BC’s Energy Superpower Plan
British Columbia has seen a major political shift with the election of a majority Conservative government led by Premier-designate Lorne Doerkson after nine years of NDP rule. During the campaign, the Conservatives released their “BC Energy Superpower Plan: Build More Faster” on September 28, 2026.
On this week’s podcast, Peter and Jackie are joined by Stewart Muir, President and CEO of Resource Works, a leading voice in Canada’s natural resource sector with a focus on British Columbia. They discuss the Conservatives’ platform and what it could mean for energy investment in the province. The platform focuses on expanding LNG exports and natural gas production, repealing Clean BC, and designating the Montney Formation as a strategic provincial asset. The plan also addresses future sources of electricity in the province.
Beyond the platform, they discuss the BC Conservatives’ support for Pacific Link, the proposed oil pipeline connecting Alberta to BC’s southern coast, and the federal Conservative Party’s recent push to lift the oil tanker ban on BC’s northern coast.
Content referenced on this podcast:
- BC Energy Superpower Plan: Build More Faster
- Ready to Deliver, Lorne Doerkson’s Plan for a Stronger BC 2026
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Episode 343 transcript
Disclosure:
The information and opinions presented in this ARC Energy Ideas podcast are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to the disclaimer link in the show notes.
Announcer:
This is the ARC Energy Ideas podcast, with Peter Tertzakian and Jackie Forrest, exploring trends that influence the energy business.
Jackie Forrest:
Welcome to the ARC Energy Ideas Podcast. I’m Jackie Forrest.
Peter Tertzakian:
And I’m Peter Tertzakian and welcome back. Jackie, it is Friday, October 30th as we record. It is the day before Halloween, but importantly, also the day before this crazy time zone change or lack thereof.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah. Well, I’ve noticed this week I’ve had a lot of meeting changes as people figured out they had the Standard Mountain Time or the Mountain Time that the rest of North America has, and now we need the Alberta Mountain Time. And then suddenly our meetings are an hour different than we thought and I have conflicting meetings. So I’m expecting this upcoming week to be crazy as people figure it out. Alberta is now one hour different from Eastern Time Zone, which is weird and hard to remember. And we’re going to be dark in the morning too. That’s the other thing.
Peter Tertzakian:
Very dark. I think at the peak and the shortest day of the year, it’ll be dark until 10:00 in the morning or something. But hey, I’m over here in the UK where we did fall back as is customary every year. So I’m only six hour difference from you.
Jackie Forrest:
Good. Well, that’s one benefit, I guess. Yeah, we’re closer together, at least from a time perspective.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. But what isn’t a benefit is the price of natural gas here. And I don’t know if people know, but the price of natural gas here is indicating about 25 British pounds per gigajoule, which is in the mid $40 Canadian per gigajoule. I mean, this is incredibly burdensome on households. In fact, the budget that was handed down a few days ago here is giving 100 pound credit to families that are in a certain type of housing that’s below a certain value. When you get gas prices that high, not only is it a burden on people’s wallets, but I don’t know of any industry that has natural gas as an input can be competitive with those kinds of prices. And they’re saying it can go higher, obviously because the natural gas storage levels here are low. The Strait of Hormuz for LNG tankers is pretty much a no-go.
We should be thankful that in Canada, in Western Canada in particular, eco prices are $1.75 a gigajoule. It’s 1/25th of what they are here in continental and Europe and the UK. So it’s really kind of a crazy situation.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, that’s two extremes. We have almost for free our gas and then over there, like you say, it’s hurting households and businesses, but those are wholesale prices. The price that the person in their home pays is much higher when you consider all the fees and everything. So that’s difficult. But gas is a really big topic here too in Western Canada, especially because of the election. We talked about it briefly on our podcast last week in BC where there’s a goal to really increase gas production, but we do have low prices. So that is a barrier, at least for now.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, and it’s even lower in British Columbia. I mean, the prices up in Northeast BC at Station 2, I think are even lower than they are here in Alberta. And certainly not enough to be profitable as a commodity on its own. And if there’s no profitability, there’s no royalties, no taxes. The new premier elects desire to triple production with these kinds of prices is unlikely to happen until some of these things are sorted out. Now, prices are indicating a bit higher as you go forward, but right now there’s really no incentive to drill for natural gas.
