The lukewarm support B.C. business leaders have for Premier Christy Clark?s government should be a worrying sign for her Liberal Party, according to Business In Vancouver?s fourth-quarter business-outlook survey.
Equally alarming for the B.C. government should be steadily eroding business confidence among the 105 business leaders that Ipsos Reid surveyed between October 3 and October 9.
The survey showed that 38% of business leaders thought Clark was performing poorly.
?It?s an early warning sign to the Liberals that the folks who have traditionally supported them are questioning that support,? said Steve Mossop, who is Ipsos Reid?s president of western Canadian market research. ?That?s even with the party having a new leader who is in a honeymoon period. The business community has always been decidedly behind both Gordon Campbell and the Liberals throughout even the darkest times.?
That diffidence toward Clark was revealed when the business leaders were asked how confident they were that her much-touted jobs plan would be effective.
Most (52%) viewed the jobs plan as being ineffective. But Mossop said interviews with those surveyed revealed that much of their skepticism stemmed from awareness that B.C. is a small province dependent on international trade at a time of global economic uncertainty.
Confidence in their businesses and sectors has been declining steadily for the past several quarters.
Only 25% of business leaders surveyed believe B.C.?s economy will improve in the next year. Last quarter, 43% of those surveyed expected economic improvement.
?In the last several quarters, we?ve seen people go from high optimism [62%] in 2010 and it has slowly declined,? Mossop said. ?This quarter it was a measurable drop.?
That grim view was mirrored in prospects for sales, profit, capital expenditures, employment and space requirements.
In almost every category, optimism about improvement on those fronts has been steadily waning for several quarters.
Further underscoring the pessimistic trend is the drop in the percentage of business leaders who are ?strongly optimistic? about growth in key business indicators.
Said Mossop, ?Some expect small incremental gains for their own business? sales but optimism for profit, capital expenditures and employment is going down. It?s pretty bleak.? ?
