B.C.'s Moment: Why Budget 2027 Must Be Our First Innovation Budget

By Kiersten Enemark
CCI's Director of B.C. Affairs

British Columbia’s sweeping agreement with Ottawa will spur nation-building projects and potentially transform the province’s sluggish economy into a powerhouse for generations. The Canada–British Columbia Cooperative Prosperity Agreement is designed to accelerate permitting, improve trade infrastructure, expand energy projects, and accelerate mining of critical minerals to strengthen the Canadian economy.

But the next chapter of B.C.'s growth story needs to focus on growing intangible assets: patents, proprietary software, data, and the IP that sits behind every world-class company.

BC Budget 2027 is an opportunity to pair infrastructure investments and resource sector growth with fiscal policies that grow B.C.’s technology sector. With Ottawa’s support, B.C. can build the infrastructure and resource capacity Canada needs while ensuring anchor technology companies scale — and stay — here.

Budget 2027 should seize this moment. Under the agreement, federal funds can expand B.C.’s traditional economy but also strengthen our 21st-century economy where the province leads in the technologies for resource extraction and building infrastructure.

Beyond Cranes and Concrete: B.C.'s Next Growth Story

For decades, B.C.'s growth story has been told in tangible assets: resource exports, major construction, infrastructure builds. That story is has become more real under B.C.’s agreement with Ottawa, identifying mining projects, LNG and the North Coast Transmission Line.

Jurisdictions that win the next decade of economic growth will be the ones that treat intangible assets with the same seriousness as steel and concrete.

Government funding shouldn’t just accelerate infrastructure and resource project delivery. Used strategically, it can embed Canadian innovation directly into the supply chain — catapulting B.C.’s innovation economy alongside its resource economy. We’ve seen this through Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, where Seaspan Shipyards is a beneficiary. Burnaby-based Novarc Technologies’ strategic partnership with Seaspan embeds Canadian-built welding cobots into shipbuilding and maintenance work, supporting the growth of new Physical AI innovations and IP. Government-backed infrastructure and resource projects can also double as a market for homegrown innovation, increasing provincial economic growth.

Three Moves, One Mission: Grow and Keep Canadian Innovation in Canada

Ottawa is betting on B.C. to accelerate project delivery. With federal funding support, B.C. Budget 2027 could set policies in place to also accelerate innovation.

1. Build Canadian innovation into every major project, by design. B.C.'s major projects pipeline is a once-in-a-generation chance to build a domestic innovation supply chain. A Public Infrastructure Innovation Mandate would replicate that success across marine technology, critical minerals,  and advanced manufacturing — without dictating vendors, just expectations. Extend that same logic to provincially supported private projects, and B.C. ensures the benefits of its own investment stay home.

2. Make government the tech sector's best customer. B.C. spends billions every year on goods and services. A Buy Canadian procurement policy — one that rewards companies where the R&D, the IP, and the decision-making actually live in Canada — would turn government spending into long-term capital for Canadian scale-ups. Pair that with an Innovation Procurement Hub that turns successful pilots into real contracts, instead of leaving promising B.C. companies stuck in pilot purgatory, and government becomes a growth engine rather than a bystander.

3. Make it pay, literally, to scale and stay. Nearly 90% of global tech market cap sits in the U.S., and the gravitational pull on Canadian founders is real: recent research shows close to half of Canadian founders who raised significant capital in 2024 had already relocated south. Every founder who leaves takes their headquarters, their executive team, and their future hiring with them.

Two targeted tax tools can change that math. An Innovation Box — expanding the province's life sciences patent box consultation to all sectors — would reward companies for commercializing and keeping their IP in B.C., complementing what SR&ED already does for research. And a Growth and Scale Tax Incentive would help Canadian companies write off acquisition costs the way American acquirers already can, finally levelling the playing field for Canadian companies trying to grow by acquiring talent and technology, at home or abroad.

The Easiest Win Costs Nothing

There's a fourth opportunity that doesn't even require new spending: fixing the software engineer licensing rule that's pushing talent — and the tax revenue that comes with it — out of the province. Alberta solved this in 2023. B.C. already has the legal authority to do the same, thanks to last year's amendment to the Professional Governance Act. All that's missing is the regulation. In a budget environment where the province is looking for low-cost ways to grow revenue, this is as close to free money as fiscal policy gets.

The Bottom Line

The Look West economic strategy points the way and the Canada–British Columbia Cooperative Prosperity Agreement has funds to fuel it. B.C.’s innovation economy needs is the fiscal framework in grow its 21st century economy: procurement that backs Canadian innovators, tax policy that rewards staying home, and major projects that build domestic supply chains by design.

Budget 2027 is the chance to prove that B.C. isn't just open for business. It's an opportunity to build the business of the future, here, with Canadian companies, Canadian IP, and Canadian jobs.

The strategy is set. The talent is here. Now it's time for the fiscal policy to match the ambition.

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About the Council of Canadian Innovators

The Council of Canadian Innovators is a national member-based organization reshaping how governments across Canada think about innovation policy, and supporting homegrown scale-ups to drive prosperity. Established in 2015, CCI represents and works with over 175 of Canada’s fastest-growing technology companies. Our members are the CEOs, founders, and top senior executives behind some of Canada’s most successful ‘scale-up’ companies. All our members are job and wealth creators, investors, philanthropists, and experts in their fields of health tech, cleantech, fintech, cybersecurity, AI and digital transformation. Companies in our portfolio are market leaders in their verticals, commercialize their technologies in over 190 countries, and generate between $10M-$750M in annual recurring revenue. We advocate on their behalf for government strategies that increase their access to skilled talent, strategic capital, and new customers, as well as expanded freedom to operate for their global pursuits of scale.