In a throne speech invoking the struggles of the Second World War, today B.C. Premier David Eby doubled down on his promise to speed up approvals for major resource and energy projects in an effort to better insulate B.C.’s economy from tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Every minister has been given marching orders to speed up permit approvals to get job-creating projects built, in partnership with First Nations, communities and businesses throughout the province,” according to the speech, which serves as a blueprint for the NDP government’s priorities over the next year.
“Your government will eliminate unnecessary red tape and break down barriers to growth,” the speech stated.
The throne speech — which explicitly recalled Canada’s response to the threat of Nazi Germany — followed Eby’s recent comments that B.C. is on an economic war footing because of the U.S. tariff threat and that accelerating permit approvals is a critical part of the province’s response.
B.C.’s main response to the tariff threat from the United States so far is a vague plan to “expedite” 18 energy and mining projects — a commitment reiterated in the throne speech, which said the province will “speed up permitting and regulatory approvals” for major resource and energy projects. The selected projects include nine previously announced wind projects the government had already exempted from environmental assessments.
The preliminary list of expedited projects also includes the North Coast transmission line to power the liquefied natural gas (LNG), mining and other industries, the Cedar LNG export facility the government had already approved, two natural gas pipelines and four mining projects. Eby had already announced that the transmission line, which will dodge an environmental assessment, will get speedy permitting.
The throne speech recapped those recent announcements, saying the BC NDP government is focused on “prioritizing efficiency and regulating in a way that makes sense,” and linking the deregulatory push to the need to “grow a stronger, more self-sufficient economy.”
Details on exactly how the province intends to approve those projects faster remain scarce, but the push to fast-track major projects is drawing criticism from some environmental advocates, First Nations and opposition MLAs.
“The U.S. administration’s protectionist policies pose challenges for B.C.’s economy, but we cannot let them overshadow the progress we’ve made in protecting our environment, strengthening our institutions, and advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples,” interim BC Green Party leader and MLA Jeremy Valeriote said in a statement. “This is not the time to lean into populism, it is a time for vision, action, and bold investment in a clean, green future.”
Conservative Party leader John Rustad told reporters most of the projects on the government’s list have been “significantly delayed because of NDP policy and approaches.”
“If you really want to be able to get the economy going in this province, you actually need to get government out of the way,” Rustad said. “There’s been layers of bureaucracy and process that have been added on in British Columbia that have created nothing but delays and challenges for anybody to try to do anything in this province and that is only continuing.”
Isabel Siu-Zmuidzinas, climate campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, worries speeding up approvals will require ditching environmental assessment processes that give British Columbians “a real look at some of the social, health and climate impacts of these really massive industrial projects that we know have in the past had devastating impacts on communities.”
“If we’re just ramming them through, that really raises concerns that things will slip through the cracks — what the impacts might be for communities, for species, for all the components of our environment,” she said.
The province has yet to provide any details on how the chosen projects will be expedited. Eby’s office did not respond to a request from The Narwhal for further details, including how many outstanding provincial permits and authorizations each project still requires.
The Mining and Critical Minerals Ministry emailed a general statement but did not answer any of The Narwhal’s questions.
Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia with expertise in environmental, climate and energy policy, called the B.C. government’s prioritization of fossil fuel development in response to the U.S. tariff threat is a “short-term decision that may cost us in the long run and may undermine global climate action.”
“My worry is that if our government is so focused on affordability and the immediate response to tariffs, there’s a risk that there would be decisions made that are costlier over the long term,” she said in an interview. She said prioritizing LNG development as a way to diversify B.C.’s export market could leave the province economically vulnerable if the International Energy Agency’s projection that global gas demand will peak by 2030 comes true.
“We could have new LNG terminals coming on stream just as there is a glut of LNG,” she said. “These are very expensive projects that are only undertaken if there is an expectation of them operating for decades.”
Jessica Clogg, executive director of West Coast Environmental Law, expressed skepticism that expediting LNG and other resource projects serves the interests of British Columbians.
“It is very troubling that industry seems to be taking advantage of the current situation to advance their corporate interests by seeking exemptions from important requirements meant to protect the environment, public health and human rights,” Clogg said in a statement in response to the expedited projects list.
“In a time of uncertainty, we need our elected leaders to stand by our shared values – including democratic decision-making, sustainability and Indigenous human rights – rather than taking short-sighted steps that could undermine the resilience of our communities and the environment we rely on.”
While the economic impacts of the tariffs threatened by Trump would be severe, Harrison also pointed out B.C. is already experiencing risks from climate change that will worsen over the long term, saying “those are also risks to our economy and to our well being and to people’s health and their homes.”
