Premier David Eby backed down on his controversial anti-tariff legislation Friday, after a chorus of critics, including two former premiers, an attorney general and half a dozen business groups, lined up to oppose what they say is an unjustified power grab by the NDP government.

Eby said he’ll remove a clause from the bill that would have given cabinet the ability to change any law without approval of the B.C. legislature for two years.

“My interest in being able to move quickly to respond to the threat that British Columbia is facing got the better of, certainly, my understanding that the safeguards that people are calling for need to be there as well,” Eby told reporters.

“I’ll make sure that we're addressing those safeguards, that we're finding a way to achieve all these goals, if that's possible, and bring the bill back as a separate bill for the legislative assembly.”

The remaining of the legislation, called Bill 7 — which authorizes government to remove interprovincial trade barriers, cancel U.S. procurement contracts and tax American supply trucks in B.C. — will go forward and pass this spring, said Eby.

Former Liberal premier Gordon Campbell, and former NDP premier Ujjal Dosanjh both slammed the Eby government in the past week for the overreach.

Campbell accused Eby of taking advantage of people’s fear over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs by using “the move of an aspiring autocrat.”

“Democracy is messy. It can be frustrating, but it is a necessary check on autocratic power,” Campbell wrote in a Glacier Media op-ed.

“The best, and constitutionally correct, way to fight Trump’s action is not by suspending our democratic institutions, but rather by fully and carefully considering our response to U.S. actions in our constitutionally enshrined parliamentary system. There is no need or reason to give Eby the dictatorial power he seeks.”

Campbell called the bill “unprecedented” in British Columbia history.

Dosanjh said the NDP was casting away the very democratic governance of the province by........

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