But hey, let’s talk about British Columbia and the elections and we get a trusted voice from the Western part of the country. We are pleased to have back Stewart Muir, CEO of Resource Works. We’ve had him not too long ago actually talking about BC politics. But given the snap election and the results, it’s great to have you back, Stewart.
Stewart Muir:
It’s a real privilege. Thank you so much.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. Well, Stewart, big political change. I watched the TV last Saturday and wow, a major majority, 64 seat majority. How did you feel on Saturday night? Were you surprised? I know the polling probably showed this, but what a change in a month?
Stewart Muir:
Yeah, I think there was still that pinch me in the air in Vancouver and Victoria and all around BC maybe of could this really have happened, but it did happen. So by the time it got to Saturday, yes, it was pretty much cast. It felt like in certainty, all the polling, the performance of the outgoing premier, Premier Eby was, I think, on display for all to see. It wasn’t a great look. And as we start to reset, I guess, for the expectations of the next few years, I’m one of those who is old enough to have been on the scene in 2001 when the Gordon Campbell, BC Liberals, the Free Enterprise Coalition, which is what we have again now, came into power. I was in the publishing business and money wasn’t flowing. We weren’t getting advertisers the way that business needed, but very quickly there was a mood shift and it was tangible.
And a lot of things happened in subsequent years that you could go into dissecting that era. But I would say the takeaway for today is that if you think change isn’t possible because you have a change in leadership, I would disagree. I think that there is a mood shift, but also a fiscal intention that is going to enliven investment intentions, which have been quite sadly lagging for several years.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, you talked to a lot of business leaders, and I guess it’s a bit of a rhetorical question because I think we know the answer, but what’s the mood in the business community?
Stewart Muir:
The mood, I’ve been in Vancouver boardrooms this week. I’ve even spent a couple of days in Calgary to taste what is in the air. And I feel that there is a joyous feel. Honestly, I don’t know how else I would put it. There is an optimism. There is a sense that if the premier elect Lorne Doerkson can come in and deliver on the platform that he’s articulated, that we will have a very good era. But even perhaps there would be those saying, well, no matter who we’ve got now, it’s going to be better than those responsible for creating the fiscal situation we have now. Because if you look at the charts, I mean, it’s terrible. BC’s at the bottom tier of provincial credit. We’re there with Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. We used to be up there with the top of the country. We’re not there anymore. We’ve got increasing operating deficits, so we’re living on the credit card. Everyone can see that. It’s getting worse and worse.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah. And the premier elect has been talking about number one thing is to try to put together a plan, hopefully to get rid of the deficits and start to eventually get rid of some of the debt that the province has. But let’s go back to the election and the timeline of events. I think it’s worth just revisiting. September 22nd, Eby calls the snap election and the narrative at the time is the Conservatives are a mess. They’ve just had the previous leader resign a few days before. They’re just not organized. But I question if they weren’t organized because six days later they came out with a BC Energy Super Plan. It was nine pages, but really well thought through platform in my view. And then October 18th, they came out with a 71-page full platform. So they got themselves together pretty quickly. What do you think about that narrative that they’re disorganized or infighting? Do you think that’s not really representative? It certainly seemed like a team that was functioning very well through this snap election.
Stewart Muir:
The thing that happened in those days immediately after the snap call is that the Free Enterprise Coalition, which I’ve referenced earlier, emerged. It never went away. It was here, the political minds, the industry backers and the voters and the local organizers who were there for the BC Liberals, which was also the Free Enterprise Coalition. I think there’s this big thing about it’s the Liberals versus the Conservatives in BC provincial politics. Forget about that. It’s the Free Enterprise Coalition. If you want to understand BC, you have to start with that. And the Free Enterprise Coalition came back and in a matter of days it had their organizers, it had the professional polish and people coming in to put together what they put together. And that’s what happened.
