British Columbia is poised on the launch pad of a once-in-a-century export boom and we’re acting like we need permission to press go.
The prime minister’s new goal to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports sounds ambitious, but for B.C., it’s actually the next logical step. Because if this province gets its act together, that’s exactly what will happen — and it’ll happen first here, in the northwest (pages 92/93).
The breakdown tells a story we’ve known for decades: coal still leads the way, with about $8.5 billion in non-U.S. exports feeding Asia’s steel mills. Copper and metallic minerals are essential for electrification and renewable tech, contributing $5 billion and counting. Pulp, paper, and lumber together bring in another $5 billion, but are in decline thank to policy gridlock and fibre scarcity. Fish, food, metals, and machinery add a few billion more in total.
And then there’s gold. It doesn’t get the same headlines as LNG or copper, but it’s one of B.C.’s quiet giants. The province exports billions in refined gold and dore bars each year, much of it from northern operations like Brucejack, Red Chris, and New Afton, with Blackwater now also pouring gold bars.
Global demand for “clean gold” — responsibly mined, traceable, low-emission — is exploding. If we make approvals faster and extend power lines to new deposits north of Stewart, British Columbia could triple its gold output over the next decade. That’s the kind of growth that funds not just dividends, but hospitals and schools.
This year LNG Canada started shipping, adding billions in fresh exports to Asia. Add Cedar LNG and Ksi Lisims by the late 2020s and you’re talking billions more annually. Supposing it’s $20 billion a year (my hunch, and I could be proved off target), that alone would be a massive stride toward meeting Ottawa’s “double exports” goal.
Lately, I’ve been hearing about First Nations that are pursuing seven-generation strategies to build healthy homeland communities based on these kinds of export opportunities, and it gives me hope that the reconciliation era is truly upon us.
We should also remember that LNG opens the door for a new generation of energy exports. A northern oil pipeline is the obvious next move. With the right Indigenous partnerships and modern safety tech, such a line could bring Canadian crude to Pacific markets at full value. Every economist knows it: a northern line to tidewater would add billions to national GDP and reduce our dependency on discounted U.S. sales.
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s strategy.
The other frontier is ammonia and hydrogen. The world is scrambling for zero-carbon fuels, and Japan, South Korea, and Germany are already signing ammonia import deals. B.C. has everything — natural gas, water, power, and ports — to dominate that trade. Picture Kitimat and Prince Rupert exporting clean hydrogen-based fuels within ten years. It’s the natural evolution of LNG infrastructure.
And then there are the metals for the green transition. The next copper and gold mines in northwest B.C. — Galore Creek, KSM, Eskay Creek — could each anchor billion-dollar supply chains. Together they’re worth more than most people realize, if we can just get them permitted.
If we’re serious about this, here’s the hit list:
Infrastructure: rail, port expansions, and BC Hydro transmission lines to the North Coast. Without power and transport, everything else is talk.
Permitting: we’ve made “consultation” a full-employment program for bureaucrats. Projects that take two years elsewhere take 10 here. That’s not climate leadership; it’s self-sabotage.
Timber sanity: our forestry exports have collapsed. The global demand is there; the political will is not. We need to cut trees sustainably, proudly, and profitably.
Indigenous equity: Cedar LNG showed the world what partnership looks like. What if we applied that same model to mines, pipelines, and hydrogen hubs? It’s economic reconciliation in action.
Energy realism: our electricity system can’t meet the load of LNG plants, population growth and new industrial parks all at once. It’s time to build generation, not just promise it.
Imagine if by 2035, B.C. isn’t just shipping LNG, it’s exporting more gold, copper, ammonia, and hydrogen through an expanded Prince Rupert corridor. And a new northern oil line is quietly delivering Canada’s most responsibly produced crude to Asia, finally reducing our dependence on U.S. buyers.
Imagine Indigenous-led industrial hubs and free-trade zones thriving from Terrace to Kitimat with climate policies tuned to match what is humanly achievable, while aquaculture is again thriving on the Island and other places where First Nations welcome it.
Imagine the provincial economy is no longer a hostage to fickle housing markets or federal politics.
That’s not fantasy. That’s just the math.
We’ve spent the past four decades apologizing for being good at things the world desperately needs. Let’s stop doing that. British Columbia is a trading province built for big things, not boutique experiments. Do more of what already works, sending products to places that already want what we ship – that should be the mantra.
The next phase of Canada’s prosperity must begin in B.C.’s north, with the projects that actually move molecules, minerals, and money.
The question isn’t whether we can double our exports. The question is whether Canada can finally break the spell of failed ambitions. If we don’t, someone else will.
And they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank, while we hold another roundtable about why it’s so hard to get permits.