B.C.’s opposition parties have escalated their attempts to hold the province accountable after the premier’s office admitted to a nearly $1.5-billion error in its latest budget.

The Office of the Premier acknowledged it had made the error on Aug. 26, hours after Business in Vancouver published an investigation into flawed gas price forecasting in the government’s Budget 2026.

As a result of that error, the government said it had overestimated its royalties from natural gas by $292 million per year over the next five years.

That figure is at the low end of the $500-million-per-year overestimation reported by BIV last week.

Rob Botterell, the B.C. Greens finance critic and MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, wrote a letter Monday to the auditor general officially requesting an independent investigation into how the error occurred, its impact on the new gas royalty framework, and the internal decision-making process behind it.

“Integrity and accuracy in public finances are not optional,” said Botterell in an email statement.

“We need the process safeguards to make sure this won’t happen again, and until an investigation has concluded, the government needs to put the royalty framework on hold. We cannot implement a framework based on flawed data.”

The MLA cited BIV’s reporting that B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix had told Treaty 8 First Nations the province would see a $2.4-billion, windfall over five years under the new gas royalty framework set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Dix said in a June 29 closed-door meeting that those revenue gains were based on numbers presented in the B.C. budget — the same numbers that have since been acknowledged as flawed.

Reached for comment, the premier’s office deferred to the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions.

In an email statement, the ministry said that as a result of the error, it will be adding third-party verification to the budget forecasting process. It also contradicted the idea, advanced by Dix, that the budget price forecasts are the sole source of the new royalty framework’s projected windfall.

“The $2.4 billion was based on information available to the minister before the administrative error was identified,” the ministry said.

The ministry also pushed back against BIV’s reporting that the budget error was caused by a failure to account for gas transportation and processing costs, instead saying it was due to “unit and currency conversions.”

The ministry had previously attributed the discrepancy to “safety costs,” but later retracted that explanation, saying it was an error.

Experts had previously told BIV the ministry’s explanation did not add up.

Error a failure of competence, transparency and political accountability, claims opposition

In an interview, B.C. Conservative finance critic Gavin Dew echoed the Greens’ call for an independent investigation.

“I think British Columbians deserve to know: When did the government discover the error? Who knew? When did they know it? And what decisions were made using bad numbers?” said Dew.

“And until [Premier David] Eby and Dix answer those questions, this isn’t just a math mistake. It’s a failure of competence and transparency and political accountability.”

The finance critic criticized Eby for denying knowledge of the budget error in a press conference hours before BIV published its investigation. Several weeks earlier, Eby had been handed a letter detailing the mistake and its long-term implications beyond a single budget cycle, BIV reported.

Signed by four Treaty 8 chiefs, the July 14 letter raised concerns that the government had used the flawed budget numbers as part of a serious miscalculation showing the benefits of the new royalty regime.

The letter warned that the error was being used to inform the rollout of a new oil and gas royalty framework. Instead of hitting the government’s target to capture 50 per cent net industry gas profits, the new system would only bring in 11-14 per cent, claimed the chiefs.

Ronald Willson, chief of the West Moberly First Nations, said the failure of the government to heed their warning pushed him to personally deliver the warning letter to Eby in July.

“We have emergency rooms closing. Our schools are understaffed. The RCMP is understaffed. They’re complaining that there’s no money,” said Willson.

“Here’s billions of dollars they’re leaving sitting on the table, and rightfully theirs to take. It’s theirs to have, but they’re just letting it float away.”

Whatever comes next, the chief said the province has a long way to go to reestablish trust—with both the nations whose territory overlaps with B.C.’s biggest gas fields and the wider public.

Over three years, the B.C. government and Treaty 8 First Nations formed a technical working group to design a new oil and gas royalty framework previously acknowledged by government as broken and in need of an overhaul.

But Willson said the nations later discovered the province was sharing that information with major gas companies and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in closed-door meetings.

In the 12 months leading up to the end of June, oil and gas companies and their industry groups lobbied senior public office holders at least 192 times regarding royalties, found BIV’s investigation. Nearly 98 per cent of those communications have come since Jan. 1, with the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions and the Office of the Premier among the main targets.

“What we found out was that while we were jointly working on this, B.C. was in Alberta talking to Calgary about everything that we’re doing,” he said.

“We’re supposed to be working in good faith with each other and they’re kind of sneaking around.”

Error raises stakes at volatile political moment

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions told BIV the government plans to correct the budget error in a September fiscal update. It also plans to provide more information about the new royalty regime at some point in the fall.

“Should the auditor general decide to review the matter, the ministry will fully cooperate,” read the ministry statement.

The attorney general’s office did not respond to BIV regarding whether it had started an investigation into the budget error. Should such an investigation proceed, it could put significant pressure on the provincial government, said Stewart Prest, a political science lecturer at UBC.

“Whenever you move to an independent form of investigation, then government has lost their ability to control the narrative,” Prest said. “And so then they’re going to have to find ways to deal with the fallout.”

Disclosure of the budget error comes as the BC Conservatives continue to bleed support. Over the past two weeks, seven MLAs have left the party’s caucus, citing lost confidence in leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay.

On Saturday, Eby called a byelection in Abbotsford-Mission for Sept. 26, a riding where Findlay is expected to run to secure a seat in the province’s legislative assembly.

With the legislature not scheduled to sit until early October, Dew said he suspects the premier has accelerated the byelection to avoid scrutiny over the budget error as well as bigger questions over how it impacts the future of gas royalties.

“I think that this is a scandal of sufficient magnitude to bring down the government,” said Dew.

For Prest, that argument is disingenuous, as the BC Conservatives had been calling for the byelection so Findlay could claim a seat as an MLA.

At the same time, he said discovery of the budget error under normal circumstances would present a moment of “considerable peril” for the NDP government. But with the opposition in disarray, that risk is lessened, at least over the short term, he said.

“But questioning delayed is not questioning denied,” Prest added. “And if this really does have implications for future budgets, then the issue is not going to go away for the NDP.”

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