A moose mother and calf come through a dense thicket in British Columbia.
Dene spends weekends photographing wildlife with a Nikon Z9, D850 and Nikkor 400mm f/2.8G ED VR, plus portrait, micro and landscape lenses.
Many of Dene’s photographs are available for purchase on his website.
British Columbia’s planned expansion of the provincial sales tax is facing mounting opposition from taxpayers, businesses, industry organizations and a multi-party legislative committee, with the new tax rules scheduled to take effect October 1.
A new Leger poll commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) found that 66 per cent of British Columbians want the provincial government to cancel the expansion, compared with 15 per cent who support proceeding with it. Another 19 per cent were undecided. Among respondents who expressed an opinion, 82 per cent favoured cancelling the changes.
The polling comes less than two months before the expanded tax is scheduled to take effect and shortly after the B.C. legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services recommended that the government repeal the planned expansion.
Despite the recommendation, Finance Minister Brenda Bailey has said the government intends to proceed.
The B.C. government’s 2026 budget expands the province’s 7 per cent PST to several professional and commercial services that have historically been exempt.
Beginning October 1, PST will generally apply to:
There are special rules for architectural, engineering and geoscience services. Rather than applying the 7 per cent tax to the entire purchase price, PST generally applies to 30 per cent of the value, producing an effective tax rate of 2.1 per cent on those services.
The province is also removing or narrowing some existing exemptions affecting products and services including clothing repair materials, clothing and footwear-related services, basic cable television and landline telephone services.
The government says the changes bring B.C.’s tax treatment more closely into line with other provinces.
The Leger survey commissioned by the CTF suggests opposition is not concentrated in one particular political, demographic or geographic group.
According to the CTF, opponents of the expansion form a majority across gender, age and regional categories.
Vancouver Island residents, women and British Columbians aged 55 and older recorded the strongest opposition, according to the organization’s release.
The headline results were:
| Response | British Columbians |
|---|---|
| Cancel the PST expansion | 66% |
| Proceed with the expansion | 15% |
| Unsure | 19% |
Because the poll was commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the results should be understood as commissioned polling rather than a government survey. Nevertheless, the findings add another data point to a debate that has already generated significant opposition from business organizations.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business conducted its own survey earlier this year involving 439 B.C. business owners.
The February survey found that 80 per cent of respondents opposed expanding the 7 per cent PST to professional services.
Even more significantly, 72 per cent said they were likely to pass some or all of the additional tax costs on to customers.
The CFIB said accounting and bookkeeping services were identified as the professional services most likely to negatively affect small businesses, followed by property management, security and architectural, engineering and geoscience services.
The implication is straightforward: while the tax may technically be charged to a business purchasing a service, the eventual economic cost can be distributed through the broader economy.
A business paying PST on accounting, security, engineering or property-management services may incorporate those additional expenses into its operating costs, potentially affecting prices charged to customers.
The inclusion of security services has generated particular criticism from businesses in communities dealing with property crime.
The Business Improvement Areas of B.C. has argued that the expansion effectively taxes businesses for purchasing security services they increasingly consider necessary to protect employees, customers and property.
In Kelowna, local business representatives told Global News that businesses were already spending heavily on security because of repeated property crime and other safety concerns.
That creates an unusual policy tension: governments and communities encourage businesses to invest in security, while the provincial tax system is simultaneously adding a 7 per cent tax to many of those services.
The issue has become one of the central arguments made by opponents of the expansion.
The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade has organized a campaign called Stop the Squeeze, arguing that the tax expansion will increase the cost of doing business at a time when B.C. companies are already facing high operating costs.
The organization says the expanded PST could affect the cost of building homes, operating businesses, maintaining security and attracting investment.
The campaign has attracted support from a wider coalition of business organizations.
The Business Council of British Columbia has also called for the expansion to be scrapped, arguing that the tax increases input costs and could weaken B.C.’s competitive position.
The B.C. Chamber of Commerce has taken a similar position, while advocating for a longer-term move toward a value-added tax system rather than expanding the existing PST.
One of the more technical arguments against the expansion involves the way B.C.’s PST works.
Unlike a value-added tax such as the GST/HST, the PST generally does not provide businesses with broad input-tax credits.
