Government of British Columbia

Government of British Columbia
Provincial government
Overview
Established	July 20, 1871 (1871-07-20)
State	British Columbia
Country	Canada
Leader	Premier
Appointed by	Lieutenant Governor
Main organ	Executive Council
Responsible to	Legislative Assembly
Headquarters	Victoria
Website	www2.gov.bc.ca

The Government of British Columbia (French: Gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique) is the body responsible for the administration of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The term Government of British Columbia can refer to either the collective set of all three institutions, or more specifically to the executive—ministers of the Crown (the Executive Council) of the day, and the non-political staff within each provincial department or agency, i.e. the civil services, whom the ministers direct—which corporately brands itself as the Government of British Columbia, or more formally, His Majesty's Government (French: Gouvernement de Sa Majesté).^[1][2]

The current construct was established when the province joined Confederation in 1871. British Columbia is a secondary jurisdiction of Canada, a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy in the Westminster tradition; a premier—David Eby of the New Democratic Party since 2022—is the head of government and is invited by the Crown to form a government after securing the confidence of the Legislative Assembly, typically determined through the election of enough members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of a single political party in an election to provide a majority of seats, forming a governing party or coalition.^[3] The sovereign is King Charles III, Canada's head of state, who is represented provincially in British Columbia by the lieutenant governor, Janet Austin since 2018.