Premier David Eby always tries to make a splash at premiers’ meetings.
Like the time a couple of years ago he wore an “I [heart] heat pumps” t-shirt to rankle the feds into expanding Atlantic heat pump subsidies to the west coast.
So it perhaps wasn’t surprising he garnered headlines at the Council of the Federation meeting in Ottawa this week. But his choice of words still took people aback.
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” said Eby.
Treason.
The comment came unprompted from Eby before he took questions from reporters at the event. It had apparently been fermenting in his mind since the night before when he read an article in the Financial Times that outlined how Alberta separatists had met with U.S. officials to ask for $500 billion in financial assistance to leave Canada.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a man for whom almost no word is off limits, refused to repeat “treason” and said maybe that was going a little too far.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith avoided condemning the separatists in her province. “When you look at the polls, they suggest as many as 30 per cent of Albertans have lost hope. That’s about a million people, and I’m not going to demonize or marginalize a million of my fellow citizens when they’ve got legitimate grievances.”
But Eby doubled down on it in a second press conference later that day.
“This is a country we have to fight for, there are lots of people who would like to take it from us,” he said.
“And those who don’t wish to, those who would solicit a foreign government to come and try to take over our country or break it up, that’s not part of our vision for Canada. That’s not Canadian conduct. And in fact, that is, I described it as an old fashioned word because we haven’t had to use it for a long time, in my opinion that is a treasonous activity. And it needs to be called out. And it needs to be stopped.”
If the goal was to score a round of headline news coverage, it worked.
Whereas the day before, public attention had centered on Eby’s meeting with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over an oil pipeline (leaving Eby once again fuming that the project does not even yet technically exist), it quickly shifted to Eby’s treason comments within 24 hours.
Eby softens pipeline rhetoric after meeting Smith and Carney
On the pipeline, the two premiers came to no agreement. But Smith did say she does not intend to pursue the old Northern Gateway route with a terminal in Kitimat. Where that leaves the project’s route is unknown, though Smith said she intends to keep Eby in the loop with information as she proceeds towards releasing all the details in June.
There also appeared to be hints from Ottawa that movement was afoot. Cory Hogan, Carney’s parliamentary secretary on energy, told reporters that B.C. had “a big coast” outside of just the northern area under the current oil tanker moratorium — though, again, it’s unclear what exactly he is suggesting.
Hogan, as well as other Carney cabinet ministers, and even Carney himself, told media they were hopeful B.C. and Alberta could find common ground.
Eby called the meeting with Smith and Carney “borderline friendly.” Smith, for the first time, said she was interested in Eby’s pitch to expand the capacity of the current Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby, saying it could act as a “pressure relief” for the sector.
“There are lots of areas we can work on together, including the optimization project of the TMX pipeline, which I know is a priority of premier Smith’s,” said Eby. But he also repeated his complaints that there is no proponent, no route and no private investors.
More resources to combat extortion, but nothing for forestry
One area where the premier appeared to get action from Ottawa was on extortion cases and violence in Surrey. Mayor Brenda Locke had called Surrey “a city under siege” and called for 25 additional police officers, which Eby was able to get Carney to commit to, as well as RCMP helicopter resources and a summit on the issue in Surrey with RCMP commanders from several provinces and specialized units.
“We discussed the call from mayors for a declaration of a state of emergency, our consensus was to make sure that police are communicating adequately with the community, that they understand the seriousness of this, how profound this is for the community,” said Eby.
The move came just a week after Eby blasted the RCMP’s extortion task force commander in B.C., who argued publicly with media over whether the extortions qualified as a crisis.
The movement from Ottawa comes as the New Democrats are hammered on the crime and safety issue in Surrey, which is a vote-rich part of the province and home to several MLAs.
Still, the premier left Ottawa on Thursday without action on softwood lumber tariffs, or renewed aid from Ottawa on that sector.
Back home he faces a growing list of political problems, from health care closures, to broader concerns over public safety, to a provincial budget that is expected to be so bad his finance minister told business leaders this week she anticipates being the most unpopular person in the province upon its delivery.
In that way, his Ottawa trip was perhaps a reprieve. He made headlines on an issue that wasn’t even his, before he returns home to deal with problems that are his alone.