That means taxes paid on business inputs can become part of the cost of producing another good or service.
The Business Council of B.C. argues this can cause taxation to compound through supply chains and contribute to higher effective costs for investment.
The B.C. Chamber has made a similar argument, saying the province should consider moving toward a value-added tax with input tax credits rather than expanding the current PST.
The distinction is important because opponents aren’t necessarily arguing that sales taxes should never apply to professional services.
Some are instead arguing that the structure of the tax is the problem.
The accounting profession has also raised concerns about how the new rules will work.
The Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia says the final regulations released in July provided additional clarity regarding issues such as multi-jurisdictional work, corporate-group services and resale arrangements.
Under the new rules, accounting services performed in B.C. will generally become subject to the 7 per cent PST unless a specific exemption applies.
CPABC has advocated for longer-term sales-tax modernization, including consideration of a value-added tax model with general input tax credits.
That position is significant because it demonstrates that opposition to the government’s approach extends beyond organizations that simply oppose taxation.
Some professional organizations are instead arguing for a different tax structure that they believe would be less distortive.
The B.C. real estate industry has also warned that expanding the PST could work against the province’s housing objectives.
The British Columbia Real Estate Association recommended that the province not proceed with the PST expansion, arguing that taxation policy can affect the financial viability of development projects and ultimately the pace at which new housing reaches the market.
This adds another dimension to the debate.
The province is simultaneously attempting to increase housing supply while imposing additional taxes on some of the professional services involved in developing and managing that housing.
Architects, engineers, property managers and other professionals can all play a role in construction and development projects.
Critics argue that additional taxes on those inputs could ultimately become another cost incorporated into development budgets.
Perhaps the most politically significant development came from the B.C. legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.
Following its 2027 budget consultation, the multi-party committee recommended that the provincial government repeal the planned PST expansion to professional services.
The committee’s recommendation was framed partly around simplifying and streamlining the province’s taxation system.
The committee includes MLAs from government and opposition parties, making the recommendation notable even though it does not itself force the government to change policy.
The recommendation was welcomed by organizations including the CFIB and Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.
The debate is entirely provincial.
The PST is administered by the Government of British Columbia, not Ottawa.
The upcoming changes were included in B.C.’s 2026 budget and are being implemented through provincial tax legislation and regulations.
That distinction matters because the argument over the expansion is ultimately about how the B.C. government chooses to raise revenue and structure its tax system.
The B.C. government has defended the expansion as part of its broader approach to taxation and public services.
The province says expanding PST to professional services generally brings B.C. more closely into line with how other provinces treat those services.
The government is also dealing with a significant fiscal challenge.
B.C.’s 2026 budget projected a $13.3-billion deficit for 2026-27, while the new tax measures are expected to generate approximately $1.4 billion over three years, according to government figures reported in connection with the budget.
The government’s argument is that additional revenue is necessary to help maintain core public services, including health care and education.
Finance Minister Brenda Bailey has indicated that the government is not planning to reverse the expansion, despite the legislative committee’s recommendation.
That puts the government directly at odds with both the committee recommendation and several major business organizations.
The CTF estimates that the PST expansion will cost British Columbians nearly $1.5 billion over three years, while government budget reporting has put the expected revenue at approximately $1.4 billion over the same period.
The difference illustrates one of the fundamental disagreements in the debate.
The province views the expansion primarily as a source of revenue.
Opponents view it as a cost that will be absorbed by businesses, consumers and the broader economy.
Both can occur simultaneously: government can collect additional revenue while businesses and households bear additional costs.
The economic question is therefore what happens to that money after it moves through the tax system—and whether the resulting public-service benefits outweigh the economic costs associated with higher prices and business inputs.
With the implementation date now less than a month away, businesses providing or purchasing affected services are preparing for the changes.
The province has released detailed guidance covering accounting, architectural, engineering and geoscience, security and non-residential real estate services.
Businesses affected by the changes may need to determine whether they must register for PST, collect the tax, remit it to the province or self-assess tax on certain purchases.
That makes the issue more than a political debate.
For affected businesses, the October 1 date represents a concrete change to invoices, accounting systems and operating costs.
The disagreement over the PST expansion ultimately goes beyond the individual services being taxed.
