Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Estimates on the Ministry of Forests operations with Forest Minister Ravi Parmar, for forestry critic Ward Stamer – budgeted with $406,398,000 RAVI PARMAR: It’s an incredible team that I’m responsible for and get the opportunity to work with as well. I just wanted to give them a shout-out as they support me over the course of the next six hours. I’m looking forward to the discussion. Ward Stamer ... it sounds like we’ve gone almost full circle and we’re going to be having the same conversation again. Part of that was when we looked at the current data and how many direct jobs that we had in our industry, we had approximately 56,000 direct jobs with anywhere between 150,000 and 200,000 other jobs that were tied directly to the forest industry, and that we had lost approximately 10,000 jobs in the previous year. That was previous 2025. I would suggest that we’ve lost probably somewhere in that neighbourhood again last year in 2025. So, let’s get right to the crux of some o...

Mark Carney and Wilbur Turner, Kelowna, BC February 2025 “In a crisis, plan beats no plan. We have a plan for Canada that is going to deliver the strongest economy and ride out the Americans until they come back to the table,” Mark Carney said during a leadership campaign stop in Kelowna on February 12, 2025.  Watching the erratic behaviour of the U.S. president toward Canada since then, I keep coming back to those words I heard Carney speak that day when I met him in Kelowna. When the United States imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods in 2025, the political temptation would have been to respond to every provocation coming out of Washington. President Donald Trump repeatedly framed the trade dispute as leverage, openly speculating that Canada would eventually fold or be better off as a U.S. state. Mark Carney took a different approach. Rather than chasing every headline or reacting to each rhetorical escalation, his government returned to a consistent message. We are going to...

President Trump’s tariff and trade policies dominated the world’s political discourse through 2025. In a recent article,Stuart Trew and I reviewed the different tariffs and overall state of play for Canada. This post takes a closer look at the latest numbers on BC exports and the BC government’s response so far. While the initial shock wave has passed, we can start to see some of the results, although there’s still a lot of uncertainty heading into 2026. The good news is that the BC economy has been fairly resilient through 2025. As of November 2025, the provincial unemployment rate sits at 6.5 per cent and employment growth has been sluggish but positive with 1.4 per cent more jobs than a year earlier. Reduced population growth to near zero due to immigration restrictions is also a factor that is also slowing the economy relative to past years.  A key lesson from 2025 for BC’s diverse trade mix in terms of export markets and commodities has provided some degree of resilience in th...

To address the effects of punishing tariffs on wood exports, the province is handing nearly $8 million to two Vancouver Island forest companies to allow them to adapt their products for new markets. Western Forest Products’ value-added plant in Chemainus will get up to $7.5 million, and Island TimberFrame in Cumberland will receive as much as $325,000, as the province aims to help the industry innovate and increase the number of value-added jobs. Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon said the investment will allow the two wood manufacturers to pivot faster to higher-value products that will help them reach more reliable markets and customers, while protecting jobs in forestry-dependent communities ... CLICK HERE for the full story

... Carney’s problem isn’t so much that his government is trying to manage a conscious but limited decoupling from the US as much as that, in the process, they’ve refused to grapple with the White House’s depravity and have abandoned anything resembling an assertion of domestic sovereignty or self-respect.  In a latest test, the US ambassador to Canada has said that the government’s purchase of the full complement of American-made F-35 fighter jets must be part and parcel of restarting trade talks. In other words, he’s extorting us ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The federal government will unveil the next round of major projects that will get fast-tracked approvals later this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday, as Canada tries to stimulate economic activity amid the ongoing U.S. tariff fight. Carney said the list will be unveiled in Prince Rupert on Thursday. The Indigenous-proposed Ksi Lisims liquified natural gas (LNG) project near that city was approved by Ottawa in September and it has since received all the necessary permits to start construction ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC has quietly disbanded the task force that was once the centrepiece of its response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The premier’s “trade and economic security task force”—meant to unite business, labour and Indigenous leaders in a show of economic solidarity against American tariffs—is now gone without a trace, ending the latest example of a big government announcement that fades, inevitably, into bureaucratic dust. When Premier David Eby launched the group back in January, he framed it as “responding as a province united against these tariffs.” “We have a task force involving business, labour, Indigenous leadership that is gathering to support the province's response, to ensure that we're all pushing in the same direction in response to this threat,” he said. It was a nice idea. But it never really got off the runway ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

A lot of people in this country owe Doug Ford an apology. Not for the way he’s run the Ontario government over the past three terms generally, but rather for the Ronald Reagan ad that prompted a presidential hissy fit specifically. Yeah. Doug Ford is right and all the people carping at him are inevitably going to find themselves — dare I say it — on the wrong side of history. And by “all the people,” I mean Prime Minister Mark Carney especially, who made an ass of himself, and the entire country, by apologizing for the national sin of transparently running an ad featuring a former U.S. president’s own speech on trade to a U.S. audience. When the country took a flier on a new Liberal leader at the head of a loathed Liberal government, they did so under the banner of an “elbow’s up” message. I don’t think any of us meant to be jabbing those elbows into fellow Canadians’ eyes, and yet that seems to be the only assertive maneuver outward Carney has mustered since the polling stations close...

To be honest, we’re still recovering just a little from Toronto’s heartbreaking loss in the World Series. However, it didn’t stop us from talking about that cringey Carney apology, nor the latest apparently anti-democratic invocation of the clause in our Charter that was explicitly created to preserve, um, democratic supremacy. Anyway, here we go again… Well, we at The Line don’t want spoil imminent columns, but this was the week in which at least one of your editors thought to herself that Donald Trump is going to eat Mark Carney alive. This week, the Prime Minister apologized to the U.S. President for something this country should never have to apologize for — defending its own interests in the mildest and most respectful terms possible ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Canada’s combative trade tactics are backfiring By Sylvain Charlebois The real threat to Canadian exporters isn’t U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, it’s Ottawa and Queen’s Park’s reckless diplomacy. The latest tariff hike, whether triggered by Ontario’s anti-tariff ad campaign or not, is only a symptom. The deeper problem is Canada’s escalating loss of credibility at the trade table. Washington’s move to raise duties from 35 per cent to 45 per cent on non-CUSMA imports (goods not covered under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, the successor to NAFTA) reflects a diplomatic climate that is quickly souring, with very real consequences for Canadian exporters. Some analysts argue that a 10-point tariff increase is inconsequential. It is not. The issue isn’t just what is being tariffed; it is the tone of the relationship. Canada is increasingly seen as erratic and reactive, negotiating from emotion rather than strategy. That kind of reputation is dangerous when dealin...