News

BC Politics

Five months after Eby called for action, the government can’t point to changes.

Andrew MacLeod 22 Sep 2025The Tyee

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s legislative bureau chief in Victoria and the author of All Together Healthy (Douglas & McIntyre, 2018). Find him on X or reach him at .

Five months after Premier David Eby directed the British Columbia government to cancel U.S. contracts wherever possible, the work has fallen short of what he had wanted.

“I don’t think that we’re quite there yet in terms of all the compliance we hope to see,” Eby acknowledged last week during a Zoom call from Ottawa, where he had met with Prime Minister Mark Carney and other federal officials.

Eby had issued the original directive in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and his talk of making Canada the 51st state.

Companies based in the United States continue to hold billions worth of contracts with the B.C. government.

“Government is a big beast and we’re encouraging people to continue to review with two lenses,” Eby told The Tyee. “One is to encourage them to buy Canadian and British Columbian. The other is to make sure that we’re preferring Canadian and other trading partners to American going forward.”

At the same time, Eby said, with the budget under strain they also need to be “driving efficiency across government” and controlling costs.

“We’ve had some positive developments out of that,” he said. “I talked with a provider of medical equipment that’s located in British Columbia that’s benefited from our announcement and direction to health authorities in that regard, employing people here in the province.”

More examples would be provided via staff following the news conference, added Eby.

But as of publication time none had arrived, and it remains unclear whether any contracts with U.S. companies have in fact been cancelled.

Following delivery of the quarterly update on B.C.’s finances Sept. 15, Finance Minister Brenda Bailey made a similar pledge, as yet unfulfilled, to provide more information.

“I don’t have a specific number on that,” Bailey said when asked for an update on cancelled U.S. contracts. “We do know there’s work going on on that file and there’s quite a few things that are being impacted by it.”

Specific examples would have to come from staff later, she said.

Bailey pointed out that the directive did not apply to all U.S. companies and that ones with a presence in Canada or B.C. that employ British Columbians are exempt.

The April announcement quoted Eby saying, “We’re expanding that directive to include looking for every opportunity to move existing contracts away from U.S. suppliers.”

It also said the new directives would “be applied, where viable, following an assessment of legal, financial, operational and other reasonable considerations.”

As things stand the province’s most recent public accounts, released in August, show large payments from the core provincial government to several U.S. companies, all of which likely employ significant numbers of people in B.C. and Canada.

The figures come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund Detailed Schedules of Payments released in August, but are not included in the version now available on the government’s website. About 350 pages of government transfers in that document have been marked “pending review” and removed.

They include LifeLabs BC LP, which the province paid more than $317 million last year. The company, which provides lab services for outpatients in the province’s health system, has B.C. roots but last year sold to Quest Diagnostics. The company has headquarters in New Jersey and trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

The province spent $52 million with Maximus Canada Services Inc., $31 million with Maximus Canada Employment Services Inc. and $1.7 million with Maximus BC Health Inc. All three are subsidiaries of Maximus Inc., which has headquarters in Tysons, Virginia, and also trades in New York.

The company Clearesult Canada Inc., which delivers the CleanBC Energy Savings Program, received $102 million through the province’s Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, parent company Clearesult was bought last year by the New York-based private equity firm Kohlberg & Co.

Out of 11 of the large alternative service delivery contracts with the B.C. government, five are held by companies with U.S. headquarters. That compares to four with Canadian companies and one each with companies from the United Kingdom and Japan.

They include a $1.33-billion contract with ESIT Advanced Solutions Inc. to provide computer services, including data centres. The company is owned by DXC Technology, which has its headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia.

DXC Technology also has a contract worth $50.5 million to run an information technology service desk that’s open 24-7 for all government employees and some in the broader public service.

There’s a $1.04-billion contract with CBRE, whose parent company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, for “facility management, asset management, project management, and energy/environmental management of the Province’s real estate portfolio.”

Kyndryl Canada Ltd. has a contract for $98 million to provide “a full suite of device management and support services.” Its parent company, created from an IBM spinoff, is based in New York.

• Share:
• **

Get The Tyee’s Daily Catch, our free daily newsletter.

** The Barometer

Do You Have a Favourite Summer Movie?

• Yes.

• No.

• I don’t know.

• Tell us more… Take this week’s poll