It raises a broader question about how British Columbia should structure its tax system while attempting to improve productivity, increase housing supply, attract investment and maintain public services.
The CTF says the answer is to cancel the expansion.
Business groups have called for its repeal and, in some cases, a longer-term transition toward a value-added tax.
The B.C. government argues the expansion broadens the tax base and provides revenue for essential public services.
Meanwhile, the province’s own multi-party finance committee has recommended that the expansion be repealed.
And according to the new Leger poll commissioned by the CTF, 66 per cent of British Columbians surveyed want the government to cancel the changes, compared with 15 per cent who want them to proceed.
Unless the government changes course, however, the new rules remain scheduled to take effect October 1, 2026.
For British Columbians, the debate is now moving from whether the tax expansion is a good idea to a much more immediate question:
Will the province proceed with a tax increase that its own legislative finance committee has recommended cancelling, despite growing opposition from taxpayers and the business community?
British Columbia is moving ahead with a new initiative that will use chemical fingerprinting and artificial intelligence to track illicit drugs as part of efforts to better understand and respond to the toxic drug supply.
Under a pilot program involving scientists and police, a laboratory at the University of British Columbia will analyse the chemical makeup of drug samples to create unique “fingerprints.” These profiles can then be used to help identify where different batches originate and how they move through the province.
Artificial intelligence will be used to process the data, helping researchers detect patterns in the illicit drug supply and generate insights that could support law enforcement investigations and public health responses. Officials say the system may also help provide earlier warnings about dangerous substances circulating in communities.
While the information gathered can support police work, it will not be used as evidence in criminal prosecutions. Drugs tied to court cases will also be excluded from the testing program.
The province is funding the two-year pilot at about $300,000 annually, with the goal of improving both enforcement strategies and public health monitoring in response to the ongoing toxic drug crisis.
Hidden along the rugged coastline of northern Vancouver Island lies the historical site of Port Kusam, a little-known coastal community located near Sayward. Today, it is quiet and largely reclaimed by forest and shoreline, but in earlier decades it played a small yet meaningful role in the broader network of logging, marine transport, and settlement that shaped the region.
Though not widely documented compared to larger hubs like Kelsey Bay, Port Kusam remains part of the layered industrial and cultural history of the Sayward Valley.
Port Kusam sits in a landscape typical of the outer Sayward coast—steep forested slopes dropping sharply into sheltered inlets, with dense temperate rainforest meeting tidal waters. Like many small coastal locations on northern Vancouver Island, it was never a large settlement, but rather a place shaped by resource use and temporary occupation.
Its sheltered waters made it suitable for:
Small marine landings
Log handling and booming activities
Short-term work camps or industrial staging areas
In many ways, Port Kusam was less a town and more a working place tied to the land and sea.
The history of Port Kusam is closely tied to British Columbia’s coastal logging economy. As logging expanded through the Sayward region in the 20th century, remote inlets like Kusam were often used for:
Temporary logging camps
Log sorting and booming grounds
Transfer points for timber moving by barge or tug
Before extensive road networks reached every cutblock, the coast itself was a transportation system. Logs could be moved efficiently by water, making small protected inlets valuable operational sites.
Port Kusam fit naturally into this system.
Port Kusam was part of a wider coastal-industrial landscape that included logging operations in the Sayward Valley and marine transport hubs like Kelsey Bay.
Timber harvested inland would often make its way:
From forest cutblocks down rough logging roads
To shoreline staging or booming areas
Out to larger sorting or shipping points such as Kelsey Bay
In this system, small coastal sites like Port Kusam acted as supporting nodes—quiet but functional parts of a much larger industrial chain.
Unlike permanent towns, places like Port Kusam rarely developed long-standing infrastructure or large residential populations. Instead, they were characterized by:
Temporary camps rather than established communities
Seasonal or project-based occupation
Minimal permanent buildings
Constant movement of workers and equipment
Life in such places was shaped by work schedules, weather conditions, and the demands of the logging industry rather than traditional civic life.
As logging practices modernized and transportation shifted toward improved road systems and centralized marine facilities, many small coastal sites like Port Kusam gradually fell out of regular use.
