For the first time in nearly a century, B.C. has a Conservative government.

Lorne Doerkson’s BC Conservatives won a majority government, defeating David Eby’s incumbent NDP. It’s a stunning win for the Conservatives after a chaotic couple of months, culminating in Eby’s decision to call a snap election almost two years ahead of schedule. 

Doerkson, a low-profile MLA first elected in Cariboo—Chilcotin in 2020, became the party’s interim leader one day before the snap election was called. 

On the campaign trail, Doerkson presented himself as a mild-mannered former rodeo rider and grandfather, promising to bolster B.C.’s economy while cutting taxes, reducing regulations and courting investment. The Conservative campaign platform mentions climate just once, stating “climate decisions” should be based on three principles: protecting people from extreme weather, reducing emissions in B.C. and beyond and delivering measurable results. 

In the end, a majority of voters threw their support behind the Conservatives, handing the former opposition party the reins of the province for the next four years.

“Together, we seized this opportunity, you guys, and together we voted for a better British Columbia,” Doerkson told an electric crowd in Vancouver. During his victory speech he promised to “supercharge” the province and “cut red tape like it’s never been cut before.” 

Despite choosing to call an election while the Conservatives were in chaos, the BC NDP will now form the official opposition. Eby held on to his Vancouver—Point Grey seat but in his concession speech offered his resignation as party leader. 

The BC Greens maintained their seat count with party leader Emily Lowan winning the Saanich North and the Islands riding where she was seeking a seat in the legislature. Incumbent Green MLA Jeremy Valeriote was re-elected in West Vancouver—Sea to Sky.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the promises Doerkson and the Conservatives made on the campaign trail.

The end of DRIPA and a new approach to Indigenous Rights

One of Doerkson’s first public statements after becoming interim leader of the BC Conservatives was to declare his intention to repeal B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

The pledge, which is a top priority for the Conservatives, appears in the party’s platform under a section titled “protect private property rights” — despite the fact that the act doesn’t deal with private property.

During the campaign, Doerkson was vague about what his government’s next steps would be after repealing the act. Ditching the law will not eliminate the B.C. government’s consultation obligations with First Nations or eliminate friction related to Indigenous Rights and Aboriginal Title. Even in a post-DRIPA province, the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations can be hashed out in the courts, as they have been for decades.

“Simply just repealing it isn’t going to do anyone any service,” Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council, told The Narwhal in an interview during the early days of the election campaign.

The Conservative platform promised to pass a law requiring information about Aboriginal Title claims and ongoing negotiations to be made public. The proposed law would also publicize information about legal actions and agreements related to First Nations Rights and Title.

The party’s platform also promises to “restore equal access to Crown land and provincial parks,” a pledge that appears to target annual temporary closures of Pipi7íyekw/Joffre Lakes Park, which restrict visits to members of Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua First Nations, whose unceded territories encompass the park. These reconnection periods have been taking place since 2023 and are intended to allow the nations to conduct traditional harvesting, as well as ceremonial and cultural practices.

Under a BC Conservative government, reconciliation with First Nations will focus on “practical co-operation, clear and fair treaty agreements and economic opportunities,” the platform says. It emphasizes opportunities for First Nations to benefit from projects through revenue sharing and ownership opportunities.

LNG, fracking and fossil fuels

The Conservatives have promised to make B.C. an “energy superpower” by doubling liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by 2032 and tripling it by 2035. With LNG Canada the only LNG export facility currently operating in B.C., the province is already on track to more than triple the province’s LNG production by 2035 with five additional LNG projects currently in development.

On the campaign trail, Doerkson lamented the number of LNG projects proposed under the BC Liberal government of the 2000s and 2010s and said his party is keen to see if any can be revived.

The Conservative energy platform also pledges to get rid of B.C.’s industrial carbon tax and replace it with new rules that it says would ensure B.C.’s gas exports are competitive with the United States and Qatar.

A BC Conservative government would take a new approach to tallying B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that runs counter to the 2016 Paris Agreement. The Conservative platform proposes taking credit for “emissions avoided through cleaner B.C. exports,” using the example of exported gas replacing coal. 