Peter Tertzakian:
That’s what happened, Stewart, and it’s impressive as Jackie pointed out. I mean, to what extent were the people voting for the Free Enterprise Coalition and the Conservatives versus voting just against the brashness of almost arrogance of Eby trying to take advantage of the disarray in the Conservative Party?
Stewart Muir:
Yeah. NDP voters staying home decided the outcome, but it was a very strong vote for the BC Conservatives too.
Jackie Forrest:
All right. Well, we’re going to get into the energy plan, but interestingly, in that timeline, there was some other big news. LNG Canada Phase 2 made its long awaited final investment decision. It was announced in Vancouver with all the different joint venture consortium owners and attendance. And I understand you were there as well. What was the significance of that change? We’ve obviously, and this was a big part of the energy superpower, how we failed in terms of LNG. We had so much more opportunity, but now we finally have a new investment. LNG Phase 1 has been operating and now it’s going to double. And there was some question if that project actually would go forward if you go back a couple of years. So just tell us a little bit about being there and the importance of that decision?
Stewart Muir:
Yeah. Well, having followed this pretty closely since 2011 when LNG was not a phrase that a lot of people knew on the coast of BC at least, and where are we now? These 15 years we’ve seen an idea, a vision, a political promise, a pact to deliver by these consortia that came together. It’s real. All the years of, “Oh, it’s a pipe dream, it’ll never happen. Oh, there’s 18 or 20 projects, that’s too many. They’ll never happen.” Well, look what we have now. You can count the number of projects that are on the books and moving forward.
For LNG Canada Phase 2 to be announced, first of all, I guess the timing, I know for sure it wasn’t meant to be during the election phase. The snap election call, when you look at the big ship of a FID decision, things are in motion. You can’t really change them. They had CEOs from these big international companies, from the buyers, the CEO of Shell. Global is there. Those calendars don’t just flip around when someone wants to change a date by a day or two or a week or two. It was fated to happen then.
And I think there was a little apprehension as to how it would be read politically. Is this meant to be a sort of bold act by Mr. Eby to try to spike the results? That really wasn’t the story. To be in the room at the waterfront hotel with the prime minister, with these executives who’ve come from afar, from the First Nations partners who’ve been part of it, I just had goosebumps that whole time. I’ve never seen a bigger media contingent, I guess, since maybe the World Cup, but even the 2010 Olympics. I mean, one of the biggest stories we’ve seen in this town for a long time.
I think people felt that and it validated that not only is the last 15 years bonafide, it’s proof that the next cycle is that 10, 15 years, whatever it is also promising. There was nothing to debate in the election. It wasn’t a question on the doorsteps, “Is this real or not?” It was real.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah, it was real. And so now we’re into talk about the BC Energy Superpower Plan. It highlights lost opportunities over the course of the last 10, 15 years there was 20 LNG projects on the books at various stages of development. And by 2020, there was really only one left that actually made it to the finish line and that’s LNG Canada 1. Now we’ve got LNG 2 that’s FID. I don’t think people really want to litigate the past as much as look forward right now. And the forward does at least look bright in terms of the narratives that are coming out of the new government. But the new government also has to, of course, work with the entrenched bureaucracy, the civil service who has worked under this paradigm over the course of the last decade. What kind of major changes are you expecting to see in the government at large that would allow resource development to move more quickly as is stated in this energy superpower plan?
Stewart Muir:
Yeah, probably the pillar of the NDP government for at least its first several years was the Clean BC Act, which is really a container for more than 20 different policies around emissions’ reduction, broadly speaking, and policies in that regard, which had a particularly pronounced effect on equipment in the upstream, in the midstream usage of transportation types. And it had very lofty goals for 2030 and 2040, 2050. It feels like that net-zero by 2050 mantra era, whether it was federal or international or here in British Columbia is behind us. So when you think about the obstacles to investing in capital in the upstream and how challenging it has been, I think maybe one of the biggest things is the electricity supply.
And this points to a fundamental thing that really has to be pointed out is that British Columbia, although for many decades it has had this mythology of being a place of abundant electricity, limitless green power that you could have Alcan or Rio Tinto aluminum smelter, you could power the economy with all this electricity from the big, big dams. Well, over the last three years, BC has been a net importer of its electricity. And even stranger, we’re taking that inexpensive natural gas that we’re producing here in great abundance, we’re shipping it to Washington State. They’re turning it using our natural gas into electricity, which they’re then shipping back into our grid. And we’re punishing ourselves for other domestic uses of British Columbia natural gas.
