Five years ago, the BC Tech Association published a report arguing that B.C.’s economy was not what we told ourselves it was.

The prevailing narrative was of a province defined by its natural resources, its geography and its commodity exports. We argued that was a 20th century story being told about a 21st century economy and the data showed something different: a province where services accounted for three-quarters of GDP and four-fifths of jobs, where the technology sector was growing faster than any other part of the economy, and where the fiscal base depended not on royalties and resource revenues but on the wages, taxes and spending of working British Columbians.

Five years on, the data in BC Tech’s updated report has only deepened the case. B.C.’s technology sector accounted for $30.7 billion in GDP in 2025, 9.6 per cent of the total, generated by 271,000 people earning wages at 70 per cent above the provincial average in both urban and rural communities across the province. Globally competitive companies in enterprise software, quantum computing, clean technology, life sciences, AI and digital infrastructure now call B.C. home.

The world has also changed in ways that make the argument more urgent, not less. AI is restructuring every sector of the global economy simultaneously, creating winner-take-most dynamics that reward jurisdictions that move decisively and penalize those that hesitate. The tariff shock of 2025 exposed the risks of relying too heavily on goods exports—and forced a long-overdue conversation about economic sovereignty that B.C. should have been having anyway. Taken together, these forces have reframed the knowledge-economy argument: this is no longer a debate about which industries will drive future growth. It is a debate about whether B.C. can maintain the living standards its people expect and deserve, and whether government can fund the services they depend upon.

B.C. has clean, abundant energy, world-class universities and research institutions, and a real track record of building companies that break through globally. It has a workforce that is educated, innovative and diverse, proximity to Asian markets, deep connections to California and Washington state, and a quality of life that remains (despite real and growing affordability challenges) among the most compelling in the world.

The story of B.C.’s economy in the 21st century is still being written, and we can see clearly who is writing it: the engineers, the founders, the researchers, the designers, the operators and the investors who are building world-class companies from Vancouver to Victoria to Kelowna to Prince George. What they want from government is not protection or subsidy—it is a partner who understands what they are building and creates the conditions for them to build it here. The prosperity of B.C.’s tech companies and the economic and fiscal health of this province are intertwined.

B.C. has never lacked potential, but it has lacked a coherent, determined policy framework matched to the economy it actually has. The gap between what B.C.’s economy is and how government talks about it, measures it and invests in it is the central problem this report identifies. Closing that gap means investing in skills training, creating the conditions in which the most promising companies can scale and stay, using procurement as an economic lever, measuring the services economy with the same rigour as the goods economy and giving B.C.’s tech leaders a seat at the table through a permanent standing on the Premier’s Technology Council.

This is not a partisan argument—or rather it shouldn’t be. Investing in high-wage, export-oriented, tariff-resilient industries is a supply-side argument. Protecting the tax base that funds health care and education is fiscal responsibility. Economic sovereignty has been a cross-party cause since the tariff shock began. Nor is it a lobbying argument on behalf of the tech sector. The data behind these arguments comes from Statistics Canada and BCStats BC Tech has assembled and interpreted the data, we did not invent it.

BC’s economy is not what we tell ourselves it is.

It is time to back the economy we have—not the one we remember.

Jill Tipping is CEO of the BC Tech Association.