Doerkson has also promised to use deregulation as a tool to spur economic development, partly by bringing back a ministry dedicated to getting rid of rules, processes and laws it deems burdensome or unnecessary. For every new regulation a Conservative government makes, it would axe two existing regulations, according to Doerkson.

Energy, electrification and renewables

Beyond boosting natural gas and LNG production, the BC Conservatives are promising to boost B.C.’s energy self-sufficiency, a commitment that would mean building a considerable amount of additional energy generation capacity. The province currently balances its energy needs through a mix of energy imported from other jurisdictions (mostly Alberta and western U.S. states) and locally generated power.The strategy, basically, is to use local sources when they are cheap and convenient and buy imported power — such as solar-generated power from California — when it is plentiful and cheap. To date, the strategy has worked out well, though recent drought conditions have put a squeeze on those margins.

The Conservatives are committed to boosting B.C.’s energy production “from every available source,” according to its platform.

Boosting biomass production is a key part of the Conservatives’ energy pitch. The party is proposing to increase the use of logging and mill waste to make renewable fuels. On renewables, the Conservatives support wind, solar and small-scale hydro power “where economics and reliability make sense,” as well as geothermal projects where a business case can be made — i.e. with little investment from the provincial government.

Notably, the 2026 B.C. Conservative platform did not mention nuclear power, an energy source the party touted as part of the solution to B.C.’s energy crunch during the 2024 election.

Beyond increasing exports, a Conservative government would consider opening the door to more natural gas power production in B.C. by making it eligible for BC Hydro’s call for energy project proposals. 

The Conservatives are also promising to “restore choice in energy for home heating and cooking” — a commitment to attacking restrictions and bans on natural gas use implemented by local governments — and overhaul B.C.’s Energy Step Code, which sets energy efficiency standards for new buildings.

Logging and old-growth forest conservation

On the campaign trail, the BC Conservatives promised to do many of the same things the NDP government did to bolster the province’s floundering forestry industry — secure support from the federal government to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber, boost policies aimed at getting more woodfibre to mills and provide cash for mills to upgrade their operations.The Conservatives’ forestry platform promised to make more trees available for harvest — but does not address how the party would ensure companies actually harvest the maximum amount allowed, something that has not happened in years due largely to the dwindling availability of economically viable trees to log. The Conservatives are also promising to focus on streamlining permitting, reduce costs for forestry companies and support value-added manufacturing.

Conservative forestry policies would double government revenue from stumpage fees by 2028-29, according to the campaign platform. The 2026 provincial budget did not include a specific revenue estimate for stumpage but estimated total forestry-related revenues will increase 3.3 per cent per year through 2029.

The BC Conservative platform claims conservation is a conservative value but doesn’t offer many specific conservation-focused commitments. The party pledges to increase enforcement in parks and wilderness areas with more conservation officers in the field, and to establish sustainable fish and wildlife population objectives.

The platform promises a science-based approach to wildlife management with input from hunters, anglers and First Nations. It also repeats a 2024 campaign commitment to develop a made-in-B.C. species-at-risk law. The Conservative platform doesn’t mention B.C.’s existing commitment to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030, known as 30-by-30. In May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad told The Narwhal he would abandon the goal.

 What now?

When the B.C. legislature began its summer break at the end of May, the BC NDP held 47 seats, the BC Conservatives held 39, and the BC Greens held two. There were five independent MLAs, all of them formerly members of the BC Conservative caucus.

The BC Conservatives had just elected a new leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a former Conservative Party of Canada MP and cabinet minister. Findlay won the leadership race to replace John Rustad, who resigned as the party’s leader in December 2025 after weeks of caucus infighting. Findlay’s victory was narrow; she won 51 per cent of party members’ votes, barely beating out second-place finisher Caroline Elliott. Elliott is set to head to the legislature after winning the West Vancouver—Capilano riding for the BC Conservatives.

The BC Conservatives had a spectacularly chaotic summer. Findlay’s leadership lasted just 113 days, ending in her resignation on Sept. 20. Before she stepped down, 13 MLAs had left or been removed from the BC Conservative caucus and one more — Abbotsford—Mission MLA Reann Gasper — stepped down to allow Findlay to secure a set in a by-election.