All of that is added up. We have a 7,000 megawatt lineup of industry being told, “You can’t do your project because we won’t have electricity for you until da, da, da.” So all these things, I think right now, BC can certainly go in the direction of Alberta in terms of pursuing data centers and other opportunities that are fired with gas because that’s where this government I think is going to point to.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. Well, the document actually does talk about need for more electricity. They want more power, including electricity from renewables. It actually is, I would say an all of the above approach saying renewables, hydro, gas fired plants, where the previous calls for power, there were two in the last several years and they were specifically for clean electricity only. So that is a big change. There was no mention of transmission lines. Do you think that that is something that could be part of the solution as well? You are putting a bunch of wind now with the two procurements into BC, but your capacity factors are much lower in BC than they are in Southern Alberta. And so it would be much smarter from a technical perspective and economic perspective to put that money into a place where you could get more utilization and generate more power, but yet the politics of it are that people want those projects in their province. So what do you think, transmission lines, would they be on the table as well?
Stewart Muir:
Well, there’s certainly been the interprovincial discussions. Once again, it’s a recurring topic. I remember it last was a hot topic a dozen years ago and it never resulted in those inter ties being built. Inter ties have been spoken of in the last year. We see, I think in the MOU signed between Alberta and Ottawa, the rustling of this idea that we can have that level of cooperation. As one of the many, many thousands of BC and Alberta residents who was born in one of those provinces but lives in the other one, I don’t really see a border there, but unfortunately politics is politics and there is a border there. It’s been a rather impermeable one in a political sense over the last few years. I think there’s potential for Premier Doerkson, Premier Smith to have a kind of relationship where you could say exactly that. Let’s run more wire across the provincial border and do this kind of thing.
Peter Tertzakian:
The premier as part of this energy superpower plan has talked about doubling natural gas production, I think by the end of the decade or 2032 or something and tripling by 2035. At the opening of the podcast, we talked about these low natural gas prices. How do you see the reconciling of this aggressive growth? And it’s not only growth in natural gas to fulfill LNG, it’s growth in BC.
And there’s another topic that we want to address here, which is the outstanding royalty review that BC did that was supposed to be implemented in January and has yet to. So how do you see this growth objective in natural gas playing out given the uncertainties of very low price, the uncertainties potentially of the price of natural gas itself?
Jackie Forrest:
I’ll add too, Peter, just to add some context because doubling, tripling sounds doable, but let’s just put the numbers in there. BC produces about 7.7 BCF per day, 40% of Western Canadian production. Doubling means that they’re producing 15, 18 or 19 right now as a whole country. And tripling means they’re producing 23 BCF per day out of BC. So that’s more than we’re producing in Western Canada right now. That’s about what the Americans are. The Americans achieve 20 BCF per day going into LNG feed gas for facilities. So just to give you an idea of the number, it’s a huge number.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. I mean, there’s a tremendous amount of gas and the question isn’t whether or not the reserves are there because they are. There’s a tremendous amount of gas in Western Canada, almost limitless.
Jackie Forrest:
I have a number on that too, Peter. If you could assume $3 gas, and most of this is available over 2.50, which we’re far from right now, Canadian dollars, some work by McDaniel Associates would say there’s 170 years of supply at current production levels. So you would divide that by three if you tripled, but that still is lots of gas.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I’ll be around on this podcast to talk about it when that happens. But Stewart, getting back to the question, I mean, these sorts of fantastical doubling, tripling on already a fairly large base, just talk about that, but also in some ways it calls into question whether this government frankly knows what it’s talking about. I mean, I hate to be blunt because you have to have some knowledge of the energy economics to be able to make such statements.
