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The quick read: At the campaign's halfway mark in Surrey, NDP Leader Eby promised a $500-million fund offering interest-free loans of up to $1 million to tariff-hit small and medium businesses. Conservative Leader Doerkson countered with a PST cut on business machinery, equipment, and software instead.

The campaign's business pitch came to a head Wednesday in Surrey — B.C.'s second-largest city and the battleground where this election will be won or lost.

NDP Leader Eby's offer: a $500-million Small Business Tariff and Wildfire Relief Fund, with interest-free loans of up to $1 million, for up to 72 months, for qualifying small and medium-size businesses recovering from the U.S. trade war or this summer's wildfires. Plus a $5,000 refundable tax credit for small businesses that hire a worker aged 18 to 30.

He said smaller businesses are "falling through the gap" of federal tariff supports, and that business leaders had told him interest-free loans are what they need to get through the period.

Fine — but note what that is. Half a billion dollars in government loans is still taxpayer money at risk, and a loan is still debt. Interest-free debt is friendlier debt, but a small business drowning in costs does not need more borrowing. It needs costs to fall permanently.

Which is where the Conservative counter lands. Interim leader Lorne Doerkson, also campaigning in Surrey, promised to exempt more "productive capital" from the PST for three years — machinery, equipment, and business software.

"If we want to supercharge British Columbia's economy, we need to stop penalizing the very companies trying to build it," Doerkson said.

That is the real divide in this election, and it is worth more than the usual partisan noise. One side offers government lending; the other offers to stop taxing the tools businesses use to grow.

Okanagan business owners should do the math before October 24: a loan you must repay, or a tax cut you keep forever?

Source: The Canadian Press, October 7, 2026.