[2]: 154 British Columbia became the first province in Canada to pass legislation to limit the growth in government debt in 1991.
[3] British Columbia government net debt was fairly stable from 1998 but rose following the 2007–2008 financial crisis before stabilizing again.
[14]: 8–10 The government passed the Balanced Budget Act in 2000, arguing "equity demands that future generations of British Columbians not be burdened with an unsustainable level of debt", and that BC needed to maintain its position as a low-debt province so it would have the financial flexibility to make adequate investments in health, education, social justice, and the environment.
[6] As with the previous law, cabinet ministers would lose up to 20 percent of their annual salaries if budget targets were not met.
[4][17]: 296–297 The act was amended in 2009 to allow for two years of deficit spending, due to the fall in provincial revenues following the worldwide 2007–2008 financial crisis.
[17]: 302 Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the government introduced the Economic Stabilization Act which suspended for three years the law that prohibited deficit budgets.
[23] The province of British Columbia and its public-sector corporations and agencies have issued debt across the range of terms from one to 40 years.