Tuesday April 29, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Today BC Premier Eby offered his congratulations to Liberal Leader Mark Carney who led the Liberal party to a near-majority victory in last night’s federal election.
Carney is a new politician who after becoming leader of the Liberal party on March 9 spent a few weeks running a caretaker government while preparing to launch his campaign. The writ was dropped on March 23 and the campaign ran through to April 28 election day.
Eby congratulated Carney for successful campaigns in both his constituency and as prime minister of Canada.
“I look forward to working with him on the priorities that I think all Canadians have right now, which his ensuring that we are standing up strong to the threat presented by Donald Trump to our sovereignty, to our economy, to our jobs,” said Eby today at his press conference out front of the BC Parliament buildings on a sunny Tuesday morning.
He wants the provinces and territories to work together “to ensure that our country can stand on our won two feet, that we’re growing our economy, that we’re diversifying our markets, and we’re standing arm in arm with countries around the world that share our values,” he said ahead of taking media questions.
In the past few months Eby has been a team player on the initiatives of the provincial and territorial premiers and the former premier to sort out and undertake various approaches for dealing with the economic threat from the United States. That included a trip to Washington in February and taking part in first-ministers meetings with the prime minister on a nearly weekly basis.
Shared goals:
During the election campaign Carney made a visit to Victoria and had a meeting with Carney. After that, Carney articulated about how softwood lumber from BC would be part of a ramped up home-building program that as Liberal leader he promised.
“British Columbia is a core part of this Canadian strategy to respond to the president’s threat to our country. We will be central to the growth of the country’s economy in the years to come because of our ports, because of our resources, because of our people,” the premier said.
“I look forward to working with the prime minister on our shared goals,” Eby said today.
One of those big shared goals is hastening along the process to enable inter-provincial trade across this country. Carney has promised to do that by Canada Day on July 1, handily dovetailing economic goals with the momentum of pro-sovereignty support among Canadians.
Thanking federal NDP:
“I’d like to thank Jagmeet Singh for his time as leader of the federal NDP. He worked hard for people. He delivered dental care and Pharmacare which make a real difference in the lives of people who can’t afford medicine, who can’t get their teeth fixed — it makes it really challenging to have any sort of quality of life,” said Eby today.
“Jagmeet and his federal colleagues delivered that for Canadians and made a difference,” said Eby. “I want to thank him for his service for all Canadians.”
As a mechanism to achieving those health-related social programs the NDP signed a Supply and Confidence Agreement with the federal Liberals. It was a perfunctory way to pressure the Liberals for legislation to make dental and Pharmacare happen in the House of Commons. It was smart use of the parliamentary and legislative process but to the everyday voter it appeared weak and too-aligned with the party that Singh critiqued for being too corporate. He actually successfully played both sides of the fence but it failed to resonate toward NDP success in the election.
Singh said in his election night speech that he will step down as NDP leader as soon as an interim NDP leader is chosen.
Eby and Carney:
During the campaign in a press conference on April 3 Eby said he is “on Team Orange” but that he hoped for “stability in Ottawa” after the federal election, leaning heavily to indicating support for Carney and the Liberals to win.
Eby and Carney have similar mindsets … Eby’s more through a law and justice lens and Carney’s through an economic framework with a practical modus operandi. But together will likely meet comfortably in the middle to pragmatically produce results including a broader-scope restructuring of the Canadian economy.
===== RELATED:
- Election 2025: Special & advance ballots delayed final results (April 29, 2025)
- Federal Election 2025 Results – leaders, parties & BC (April 28, 2025)
- Liberal promise for a new home-building sector in Canada would help boost BC forestry sector (April 8, 2025)
- NEWS SECTIONS: CANADA-NATIONAL | CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION 2025 | VANCOUVER ISLAND | LIBERAL PARTY | FEDERAL NDP | CANADA-USA | FORESTRY