BC’s global trade offices cost millions — but key details remain hidden
British Columbia’s network of overseas trade and investment offices costs taxpayers millions each year. But new records obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request suggest the province is unable, or unwilling, to fully account for how that money is spent.
In response to a request for financial statements and corresponding notes for its 23 global Trade and Investment Representative (TIR) offices — taxpayer-funded outposts intended to promote BC business interests abroad — the province provided neither income statements, balance sheets nor supporting notes. Instead, it released partial “Financial Reporting Summary” documents, with key figures, including total expenditures and staffing costs, redacted for every office.
The disclosure raises a longstanding question: how much do these offices actually cost, and what do British Columbians, who are footing the bill, get in return?
A pattern of spending without clear results
This is not the first time the province’s trade office network has come under scrutiny.
In 2024, Coastal Front reported that British Columbia spent more than $27 million operating its Asian trade offices between 2019 and 2023, based on records obtained through a separate FOI request. Those records were released at a cost of $480 and also contained unexplained omissions.
Despite the scale of this spending, the province has not publicly provided clear metrics demonstrating whether these offices generate measurable economic outcomes, such as increased exports, investment, or job creation. Instead, officials have relied on broad language — such as “facilitating trade” and “strengthening relationships” — without defining how those outcomes are tracked or evaluated.
Internal records obtained through multiple FOI requests show that, beginning in late 2019, the province undertook a restructuring of its overseas operations, particularly across its Asia-based trade offices.
Previously, many of the Asian offices were run through contractors and operated out of independently leased spaces in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Those arrangements involved identifiable cost categories — rent, staffing contracts, and local operations — even if the full breakdown of those costs was not always disclosed.
For example, a Beijing office cost approximately $380,000 annually in rent under former premier Christy Clark. During that period, BC’s Special Representative to Asia, Ben Stewart, incurred more than $1 million in living and employment expenses while based in the region, drawing public scrutiny at the time. These expenditures occurred while Teresa Wat served as Minister of International Trade and oversaw the province’s international office network. Wat, a former BC Liberal, has since joined the BC Conservatives, a party that has positioned itself as an advocate for fiscal responsibility.
By 2020, under an NDP government, the province had begun terminating some of those contracts and shifting toward a different model: embedding provincial staff within Canadian embassies and consulates operated by Global Affairs Canada.
The change was presented internally as a way to eliminate independent office leases and reduce reliance on contractors. However, the province has not disclosed how costs are recorded or allocated under the new model.
Available records document this shift specifically across the province’s Asia-based trade offices only, and there is no publicly available breakdown showing:
whether BC pays rent or cost-recovery fees to Global Affairs Canada;
how shared services are accounted for; or
the total cost of operating each office under the co-location model.
What has changed is the level of detail the province is willing to provide to the public.
Where earlier disclosures at least referenced office-level spending, however imperfectly, the most recent FOI response aggregates information and withholds key figures entirely. In several cases, entire regions such as the United States and Europe are reported as single entries, despite containing multiple offices.
The result is a system where costs may be lower on paper following past controversies and restructuring, but it’s not clear that they are. What is clear is that the province continues to spend millions of dollars annually, without demonstrating measurable outcomes or return on investment.
A broader fiscal context
The province’s spending on overseas trade offices is occurring at a time when its overall financial position is deteriorating. Recent budget projections show large, ongoing deficits and rising debt, with no clear timeline for a return to balance.
The province projects deficits of $13.3 billion in 2026–27, $12.2 billion in 2027–28 and $11.4 billion in 2028–29, with net debt expected to reach $230 billion by the end of that period. Debt is projected to rise to more than 250 percent of revenue, while interest costs are expected to approach eight percent of revenue.
These projections point to sustained deficits, increasing debt, and rising borrowing costs. In that context, continued spending on overseas trade offices without clear accounting or measurable outcomes becomes increasingly difficult to justify.
(Visual: Coastal Front)
Adding to the ambiguity, the province’s latest disclosure states that financial information is “as reported by TIR or Global Affairs Canada.”
If some financial information is generated or held by Global Affairs Canada, it remains unclear whether those records fall within the scope of provincial disclosure obligations or whether they are effectively beyond reach through provincial FOI requests. The province has not responded to questions seeking clarification on this point.
Coastal Front also reached out to Global Affairs Canada for comment, but has not received a response as of publication.
While the structure of the office network has evolved — at least in part — the absence of measurable results has not.
Despite years of spending and expansion under multiple governments, including new and expanded operations in Asia, the province has not shown what these offices actually deliver. There are no disclosed performance indicators, no clear evaluations, and no measurable outcomes tied to the millions spent.
As a result, it is not possible to determine whether these offices are achieving their stated goals, and the province’s latest FOI response leaves several key questions unanswered:
Do full financial statements exist for these offices?
What is the total cost of operating each location?
How are costs shared with Global Affairs Canada?
Why are staffing and total expenditure figures withheld across all offices, despite being disclosed in the past?
And how does the province measure success, if at all?
Coastal Front has filed a request for review of the latest FOI with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner in hopes of obtaining more complete records.