Stewart Muir:
I think the headline on that isn’t necessarily the full story here. Also, we’re talking about a campaign where the NDP government was able to attend the LNG Canada Phase 2 announcement with the prime minister. I couldn’t help but notice that the energy superpower platform was released one day before that announcement by LNG Canada. I’m sure that there was a buzz, people began to advise it would be on the Tuesday. It sounds like this one was maybe released in order to steal a march on the NDP who maybe would’ve been seen as taking hold of that LNG narrative. That would be my guess as to a political calculation.
In terms of talking about the upstream, you could discuss the numbers as you’ve done. And I think the context politically is that the NDP had the hardest time talking about the source of gas. They even had a hard time at the beginning of Premier Eby’s era where he couldn’t say LNG. I mean, I was literally at a conference of 1500 natural resource people at the annual gathering in Prince George. He had a chance to knock it out of the park and talk about LNG. He didn’t even say it. He couldn’t say it. The next year he came back and he probably had a visit from the Ministry of Finance in the interim period, and he was able to talk about LNG, but you know what? He was never able to talk about where the gas came from.
The original sin, as I would think of the NDP government when it comes to the congestion that’s occurred in the BC Montney story is that they didn’t make the decision to go back to the courts to get clarification on what the famous Blueberry or Yahey decision meant. That is to say they chose not to appeal it. They though that would be a bad luck. We shouldn’t appeal it because there’s a First Nation involved. Even at the time that was criticized as being unwise. But by making that decision, they left a whole bunch of questions to fester and be left to interpretation. It led to years of inactivity in the crucial Montney BC side, and we’re still recovering from that.
I read that platform released by the BC Conservatives as being about, “Hey, we’re recognizing that we have the Montney.” In fact, the proof point of that to me is that they also in the same platform have said, “The Montney formation will be deemed a strategic asset.” I don’t know of any other natural resource asset or any other asset in British Columbia that is so deemed. It’s a big statement. And you think about it, the oil sands, probably anyone in Canada who has any familiarity with anything, you could stop them on the street, whether it’s in Halifax or Red Deer, and they could tell you what the oil sands was and what it meant. There’s no way you’d find people anywhere, even in Vancouver, who could tell you what the Montney is about.
Jackie Forrest:
What you’re saying is that just it’s a signal for growth, which is a big change. It’s a signal that we want upstream production, which the previous government seemed to be doing everything to stop upstream production, whether it be not dealing maybe with the Blueberry issue as proactively as they could have, which has really meant that a big part of the Montney is limited in the growth rate, having high carbon prices relative to other places, requiring electrification, the list goes on of barriers to growth in that region. But royalties was another one, and Peter brought that up earlier. They’ve reformed the royalties a number of times and quite a contentious situation earlier this year. In Alberta, they’re talking about changing royalties to get the growth. Do you think that is a discussion here?
And I will note, it did say in the document they want BC to be the most competitive place to produce LNG. So to me, it signals that they are open to changes in royalties.
Stewart Muir:
And as everyone’s well aware, the NDP have been tinkering with that. The philosophical approach of the NDP on a lot of things is just a little bit more. Thinking back to my days when I was close to industrial bargaining on the employer side you always hear that from the negotiator. “It is just a little bit more” in the contract. The aspect of industry hearing that is a very scary thought. And the way that I think is imbued in the platform as I’ve read it is that they’re saying the right thing, which is that you want to grow the benefit that you get from the publicly owned resource of that natural gas, you do that by letting people develop it and sell it because right now it’s really valuable. So the more things you put in the way of that, like higher royalties or royalty regimes that don’t line up in a beneficial way for BC next to its neighbor, if you solve those, you solve the problem.
So make it easier, get those rigs back into BC, they’re there, they’re mobile, bring them back and do that by that sort of incentive.
Peter Tertzakian:
Speaking of growing LNG, so Ksi Lisims is often mentioned as the next one to follow LNG Canada to FID. It was specifically mentioned in the Conservative Party platform. Tell us about that project, Stewart, the Ksi Lisims project. Where is it, where it’s at? And why do you think it was singled out as well by the Conservatives?