Over time:
Temporary structures were removed or decayed
Industrial activity shifted elsewhere
Forest growth reclaimed old clearings and access points
Today, little remains on the surface to indicate the site’s former role, aside from subtle traces in the landscape and archival references.
Although Port Kusam was never a major settlement, its history reflects a broader truth about coastal British Columbia: much of the region’s development was built on small, temporary, and often unnamed industrial sites.
Together with places like Sayward and Kelsey Bay, it formed part of a network that supported:
The coastal logging industry
Marine transport routes
Resource-based settlement patterns
These places were small individually, but collectively they shaped the economic and social history of the region.
Today, Port Kusam stands as a quiet reminder of how deeply industry and geography were intertwined along the Sayward coast. It represents a time when the shoreline itself was an active workspace—where inlets, bays, and forest edges served as vital infrastructure for moving timber and sustaining communities.
Though largely forgotten in everyday conversation, its legacy remains embedded in the landscape of northern Vancouver Island—alongside the forests, waterways, and working histories that continue to define the region.
For many years, the small community of Sayward was home to a unique local heritage attraction known as the Link & Pin Logging & Pioneer Museum. Though it is now closed, the museum played an important role in preserving the memory of coastal logging life on northern Vancouver Island.
Tucked into a region long shaped by forestry, the museum offered visitors a rare chance to step into the world of early logging camps, pioneer settlement, and the machines that built the local economy.
The museum was established by local logger and collector Glen Duncan, who brought together a wide range of logging artifacts and pioneer-era objects from the surrounding region. Its origins were deeply rooted in the working history of the area—this was not a museum built from abstract curation, but from lived experience.
According to historical records, the museum initially focused heavily on logging equipment due to Duncan’s own background in the industry, later expanding into broader local history and pioneer life.
This evolution reflected a common pattern in small community museums across British Columbia: starting with industry, then growing into a wider preservation of everyday life.
The name “Link & Pin” refers to one of the earliest coupling systems used in rail transportation—particularly in logging railways.
Before modern automatic couplers, railcars were connected manually using:
A heavy iron link
A vertical pin dropped into place
It was dangerous work, requiring workers to step between moving railcars. In logging regions like Sayward, where rail systems once threaded through forested valleys, the term became symbolic of the early industrial era.
The museum’s name therefore captured something essential: the connection between rail, logging, and the people who risked their safety to move timber out of the forest.
Though modest in size, the Link & Pin Museum held an impressive collection for a rural heritage site. Visitors could find:
Early logging tools and hand equipment
Steam-era machinery, including a steam donkey engine
Pioneer household artifacts
Lamps, photographs, and personal collections tied to local families
Some artifacts were rare examples of coastal logging technology, helping illustrate how timber was once harvested and moved before modern mechanization fully took over.
One description of similar collections in the region notes items such as steam donkeys and specialized logging tools that were essential to early coastal operations.
The museum was closely tied to the identity of Sayward itself. Logging has long been the economic backbone of the region, from early rail logging operations to later truck-based hauling systems and booming grounds at nearby Kelsey Bay.
In that sense, the museum functioned as more than a tourist stop—it was a local archive of working life.
It helped preserve the memory of:
Logging camps scattered through the valley
Rail and road-based timber transport
The transition from steam to diesel power
Pioneer settlement history alongside industrial growth
Like many small heritage museums in British Columbia, the Link & Pin Museum eventually became less active over time. This reflects a broader trend:
Aging volunteer base
Changing tourism patterns
Centralization of regional museums
Preservation challenges for artifact-heavy collections
As a result, many locally important collections have been absorbed into archives, moved, or quietly stored away.
Even though the museum itself is no longer operating, its purpose still lives on in Sayward’s surrounding landscape.
Today, the region still holds:
Old logging road networks carved into the forest
Abandoned industrial sites and cutblock remnants
Historical signage and artifacts preserved by local historians
Ongoing storytelling by groups like the Sayward Historical Society
These fragments continue to tell the story the museum once housed under one roof.
The Link & Pin Logging & Pioneer Museum may no longer be open, but its importance remains clear. It represented a time when local history was preserved by the very people who lived it—loggers, pioneers, and families tied directly to the land and industry.
In a place like Sayward, where the forest has always shaped human life, the museum served as a bridge between generations—linking past and present, much like the railway couplings it was named after.
