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By Michael Reeve

Q1 BUDGET UPDATE

B.C. fiscal update reveals RIH upgrades over-budget again; TRHD has no plans to foot the bill

Sep 15, 2025 | 4:38 PM

KAMLOOPS — The first quarter budget update from B.C. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey shows the debt increasing to more than $11 billion dollars, with $665 million added to the provincial deficit in the first quarter of the year.

The three-year forecast released Monday (Sept. 15) also showed an increasing deficit level through to 2028.

“That shows very clearly the government, despite saying they are going to be a path to balanced, actually has no plans to grow the economy and expects that they will be spending more and collecting less over that same timeframe,” said Kamloops-Centre MLA and B.C. Conservative Finance Critic Peter Milobar.

“So very bad headwinds headed for our economy.”

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It can be easy to claim the deficit is too high and the real work comes in figuring out what can be done to reduce it.

“So they could stay within the spending envelope that they first always talk about and that would save a couple billion dollars on the deficit right off the top,” added Milobar. “Something as simple as finding 2 per cent savings in operations – and we aren’t talking about closing hospitals and dramatic cuts – just 2 per cent in savings of overall government waste would save another $2 billion a year.”

Kamloops received a few mentions in the budget, one of which was connected to the new Phil and Jennie Gaglardi Tower project, which opened in 2022. According to the Province, that project – which also included renovations at Royal Inland Hospital – increased from $457-million to $490-million “to reflect revised project cost.”

It’s the second time that the project has gone over budget, as the original project was expected to cost around $417-million.

The Thompson Regional Hospital Board was asked – and it declined – to help fund the previous cost overruns. Board Chair Mike O’Reilly says the latest increase will likely be a point of conversation at their next meeting.

“When you have no control over project management, procurement, timelines, we shouldn’t have to be paying cost overruns,” O’Reilly said. “We commit ‘x’ amount of dollars to a project and we expect that project to be delivered for that amount that we put forward.”

The hospital district plans to take the same approach with the upcoming Kamloops cancer centre project as well.

“There is always a worried concern, but we have been very committed and dedicated to getting the cancer centre opened in Kamloops, and we fully expect it to open on schedule,” O’Reilly added. “And regarding the budget, that comes back to the Ministry and Interior Health about how they want to manage that. We have came up with the portion of the money that we need to fund our portion and that is what we are in for.”

“At the same time they keep saying there is absolutely no way they have anymore money to build our cancer centre properly, to put a PET/CT scanner in there, to make sure it’s designed to accommodate and make sure that everything is built into the one building,” added Milobar.

“And so I wish there was just a little more consistency on how this government decides to go over-budget or not.”

Milobar also noted that the budget document did not included any mention of the Red Bridge project in Kamloops, potentially signaling further delays.

While the Ministry of Transportation and Transit isn’t able to say what a replacement bridge will look like as that planning and design work is the preliminary stages, it awarded a contract to Urban Systems in June to help conduct that work in partnership with Tkemlúps te Secwépemc and the City of Kamloops.