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As Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatens to cut off electricity exports to the U.S. in retaliation for sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods, B.C. Premier David Eby is striking a different tone when it comes to the flow of power over the international border.
“We have had to enter into contingency planning about our electrical supply and our relationship with the United States,” Eby said during a media availability on Wednesday.
Eby cited “significant layoffs” last month at the Bonneville Power Administration in Oregon, saying personnel cuts made by the new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, colloquially known as DOGE and run by tech billionaire Elon Musk, “seriously weaken an independent agency that we depend on for electrical sales to the United States.”
Last month, the Trump government laid off 600 employees at the organization that distributes hydropower from 31 U.S. federal dams in the Pacific Northwest. (Some employees have since been rehired.)
B.C.’s electricity grid is deeply enmeshed with — and sometimes relies on — power from Washington State, Oregon and California.
“The chaos, the uncertainty and potential instability that these kinds of decisions cause means we have to have backup plans in place,” Eby told reporters, adding B.C. is also bracing for the possibility of U.S. tariffs on Canadian energy, should Trump take similar steps to what Ford has proposed.
“This is contingency planning that happens in case of emergencies, natural disasters and so on and, unfortunately, now it’s contingency planning around a man-made disaster, made by the president of the United States,” the premier said.
Eby’s description of B.C.’s power situation is about as far from Ford’s threat to cut off power to the U.S. as Vancouver is from Toronto. Here’s why.
When the U.S. tariffs kicked in on March 4, Ford responded by announcing a 25 per cent surcharge on provincial energy exports to the U.S. He also promised further retaliation if tariffs on Canadian products persist into April — including a last resort of shutting off power exports entirely.
“If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything — including cut off their energy with a smile on my face,” Ford told reporters on Monday. “They rely on our energy, they need to feel the pain.”
By comparison, B.C.’s response to the Trump administration’s economic belligerence has been somewhat subdued.
In late February, Eby told reporters he had pitched Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a retaliatory measure to impose tariffs on U.S. thermal coal exports, which make their way through the Port of Vancouver at Roberts Bank on their way to China. It’s not a move the province can make on its own because ports are federal jurisdiction. B.C. has also removed liquor imported from Republican states from store shelves and is urging people to buy B.C. and Canadian-made products, as well as prioritizing B.C. and Canadian companies for government procurement contracts.
In large part, B.C. hasn’t moved to slap its own tax on electricity exports to the U.S. because the province increasingly relies on power from south of the border to keep the lights on.
“We do import electricity from the United States at times of low cost, when it’s beneficial for British Columbians,” Eby told reporters on Wednesday.
“What happens if that got cut off?” he asked.
Like most provinces, including Ontario, B.C. buys American electricity and sells power across the border.
BC Hydro’s wholly owned subsidiary, Powerex Corp., exports power when prices are high and imports power from other jurisdictions when prices are low. Powerex reaps bigger profits when BC Hydro’s generators slow down to import cheaper power, especially at night when demand is low.
B.C. has a history of importing electricity when it’s cheap and convenient as a way to keep costs low rather than out of necessity.
The difference between the amount of power B.C. needs and the amount of power produced in the province varies hugely from year to year. Over the past five years, BC Hydro has had an annual average power surplus of 925 gigawatt hours, according to the utility’s latest service plan, released on Tuesday as part of the provincial budget. That much electricity could power 925,000 homes.
In 2021, the province produced nearly 10,700 gigawatt hours more than it needed.
But last year, as drought continued and water levels dropped in hydro reservoirs, power demand outstripped provincial supply by 10,430 gigawatt hours, according to the BC Hydro’s service plan. As a result, nearly one-quarter of electricity the province used was imported, much of it from U.S. sources. That’s more than twice the 1,100-megawatt generating capacity of the $16-billion Site C dam that took almost 10 years to build on B.C.’s Peace River.
At the legislature on Wednesday, B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad expressed frustration at the depth of B.C.’s dependence on the U.S. for electricity and other commodities.
“British Columbia is an incredibly vulnerable situation,” Rustad told reporters. “We depend so much on the Americans for the electricity we consume, for the gasoline that we use, for the food that we need, for health care services.”
B.C. has historically benefited from an abundance of cheap, reliable and relatively clean hydroelectric power. But climate change has begun to erode the province’s longstanding power advantage. As winters get warmer and summers become hotter and drier, water levels in the reservoirs that generate B.C.’s hydropower have started to drop — and they’re not filling up as much during the wetter months.
Drought has impacted much of the province in recent years and the dry conditions are having an impact on BC Hydro’s power generation capacity.
Last spring, low snowpack in the Columbia River and Peace River basins — where more than half of the province’s electricity is generated — resulted in “energy challenges,” according to BC Hydro’s new service plan.
“Hydro generation remains forecast to be below average” and drought will continue to have a “significant” effect on BC Hydro’s power capabilities this year, the service plan stated.
As B.C. eyes a future without U.S. electricity imports, Eby said his government is looking to strengthen energy ties with its provincial neighbours.
“This is one of the reasons you saw [Energy Minister Adrian] Dix entering into agreements with Alberta to find ways that we can strengthen our interties across the mountains to be able to sell electricity more readily to Alberta,” he told reporters.
B.C. has been pressing Alberta to invest in improving the electricity link, called an intertie, between the two provinces for more than a decade. Last July, Dix’s predecessor, former energy minister Josie Osborne, wrote to Alberta’s Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf, arguing Alberta was restricting imports of electricity in violation of interprovincial agreements and to the financial detriment of B.C.
Since then, Neudorf has directed Alberta’s grid operator to initiate work on the intertie, but it remains unclear whether that work will satisfy B.C.
Dix struck a positive note when asked by The Narwhal about the status of intertie discussions.
“We’re working closely with the Alberta government and look forward to a positive resolution for both our provinces one of these days,” Dix said.
B.C. is also working to boost local power production, with a focus on clean and renewable energy sources. Last December, Dix announced new wind projects will not have to undergo environmental assessments, a move he maintains will help get wind farms from the application stage to producing energy much faster.
Nine wind projects and one solar power project are among the 18 energy and resource development projects the B.C. government plans to fast-track as part of its response to U.S. tariffs — although details about how the province plans to accelerate projects remain murky.
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