B.C. Premier David Eby is expected to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday and a possible Pacific pipeline is sure to be on the agenda.
On Friday, Eby said that the federal government is rewarding Alberta for “bad behaviour” by agreeing to push for a new bitumen pipeline to the West Coast.
On Tuesday, Eby said that his message is straightforward, saying British Columbia backs Canada and Ottawa needs to back British Columbia.
“The message to the prime minister is simple,” Eby said.
“This country cannot work if separatists, separatist premiers, others get all of the attention of the federal government and those provinces where we’re standing squarely behind Canada, where we are fighting for Canada, where we couldn’t be more pro-Canadian in the projects we’re advancing.”
Eby said B.C. was left out of the discussion when Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed an “implementation agreement” to advance a West Coast pipeline to Ottawa’s major projects office by July 1.
The new agreement commits both the federal government and Alberta to consult B.C. on the proposed pipeline, and it could be declared in the national interest by the federal government by October, which would expedite the project.
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“We have huge projects here in the province that are going to employ thousands and thousands of British Columbians and Canadians from across the country,” Eby said on Tuesday.
“It’s going to raise the national GDP. It’s going to raise the value of the Canadian dollar. Some of these projects are that big. And we’re training up British Columbians to be able to take the jobs these projects create. So they have more money to cope with rising expenses as a result of global inflation.
“We are doing this work. We need to do it together and we need to have at least as much enthusiasm from the federal government for B.C. projects as they’ve shown for Alberta projects.”
A statement from the Coastal First Nations advocacy group says its members will never allow a pipeline or oil tankers to the North Coast of B.C., and notes that Friday’s announcement doesn’t increase the chances of that.
Eby said that B.C. currently has $88 billion in projects on the go, with 34 different major projects and 40 per cent of the projects with proponents and roots ready to begin.
“We have the British Columbians who are getting trained to be able to take the jobs these projects create through a quarter billion dollars in new funding for training, so that this puts more money in British Columbians’ pockets by creating jobs and opportunity,” he said.
“It puts more in Canadians’ pockets across the country by lifting the national GDP. We just need to see that same level of support that Alberta has seen from the prime minister right here in British Columbia.”
–with files from The Canadian Press
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