BURST
Prime Minister Mark Carney stopped off for a breakfast fireside chat with the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade Wednesday before his high-stakes meeting with Premier David Eby over B.C.’s priorities within the Prime Minister’s ‘build Canada’ agenda.
Carney offered the full-house audience of about 700 executives and business leaders a reassuring message about how central the province is in his campaign for economic independence. YVR CEO Tamara Vrooman called it “the hottest ticket in town, next to the resale of FIFA.”
Carney’s meeting with Eby was billed as a showdown over priorities when it comes to Alberta’s ambitions for a new bitumen pipeline built to the West Coast, which the premier complained is jumping the queue as a national priority and “rewarding bad behaviour” of Alberta’s separatist movement.
But after receiving a standing ovation, Carney repeated that B.C. “is in a position of strength” in Canada’s energy transition and has a lot to gain from his agenda to double Canada’s non-U. S. trade in a decade, from increasing electricity generation to expanding shipments through the Port of Vancouver.
“To some degree, the vision for B.C., yes, there’s the obvious areas — energy, critical minerals, tech,” Carney said during a fireside chat with Board of Trade CEO Bridgitte Andersen.
“But it’s also where B.C. wants to take it,” Carney added. “What we’re trying to accomplish, we’re trying to accomplish, and I think we’re really getting it implemented across the country, is we don’t want to hear what people are against, we want to hear what you’re for.
“And if you’re for something, let’s give full credit to B.C., I think there’s a lot more to come, but as I referenced more than one third of (the) 22 projects and strategies that are being fast tracked (under) the nation-building approach, are from British Columbia.”
Carney said despite opposition in B.C. and among First Nations to the bitumen pipeline, advancing the pipeline “requires that British Columbians should share substantial economic and financial benefits,” as well as ensure Indigenous consultation and economic benefits.
Later in the morning, Eby was more diplomatic in his remarks before heading in to his meeting at government’s Vancouver cabinet office, declaring “there is no doubt in my mind that the Prime Minister is a friend to British Columbia.”
The meeting, Eby said, was to cement an agreement to enter into negotiations on B.C.’s priorities in the national strategy, and added B.C. “can really deliver for all Canadians.”
However, “an important part of friendship is telling each other the truth, and part of the truth for British Columbia is that the development work that we’re doing, developing our economy, has to go hand in hand with environmental protection for the next generation.”
Eby added that includes upholding the North Coast moratorium on oil tanker traffic through the sensitive waters and “protecting our pristine North Coast.”
The premier said his hope is for “a fair share for British Columbia of federal investment that the Prime Minister has committed to for this country, and a fair share of enthusiasm for the projects that we’re bringing forward.”
More to come…