Friday March 14, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
“This is our message to Donald Trump. It’s our message to all Americans. We don’t want this fight. We didn’t sign up for it. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to arm ourselves,” said BC Premier David Eby today during a media availability in Surrey.
“We’re making sure that we have all of the tools in place as part of a coordinated effort in the event that Donald Trump takes the dramatic step of putting a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods across the board — or some other draconian, and terrible, and short sighted and foolish thing to do ,” the premier said.
“Whenever he wakes up in the morning and issues some executive order about (whatever), that we have these tools in place,” said Eby with reference to his recent announcement about legislation that will allow the BC government to act quickly in response to any serious impacts that the US administration hurls at BC.
“It’s not something that we would do lightly. We know the consequences for Alaskans are a big deal,” said Eby, referring to the toll surcharge for trucks that transport goods from Washington State through BC to Alaska.
Eby says he would expect American states to respond in kind.
“Trade wars only hurt people. They don’t benefit anybody,” said Eby today, clearly frustrated with the ongoing ups-and-downs of the tariff chaos that Trump has imposed on Canada since (or even before) he was inaugurated in January.
Today Eby mentioned tariffs impacts in energy and food security and small business manufacturing.
Theories on the right approach:
“There are lots of different theories of how we deal with the president of the United States and his whims on this trade war,” said Eby.
“I have heard one of the best things to do is go down there, show a lot of deference, kiss the ring, give the president a big win and then he’ll back off. Well I guess all that happened… the federal government went down to Mar-a-Lago, they had dinner at the golf course, they said ‘okay, absolutely fentanyl, we’re going to do that’, they appointed a Fentanyl Czar, they spent a billion and a half dollars at the border, they leased helicopters and drones, and deployed them along the border. And guess what happened… 25% tariffs still came in,” the Premier recounted.
“And so there are lots of theories and we have a team Canada approach. I would say Premier Smith has been engaging in a ‘good cop’ approach. She’s been down there in the United States, meeting with people. Doug Ford has been aggressive on the front lines, pushing back. All different kinds of approaches are being taken. I would say that they have been singularly ineffective because the president wants to impose the tariffs,” Eby concluded today.
Trump’s motives? “He wants to annex Canada, and he wants our water, and he wants Greenland and he wants the Panama Canal,” said Eby today.
Eby said today he’s closer to the ‘Doug Ford end of the spectrum’ in terms of ‘good cop, bad cop’. He said earlier this week that he wished Ford had reached out to him about the Ontario electricity shut-off threat; Eby might have teamed up with a similar threat, he implied.
Frustration at the imposition:
“The the idea of logic with someone that wakes up and takes this approach, and tanks his own economy in the face of the outcry from the America people who feel the lowest consumer confidence since 2022, is very hard to negotiate with,” states Eby, who clearly takes a structure-of-law approach to governance and leadership in BC.
Eby is understandably frustrated that many of the good works that he hoped to achieve with his NDP leadership have been pushed aside by having to deal with Trump and the entirely unexpected challenges of tariff impacts on the BC economy.
===== RELATED:
- New BC legislation to strengthen quick response to US tariff economic threats (March 13, 2025)
- Canada maintains tariff counter measures heading into Washington meeting (March 13, 2025)
- Tariff war escalation: all US liquor products now off BC shelves (March 10, 2025)
- BC Budget 2025: Industry, education, business, climate change & opposition parties weigh-in (March 7, 2025)
- BC halts importation of US-made liquor products (March 6, 2025)
- Canadian Premiers hustled through a day of meetings in Washington DC (February 13, 2025)
- Canada’s first-ever Fentanyl Czar is Kevin Brosseau (February 11, 2025)
- NEWS SECTIONS: TARIFFS & TRADE | CANADA-NATIONAL | CANADA-USA