“Are we making ourselves both environmentally and economically insecure in the long term, if we continue to embrace fossil fuel exports as a short-term solution to a very real economic threat?” she asked.
B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix maintains the province’s permitting processes are in dire need of reform and that projects can be approved faster and more efficiently while maintaining robust environmental standards.
“It does not make sense to me that the permitting and assessment process on wind projects is longer than the construction process,” he told reporters earlier this month.
Dix’s mandate letter from Eby directs him to “dramatically accelerate” permitting for clean and low-carbon energy projects while maintaining “world-leading environmental standards.” No definition of “world-leading environmental standards” was provided. Dix has already covered a lot of ground on that front since his appointment in November, starting with the environmental assessment exemption for wind projects.
In January, when the NDP government announced plans to fast-track the North Coast transmission line, Eby said he would put the BC Energy Regulator — largely funded by the oil and gas industry — in charge of permitting the 450-kilometre transmission line, which will run from Prince George, B.C. to Terrace, B.C.
Then, in early February, Dix revealed the government also plans to make the BC Energy Regulator responsible for issuing permits for all renewable energy projects, including wind, solar, biomass and biogas. The regulator’s authority will be expanded through legislation introduced during the spring session, which kicked off today with the throne speech, according to the minister.
“The legislation is about advancing growth and diversity in the energy sector and ensuring that we are building a sustainable, clean economy for everyone,” Dix told reporters at a recent news conference.
The changes will put the regulator in charge of issuing permits currently handled by provincial ministries, Dix said, but they won’t affect “the application of laws designed to protect lands and protect communities.”
The lack of detail on how those protections will be upheld while approval processes are cut down begs significant questions, said Siu-Zmuidzinas with the Wilderness Committee.
“We don’t exactly know what’s going to be cut out,” she said. “But it’s hard to imagine a robust and complete assessment, for example, of the greenhouse gas emissions of one of these LNG facilities without a full timeline that allows for all those calculations to be done [and] for all those assessments to take place on all the species that might be impacted.”
Kwatuuma Cole Sayers, executive director of Clean Energy BC, said the simplified permitting approach for renewable energy projects has been a long time coming.
“Permitting delays have posed substantial challenges for renewable energy development in B.C, with projects taking five to seven years to move from concept to construction due to permitting approvals with multiple ministries, environmental assessments and interconnection studies,” Sayers told The Narwhal in an interview.
He sees a bright future for clean energy in B.C., one that offers First Nations new opportunities for economic partnership and development. To be eligible for BC Hydro’s call for power, projects must have First Nations equity ownership of at least 25 per cent.
Sayers is confident the province will maintain “a robust permitting process” while finding ways to move projects through the approval process faster.
“This is not removal of environmental oversight by any means,” he said. “The BC Energy Regulator is a highly experienced lifecycle regulator — and expanding its jurisdiction to include renewables will help reduce lengthy delays that would have made it very difficult for new clean energy projects to come online when the power is needed.”
The push to make B.C.’s permitting processes more efficient is overdue, according to Kevin Hanna, an associate professor with the University of B.C. Okanagan’s faculty of earth, environmental and geographic sciences.
“This is not a bad thing and we should have had this conversation a long time ago, but let’s do it carefully and let’s really identify those opportunities for efficiency and effectiveness,” Hanna said in an interview. “Maybe this is pointing us in the right direction … It’s just too bad it took the existential crisis of the border to get us there.”
Making permitting processes more efficient means accurately assessing where the current system isn’t working well and having clear goals, Hanna said.
“I don’t think that can be done properly in a very short-term, very reactive, urgency driven system,” he said, adding a rushed approach could mean overlooking foreseeable risks and challenges that might have been identified during a more thorough review.
“I think that’s one of those challenges that hangs over these reform processes,” he said. “Having said that, I agree that many of them are taking longer than they should — but that’s not always the fault of [the] government.”
He noted project approvals can also be delayed by proponents taking time to complete required reports, submitting incomplete information or otherwise delaying the process. A recent study from researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University found economic factors have had a more significant role in delaying mining projects than provincial regulations.
One area where Hanna believes the province should avoid cutting corners is on public consultation. Most major projects go through multiple public comment periods, where information about proposed projects is released and people have the opportunity to learn about their potential impacts and benefits. The province also collects public feedback, which can be used to suggest changes that address concerns about various aspects of a planned project.
“It has to be open and transparent and there has to be proper disclosure that gives people a chance to learn,” Hanna said. “When people have a chance to learn and hear about stuff before it’s built, they’re much more trusting and they can have confidence that they’ve been heard … If [the] government doesn’t do that, then there isn’t sufficient trust, and you don’t end up in a good place.”
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