Stewart Muir:
Yeah, good question. I was up there actually for the first time last week to the site, which takes a little planning and work to get there, a fair drive out of the nearest airport. And it’s in the spectacular Nass River Valley. It’s the homeland, the treaty lands of the Nisgaʼa Nation, which was the first modern treaty back in the 1990s. They have always been, I think, an aspirational nation that has got a distinct view of economic development and yet geographically a little bit removed unlike say the Haisla First Nation there in Kitamaat, which has been an industrial hub for 80 years. Ksi Lisims project is basically a pipeline that arrives at the end of the estuary and then it continues on underwater for 15 kilometers, which is where it will meet the floating LNG platform or ship or however they engineer that and thereby create the exit for that LNG.
It’s I think at least a $20 billion project. It’s backed by some highly credible upstream producers and financiers, and has been in the works for a lot of years. It’s now signing offtake agreements. It is very close. I think the buzz is that it would be maybe early 2026 and then pushed a little bit. The last I’ve heard is maybe pointing to early 2027. I think it’s credible. I think it’s real that there is that intention by all these thousands of banks that look at these deals and so on, that we’re going to see that. It’ll require a new pipeline, one that’s been permitted a long time that will cross from the Northeast to the Northwest. You’ve got pretty good First Nations buy-in along the way for that, maybe a couple of potential friction points. But as far as the Nisgaʼa people, boy, are they ever driven to succeed with this. The benefits it will create.
I spoke last week with a gentleman, Charles Morven, one of the heads of the nation on the enterprise development finance side. They have a big vision to secure the wellbeing of the Nisgaʼa people who live not only in the Nass Valley, but there’s probably a few thousand who live in Vancouver and all over the place. But they see LNG as a way to secure their future. And I don’t know of any other First Nation that doesn’t think that way in some form.
Jackie Forrest:
Now, you haven’t mentioned the Cedar LNG project or the Wood Fiber LNG project. Those are both under construction. Ksi Lisims is the one big one that hasn’t had a final investment decision. Maybe just sending that signal for political support is important for that, but that would get to 50 million tons per annum in the early 2030s if we had Ksi Lisims Phase 1 or the current project and then Phase 2 for LNG Canada plus the other two. But Mark Kearney has set a goal, we want to be 50 million tons by 2030 and double again in the next decade, but we don’t have anybody else really advancing big projects. And so the platform was interesting. The BC Conservatives platform talked about, “We’re going to go back to all those companies that left here, ExxonMobil in 2018, Chevron in 2019, Woodside exited in 2021. And we’re going to say to them, ‘Come back, come back to BC. We’re different than we were when you exited.'”
By the way, most of those groups were advancing very large projects. If you could get those going again, you could get to that 100 million tons. Peter, I’d be interested in your opinion on this too. Once companies have come, spent a bunch of money, and some of these spent not insignificant amount of money advancing these projects, some of them had sites they even did site work on. Can we get them back? Do you think that the change in federal and provincial government could bring these companies back?
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah, I definitely think so. I mean, the world is not static. We’re finding every day there’s always changes that happen very quickly. I mean, look at Venezuela. It was considered uninvestible and now we have companies going back into there. So there’s no reason why these companies aren’t going to have another look. I would say it’s early days. I mean, the government still hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and it’s going to be key to understand what they do with a lot of issues in the first three to six months. And then I think companies will come back and have another look say by mid-year next year.
Jackie Forrest:
We’ll finish off with the oil pipeline. The oil pipeline, the Pacific Link we’re calling it now, obviously the pipeline from Alberta to the Robert Banks terminal in the lower mainland. It was not mentioned at all in the energy platform, but during the election campaign and even after the election, the premier designate did talk about the fact that one of his top priorities the day after the election, he said, was to call the Alberta Premier Smith and get that pipeline moving. I found that interesting because BC in the past hasn’t seen a lot of benefit from the pipeline for them, so that it would be one of the first things he would do, I think is exciting for Albertans to know that it rates that high. First of all, what’s in it for him? Why do you think the support?
And then I also want to talk a little bit, this week we’ve had the federal Conservatives want to remove the tanker ban on the North Coast. And interestingly enough, we saw that the Conservatives in BC have been a little bit careful with that issue saying, “You know what? I’m not going to say anything on that. I want to work on the one project we got going here. That’s what is in my agenda.” So just a little bit of thoughts on why is it high the agenda? Why not remove the tanker ban?
