The B.C. government is willing to participate in retaliatory measures against the United States if president-elect Donald Trump follows through on his threat of Canadian tariffs, but boy is it going to sting British Columbians in numerous ways.
That was the message delivered loud and clear by Premier David Eby this week, as he contributes — cautiously — to Ottawa’s plan to put together a counterattack to Trump’s promised 25 per cent tariffs on all goods coming in the United States from Canada and Mexico.
“Nothing is off the table,” Eby said Thursday. “We are prepared to support retaliatory tariffs and a response to the United States that gets their attention, help them understand what the consequences would be for British Columbians, and what the consequences would be for Americans.”
Nobody is going to win on either side of the border in a tariff war, Eby said. And he’s absolutely right. The duelling tariffs would only serve to squeeze the B.C. economy on both sides of the issue — unable to export some products for sale due to American financial penalties, unable to export other products due to Canadian political calculations, and facing rising costs all around in a supply squeeze.
“There are significant impacts to British Columbians in any kind of scenario,” said Eby.
“It’s hard to under-emphasize how tied we are, and what the consequences of both tariffs and retaliatory tariffs would be.”
Nor is the premier particularly enthused about the idea.
“I think both Canadian retaliatory tariffs and American tariffs … both of them are a huge waste of time, energy, money, productivity and wealth,” he said. “And so the idea that we're headed down this path, to me, makes absolutely no sense.”
Nonetheless, B.C. is willing to participate in a unified Canadian response to Trump.
“Some premiers proactively identified products that their provinces produce and export to the United States and which the U.S. relies on, and which should be considered as part of the Canadian response,” federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said in Ottawa.
“This included some critical minerals and metals.”
B.C. is a leader in mining critical minerals, with 16 of the 31 elements in the national critical minerals strategy. So if the Canadian response includes a crackdown on those, it will hit this province hard. Copper, nickel, molybdenum and other minerals are essential to the production of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and green technologies that the United States has incentivized as part of the country’s energy transition. B.C.’s Highland Valley Copper mine in Logan Lake is the largest open-pit copper mine in the country.
B.C. also exports wood, natural gas, electronic equipment, car parts and seafood to the United States, in large quantities.
In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut off electricity exports to 1.5 million U.S. homes.
“We can’t just roll over while we’re under attack,” said Ford.
B.C. could follow suit in cutting off energy exports — but, again, British Columbians would get hit two-fold.
First, BC Hydro would lose some of the $2.5 billion in net profit it has made trading energy with Americans through its Powerex division over the last five years. That money that is used to keep provincial electricity rates low. Without it, your Hydro bill could go up.
Second, the move would likely cut off British Columbia from being able to import electricity from the United States. The Americans helped keep the lights on in this province during the 2023 drought when B.C. imported three times as much power from American as it exported.
Then there’s the issue of B.C.’s border with Washington state, Idaho and Montana. Trump has cited illegal immigration and the flow of drugs, including fentanyl, as failures of Canada that must be fixed.
In Ottawa, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc indicated premiers were willing to contribute provincial resources to help bolster the federal border response plan.
Alberta immediately announced provincial funding for sheriffs, drones, patrol dogs and officers to monitor its border, creating a new two-kilometre-deep border zone where it could arrest people without needing a warrant.
Eby reluctantly agreed to do something here as well, but not before ripping Ottawa for its failures to give British Columbia the same financial aid as other provinces.
“To take over federal responsibilities at the federal border and pay for that, when British Columbians are paying for so many other things that other provinces don't have to pay for, feels a bit like a step too far,” he said. “But I have said at the table to the prime minister and to my colleagues, British Columbia will do our part to support the national effort at the border.”
“We will integrate our provincial resources with that effort,” he added. “It will result in additional spending, I'm sure, from the provincial side that we can ill afford, because we don't get the same … support that other provinces get, but we will do our part. Because we're Canadians, and that's what Canadians do.”
All of this will only work if Canada remains unified in spreading out the economic hurt caused by the tariff war, said Eby.
“It's going to hurt British Columbians, it's going to hurt Americans, it's going to hurt Ontarians, and we need to make sure the pain is spread, that the costs are spread, and that we're doing it in a co-ordinated way,” he said.
“This is not an issue that one province can take on alone.”
Nor would one province even want to do so, given how grim the prospects sound, as described by the premier.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
