Shortly after the election, the government revealed it had been running record high deficits and that it intended to replace the PST and GST system with the Harmonized Sales Tax.

The deficit made an amendment to the Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act necessary for the remainder of the 39th Parliament and resulted in reduced spending in most ministries.

Three MLAs were subject of police investigations: Kash Heed for election irregularities, Jane Thornthwaite for drunk driving, and Pat Pimm for a domestic dispute.

Two MLAs, both from the BC Liberals, resigned their seats forcing by-elections: Iain Black in Port Moody-Coquitlam and Barry Penner in Chilliwack-Hope.

[2] In September, the 2009 budget update revealed they would run a much higher deficit than had been forecast which led to charges that the BC Liberals had been misleading the public during the elections regarding the financial health of the province.

[3] The deficit projection was increased to $2.8 billion, the largest in BC history, the result of declining tax revenue and natural resource royalties[4] from the continuing recession.

[6] The Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act, 2009 created the Skaha Bluffs Provincial Park near Penticton and the Det san Ecological Reserve near Smithers.

Even though it was a government bill sponsored by Rich Coleman, the Minister of Housing and Social Development, it was opposed by backbencher and fellow BC Liberal Norm Letnick.

[8] The law was prompted by the death of a homeless Vancouver woman during a weather event, but critics saw it as a measure to remove undesirable people from streets during the Winter Olympic Games.

[9] An amendment to the Housing and Social Development Statutes Act stopped the payments of welfare, disability, or other income assistance to people with outstanding warrants.

[13] In April Mike de Jong added Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor-General to his duties, replacing Kash Heed who resigned the posts in response to RCMP investigations into political fundraising irregularities.

[15] Before the end of the year, both BC Liberal Bill Bennett and NDP Bob Simpson were removed from their caucuses due to criticism of their leaders.

It was criticized based on the belief that the act would result in increased electricity rates and disallow the development of natural gas-fuelled power plants.

An anti-HST petition was launched by former-Premier Bill Vander Zalm and quickly achieved the needed targets (10% of people in all 85 ridings) in accordance with the Recall and Initiative Act.

[25][26] The petition was forwarded to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives, chaired by Terry Lake, which split along party lines with the minority NDP voting to accept the recommendation of the petition by sending a draft HST Extinguishment Act to the Legislative Assembly and the majority BC Liberals voting to initiate a province-wide referendum.

The unpopular HST resulted in low approval ratings for the BC Liberals and Premier Campbell who initiated a late-October major re-shuffling of his executive council, restructuring the ministries[27] and, two weeks prior to the submission of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services' report on budget priorities, committed all of the remaining budget to income tax reductions.

[31] Once Clark took over as Premier she appointed her own cabinet, removing Colin Hansen, Murray Coell, Kevin Krueger, and Ben Stewart from the executive council, demoting Iain Black, Margaret MacDiarmid and Moira Stilwell to parliamentary secretary, but promoting Naomi Yamamoto, Don McRae, Terry Lake, and Harry Bloy to ministerial positions, as well as re-instating Blair Lekstrom as a minister.

[41] The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment Act, 2011 enacted the recommendations of the Sled Dog Task Force, a task force led by fellow BC Liberal MLA Terry Lake created after it was revealed that nearly 100 sled dogs were culled in Whistler due to a drop in tourism and revenue after the Olympics.

During summer 2011, BC Liberal leader Christy Clark asked all her caucus members to inform the party on whether they would be seeking re-election, increasing speculation that she would call an early election.

Iain Black subsequently announced he would vacate his seat effective October 3[43] and Barry Penner resigned as Attorney General, replaced by Shirley Bond, as he would not seek re-election .

[56][57] During a nine-month break between the 4th and 5th sessions, Premier Clark adjusted her Executive Council, removing Kevin Falcon, George Abbott, Blair Lekstrom, and Mary McNeil who had all announced they would not be standing for re-election; Naomi Yamamoto was also demoted from a ministerial position to a Minister of State.