Stewart Muir:
Well, I think in 2026, the benefits of Trans Mountain being completed are manifest and easier to see. The construction phase was huge, but we also know that we’ve got the benefits of cheaper gasoline. I think consumers were paying attention when in May of, was it 2024, so long ago now, the pipeline started filling ships at a new unprecedented level and gasoline prices came down quite a bit. It was noticeable. Actually at Resource Works, we invited an economist from the University of Calgary to come out and explain why this happened. Made it very clear that the reason was the pipeline. So most definitely there is a material effect for anyone who purchases fuels. But in terms of the next phase, that’s a really interesting question. I think the reason it wasn’t a talking point for the Conservatives is it wasn’t one for the NDP. It wasn’t one for anyone.
And it’s one of those things, I think just why talk about it when if you’re going to alienate one voter, why do that when the BC Conservatives felt they had a chance? Probably political risk management. I don’t think it in any sense indicated that the BC Conservatives were somehow ambiguous about it. I mean, the pronouncements of the premier elect have made that quite clear.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. And then what about the northern coast, so is that just not going to be popular? Is that why he’s kind of just being careful around that one? Is this still an issue where a lot of people in BC want to see that tanker ban?
Stewart Muir:
Well, I think they want to come into office in a collaborative sense with Prime Minister Carney. The prime minister faces the voters again in October of 2029, so he’s got three years. I think that’s a long time for that relationship to yield benefits for a collaborative BC Conservative group. I think of it more as a free enterprise coalition. Is it largely conservative? Can you infer that if it’s a BC Conservative, therefore it’s the same as a federal Conservative? No, you cannot. I think there’ll be a very collaborative relationship with the prime minister. Will the federal Conservatives under Mr. Poilievre enjoy or appreciate that? Perhaps not. I think the Conservatives over a long period have quite rightly pointed out to the flaws and the poor reasoning behind the North Coast tanker ban.
I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s the fastest, it’s the safest. It’s got the deep water. It’s not just the fastest to get the oil to the coast, but also the fastest for ships to get to market. It is something that could be done quickly. It’s welcomed by many communities. When the Senate committee that Jason Kenny has spoken of in recent days in social media, when they went out to Prince Rupert to terrace, I actually spoke to the committee and I laid out the case for why they shouldn’t implement this tanker ban law. And it was very close in the Senate to being rejected. And then some politics happened and now we have the tanker ban. There was a five-year window to revisit it. It was never revisited. I think that was a mistake.
So now we’re left with a situation where in the fullness of time, I think it’s fated that there will be oil that moves across Northern BC to Tidewater. How it gets there, who can know? But in the next three years of that Liberal Conservative pact and Alberta playing into that, I think we probably want to see a good or great relationship with Alberta and British Columbia. It’s been really difficult even under more sympathetic parties in power at the same time for that to happen. So will it change now? That’s a question that lots of people are going to be asking.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, Stewart, thanks very much for joining us. We’re out of time. Stewart Muir, president and CEO of Resource Works, delighted to have you back. Delighted to have you share your political reflections of how we got to the surprise results of this Conservative government win in BC. I mean, it wasn’t just a win, it was a super majority of 64 seats. We talked about the dynamics of being an energy superpower, although I take exception to that word. I mean, I think it’s used too liberally, the superpower. And I still, Jackie, think we need to talk about this low price of natural gas. I mean, it is so low that I feel like you’re not a superpower if you’re giving your gas away for free, but we’ll leave that for a separate podcast.
Nevertheless, it’s really nice to see the buoyancy of the business community in BC. It’s nice to see that there could be real benefits for the economy even pretty soon with more project announcements relating to energy. So we’ll be watching this government their first 100 days as is the classic time period to see what they do as it relates to everything from royalties to carbon policies to policy and regulation, all of which we discussed. So thanks again, Stewart. I’m sure we’ll have you back.
Stewart Muir:
Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Jackie.
Jackie Forrest:
Thank you. And thanks to our listeners. If you enjoyed this podcast, please write us on the app that you listen to and tell someone else about us.
Announcer:
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