Vaughn Palmer: Big win for B.C. Premier David Eby in funding deal with Ottawa

Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney shake hands after announcing a multi-billion-dollar agreement to develop resources and infrastructure in the province. Photo by Government of British Columbia

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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby took a victory lap Thursday as he and Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a multi-billion-dollar agreement to develop resources and infrastructure in the province.

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“This is a big day for B.C.,” declared Eby regarding the Canada-B.C. Cooperative Prosperity Agreement. Also a big day for him and his troubled NDP government.

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The premier cut short a trade mission to China to share the platform with Carney in Vancouver. But no regrets. He obtained most of what he had been seeking from Ottawa while giving up little in return.

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As a first accomplishment, Eby chose to highlight the 11-page memorandum’s unequivocal extension of the moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the north coast.

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“Canada will maintain the federal north coast tanker ban without alteration, suspension or narrowing of scope,” it said, negating any chance of a northern route for a new oil pipeline through B.C.

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In return, Eby conceded that the province would not — because it could not — stop a southerly routing for a new or expanded pipeline.

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“Pipelines are federal jurisdiction,” said Eby. “We do not have the authority to stop a new pipeline. We will not be going to court to fight a pipeline project.”

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It was a lesson the province learned “the hard way last time,” said the premier. He meant the exercise in futility launched by his predecessor, John Horgan, with Eby as attorney general. Together, they spent a small fortune in legal fees fighting expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, losing every round.

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Even with that concession to constitutional reality, Eby gained something in return. Carney agreed to renegotiate the existing revenue-sharing agreement on the TMX project. Plus, there will be a further agreement on any new pipeline.

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Ottawa is putting up $3.5 billion in direct and indirect financial support for the first two phases of the estimated $6 billion North Coast Transmission line. The two governments will negotiate financing for the third phase of the electricity grid expansion. It is guesstimated to cost a further $4 billion, based on per kilometre costs of the earlier phases.

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The prime minister pledged $10 billion to support expansion of the Roberts Bank “superport,” saying it was only a placeholder with details to come later.

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In a move that scarcely represents the interests of taxpayers elsewhere in the country, Carney committed up to $3 billion for the NDP government’s wildly over-budget replacement for the Massey Tunnel.

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The bailout equals the estimated costing of the project the New Democrats inherited from the previous B.C. Liberal government. The NDP sent that version back to square one and later shrank the Liberals’ proposed 10-lane bridge to an eight-lane tunnel.

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The NDP’s last fully costed estimate for the new tunnel, issued in 2021, was a supposedly firm $4.15 billion, predicated on a start of construction this year.