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B.C. premier’s opposition to oil and gas industry is predictable
By Adan Pankratz
This Artile and More From Adam Pankratz Here
David Eby is angry, but he’d also like you all to know he’s polite. In response to the Alberta government’s plan to draw up a proposal for a new oil pipeline for the Major Projects Office, Eby characterized the plan as not just a threat to “our pristine coast” but also “a direct economic threat to the kind of economy we’re trying to build in the country here.”
What economy that might be was left unspecified before Eby continued by insisting that his past vagueness and non-committal nature, in which he said he would “cross that bridge” (on pipelines) when B.C. and Alberta came to it, was merely him being “polite,” — politeness apparently something which is incompatible with clarity, as well as totally devoid of a basic understanding of what makes British Columbia and Canada’s economy move.
First, pipelines. On a weekend towards the end of June this past summer, Eby appeared on numerous national media shows and was asked directly about his government’s apparent opposition to pipelines to spur Canada’s economic growth in the face of Trump’s tariffs.
As legislative reporter Rob Shaw noted at the time, Eby downplayed any notion that B.C. and Alberta were in a tiff about pipelines; something that directly contradicted what he had said on the issue only a month earlier in May. He would, he said, “be happy to sit down” with Premier Smith if a project were proposed.
Apparently not. In his recent rant — pardon me, his recent polite admonishment — on Wednesday Eby defiantly stated there “is no project” and “there is no bridge to cross” for his government, unless the Alberta government will spend tax-payer money to make it happen.
Perhaps Canada’s most polite premier ought to reflect for a small moment as to why there is currently no private proponent? Could it be that all his diplomatic and genteel language from previous months did nothing to create the certainty businesses need to invest billions of dollars — as the CEO of Enbridge noted in August — and rather everything to create uncertainty about B.C.’s willingness to build major infrastructure projects? I rather think the answer might just be a well-mannered “yes.”
Eby’s civility and courteous nature doesn’t just apply to pipelines, however. It also applies to the B.C. economy writ-large, which he and the NDP have very thoughtfully driven into the ground.
Among the good-natured and pleasant economic times David Eby has brought to his province, British Columbians can thank him for his attentiveness in ensuring that British Columbia’s fiscal deficit soared — rather majestically I must say — to the heights of $11.6 billion dollars.
What citizen doesn’t appreciate a government doing its level-best to outperform? British Columbians need not worry about future under-achievement, as next year Eby’s NDP are already projecting to cordially offer B.C. residents a deficit of over $12 billion. I would politely describe it as fiscal profligacy and wouldn’t let the perpetrators run me a bath, let alone my province.
The stark reality is that, despite David Eby’s anger at Danielle Smith trying to develop Canada’s most productive industry, he and his government have long done everything they could to stymie and hinder the resource industries which make B.C. and Canada’s economies tick.
While Eby will point to his government’s recent LNG project approvals and the NDP’s Bill 15 which seeks to fast-track resource projects the government deems economically essential, they cannot escape the fact that this has very clearly only happened because the province has gone broke on the NDP’s watch and suddenly they have been begrudgingly forced to admit that resources drive B.C.’s revenues.
Eby and his NDP colleagues can also not escape the fact that, following John Horgan’s departure as premier, B.C. had a fiscal surplus of $3 billion which has since been vaporized. To then add insult to British Columbians’ injury our economy was driven off a cliff as Eby and his gang spent like sailors on an epic bender and many viable resource projects languished in permit purgatory.
David Eby and the NDP have no economic credibility left and have completely torched the pragmatic economic legacy Horgan left them. In B.C., there is little reason to believe our self-inflicted economic woes will be mended anytime soon by a premier who can’t see outside of a narrow ideological window — no matter how polite he may think he’s being while doing so.
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National Post
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