VICTORIA — Premier David Eby started the week by abandoning his threat to target Americans with a direct advertising campaign against the U.S.’s hefty tariffs on softwood lumber from B.C.
Just last month, Eby said it was “absolutely essential that we talk to Americans about the fact that trade policy in the United States right now is governed not by logic, not by economics, not by relationship, but by one individual in the White House.”
“This kind of nonsense and absurdity needs to be brought to the attention of the American people and decision makers,” the premier said then.
He vowed to proceed with the ads despite the growing backlash over a larger-scale advertising effort by Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
“I support unambiguously Premier Ford’s advertisements in the United States,” the premier told reporters on Oct. 27. “Although ours is on a decidedly different scale, the entire idea is too get the message out to Americans about the impact of tariffs on Americans.”
The B.C. government was looking forward to a promised meeting with federal ministers on the softwood crisis, said Eby. “We recognize we are part of a team.”
Even so, “we are going to exercise all of our ability to get the word out, including advertising to Americans,” said the premier. “We reserve the right to do that.”
No sign of backing off last week. But there he was Monday of this week doing just that at the wrap up of the summit with the federal ministers.
“We will not be running the ads by ourselves,” the premier told reporters. “We’ve committed to the federal government that when the time comes to be speaking directly to Americans, we’ll do it in partnership with them.”
The previous week, Eby had framed the ads as a show of provincial autonomy, taking the message directly to Americans to expose the nonsense and absurdity of Donald Trump’s one-man leadership.
This week, Eby made it sound as if they were merely a ploy to persuade federal ministers to visit the West Coast.
“One of my commitments to the federal government was if they came to the table with us, if they sat with us, we’d work with them on communications, strategy, on how to work with them and how to move forward,” said Eby.
As Eby rationalized his retreat, a reporter asked Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister for Canada-U.S. trade, if had he asked the B.C. premier to not run the anti-softwood tariff ads.
Eby, exercising his prerogative as host, jumped in to answer first.
“Minister LeBlanc didn’t have to ask,” said the premier. “I knew that it was a source of anxiety for many people, including potentially the federal government, given the reaction to the Ontario tariffs.”
LeBlanc, ever the diplomat, said: “I don’t think I can add anything. The premier, I think, just answered the question in a very fulsome way.”
He couldn’t resist adding that he and Eby had exchanged text messages over the weekend and those included a profanity or two.
Punchline: They were messaging about the Blue Jays games.
As to what the premier got for this show of humility, it was mostly a working group.
“We’ve agreed to a table senior deputy ministers within the federal government and provincial government, and senior representatives from the political level, a task force, a working group, to work — and we’re talking about in a period of weeks, not months — on supports for the sector,” said Eby, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“We put forward a number of specific proposals and we have received a commitment from the federal government, a very positive response to that, to work with us on ensuring that we’re delivering.”
The same day, the leading industry group, COFI, reminded Eby of his promise to increase the annual allowable cut from the current 30 million cubic metres to 45.
Other items from the industry wish list: Pause forestry reviews and policy changes, reduce costs, and match federal funding.
Eby agreed the province has work to do but cautioned that even where the annual cut has been allocated, it may not be economic to harvest because of the looming threat of tariffs.
“Also because of the provincially imposed regulations, production costs, and barriers to permitting,” one can imagine industry reps saying in reply.
Both concerns were underscored by the end-of-the-week news of the permanent closure of West Fraser’s mill in 100 Mile House, with the loss of 165 jobs.
Forests Minister Ravi Parmar was “heartbroken” and put all the blame on the decades-long ravages of the pine beetle and the more recent ravages of Donald Trump.
West Fraser’s news release spread the blame around.
“The 100 Mile House lumber mill is no longer able to reliably access an adequate volume of economically viable timber,” it said. “Challenging softwood lumber demand, higher duties and additional tariffs have compounded this situation.”
So the week that began with the premier backing down on getting tough with the Americans over softwood ended with more tough news for the industry here at home.