For a decade, the BC NDP built its brand on a simple line: we will not let this province become a highway for someone else’s oil. David Eby’s predecessor took Trans Mountain to court. Eby himself campaigned as a premier who understood that British Columbians wanted climate leadership, not just climate rhetoric. That era has ended — not with a referendum, but with a press conference this summer. 

Canada has committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. A new export pipeline being proposed in 2026 will lock in fossil fuel infrastructure for decades beyond that target. The question of whether this decision is compatible with those commitments has not been asked at any press conference. It deserves to be.

In July, Eby stood beside Mark Carney to unveil a “cooperative prosperity agreement” clearing the way for a new government-backed pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast, part of a project estimated at between $35.2 and $43.7 billion that would largely trace the Trans Mountain corridor to a Roberts Bank trade corridor receiving major federal infrastructure investment. He did this so he could be, in his own words,........

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