators. We have been through a great deal and I'm sure every single one of us can point to a moment in this last year when our world was turned upside down whether it was the closure of schools offices or the borders or perhaps it was the introduction of new ideas like social distancing, safe bubbles. But this year has showed me time and time again just how much we care for one another. In our communities and as a whole province we continue to show resilience. We continue to lift each other up and help when we are needed and I want every British Columbian to know that we are here for them. Budget 2021 supports people now to stay safe and healthy and it looks to the future too. A future with opportunities for everyone everyone to be part of a strong economic recovery. The pandemic will end but our work to build a better future will not. This budget has investments that will enable our province to address the COVID-19 pandemic and set the province up for a future that works for everyone. The work ahead will require the collective efforts of all British Columbians and I know that we're up for the task. Thank you.