Five years ago, BC Tech published ‘A New Economic Narrative for BC’.
The report provided a rigorous review of the data on BC’s economy and demonstrated that BC’s economy isn’t what we tell ourselves it is. We showed the massive shift that had taken place over three decades as BC became a knowledge and service-driven economy. And we shone a light on the fact that 21 years into the 21st century our economic narrative remained grounded in the 20th century history of BC as primarily an exporter of natural resources.
Our call to action was that government must do far more to invest in sectors with growth potential that provide high levels of employment and well-paying jobs in the 21st century— in particular BC’s tech sector.
Our report was read widely in government, most commonly with the remark ‘but if this is true it changes everything’. Yes. It does.
Some progress has been made since then — and this report acknowledges it. But the pace and scale of that investment has not matched the urgency the data demands. The world has become a significantly more difficult place in the intervening five years and the emergence of AI as a restructuring force across every sector of the economy has made the window for getting this right narrower, not wider.
Over the last five years, the tech sector grew three times faster than the rest of BC’s economy and now represents 9.6% of BC’s GDP as well as 9.2% of BC’s workforce, bigger even than BC’s resources sector – which represents 7.2% of BC’s GDP and 3.1% of BC’s workforce.
BC Tech members have done a tremendous job creating jobs and GDP and building companies to keep BC’s economy growing. Meanwhile, the US tariff shock has led to a welcome and overdue realisation that BC’s prosperity should not depend on the goodwill of any single trading partner’s administration.
What hasn’t changed in five years is the relevance of the findings in our original report. So in our new report we look at the data again and sharpen our recommendations to meet the challenges and opportunities of 2026.
We are not neutral observers and we don’t pretend to be – we represent BC’s technology and innovation economy. As such we believe decisions should be grounded in data and so the figures in our report are drawn from BC Government and Statistics Canada sources and our methodology is fully documented. Yet we expect some of the findings will be surprising – and resisted.
Because BC’s economy is not what we tell ourselves it is.
Jill Tipping is the President and CEO of the BC Tech Association.
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BC’s Tech Economy Is Too Big to Ignore was first posted on June 10, 2026 at 7:00 am.
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