Doerkson was appointed the party’s interim leader the day after Findlay stepped down.

After Eby’s snap election call, the by-election was cancelled, Findlay exited the party and 10 of the 13 MLAs who had left the caucus signed up to run again. 

“I think David Eby is going to regret this,” Doerkson said at a Vancouver press conference following the snap election call. “Because this election actually offers an opportunity for hope and for real change.”

He was right. The Conservatives won a historic victory, though Doerkson’s future as premier is uncertain. His party’s constitution bars interim leaders from running to become a permanent leader, though the constitution can be changed. Tweaking the rules to allow Doerkson to remain premier will require the support of two-thirds of party members at an annual general or special general meeting. The Conservative Party’s board of directors committed to “pursue the appropriate means” to keep Doerkson as party leader in the event of an election win.

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After starting the day with a prayer and a safety demonstration, a group of volunteers gears up in water-resistant clothing and lifejackets, ready to hit the water.

The crew is preparing to scour a stretch of the Fraser and Thompson rivers, removing any fishing gear or waste left behind. Fishing nets left underneath the water are commonly known as ghost nets, which trap and kill fish. 

As the saying goes on a volunteer call out poster, “ghost nets create ghost fish.”

TLKemchEEN (Lytton First Nation) has led the river clean-up program in the area for the past 20 years, all in an effort to preserve salmon populations and aquatic life following harvest season.

Over two days in September, a group of 40 volunteers spent a total of 20 combined hours on the water.

From Lillooet to Lytton during the first day, and from Lytton to Yale during the second day, volunteers passed through white-water rapids and rugged terrain such as the famously turbulent passage of Hell’s Gate.

When the raft leader yells “hold on,” that’s exactly what participants do, reaching down for a rope attached to the raft, laughing and hollering, ripping through the Fraser Canyon rapids. 

The cold river water splashes everyone — waking up the crew as countless bald and golden eagles watch from above.

“I didn’t realize how impactful everything is along the shores. I guess I didn’t realize that some leave their garbage and nets out there,” volunteer Rebecca Riley, who is from the Stʼatʼimc Nation, said.

“Once I saw that with my own eyes, I wanted to jump in and be a part of it.”

It’s a sentiment shared by many volunteers on the boat, who eagerly approach the shoreline when a ghost net comes into sight. 

Whether the net will take one person to remove, or up to five to pull out of the water, is unknown until people get their hands wet. 

During the non-rapid portion of the cleanup, countless stories were told, Indigenous people exchanged words in their languages to compare similarities and differences and folks even had hot chocolate along the shore, courtesy of Kumsheen Rafting, which was contracted to support the program this year. 

During the first year of the program, 126 ghost nets were collected.

“This year we picked up six nets and some garbage, some years prior we’ve picked up zero. We have to remind our fishermen not to be lazy and take their gear home,” Kevin Duncan told the Narwhal.

Duncan is an elected councillor for TLKemchEEN in B.C.’s Southern Interior, part of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council. He has been involved with the program since its inception. He attended both cleanup days this year with his son Aaron.

For TLKemchEEN, stewarding their waters as they always have is crucial — especially as salmon numbers decline. Life along the Fraser and Thompson rivers is deeply connected to salmon. And TLKemchEEn is home to where the two rivers meet, in the country’s largest salmon-bearing watershed.

“For future generations, sometime down the road, I’m afraid all they’re going to be looking at is pictures of salmon in a book,” said Duncan. 

The nets recovered by the program are given to those in need, including single mothers, low-income families and Elders from the nation. 

“As a Nlaka’pamux or Stʼatʼimc member … that fishery is a communal right, it’s not an individual right. It’s looked after by your nation,” Duncan said.

“Most times, you just get to see portions of the river from the highway, but once you’re down on the water, floating for eight hours from Lillooet to Lytton, it gives you a better perspective on where people fish.” 

Removing fishing gear from the cold and fast-moving river can be dangerous, which is why Duncan starts each day of the program with a yémit, or prayer in Nlaka’pamxcín. 

“Salmon are the lifeblood of our people, and when these fish pass through coastal communities, they pray for them in the lower Fraser. We’re doing the same thing as they pass through our territories in the mid Fraser. … These fish hear that prayer.”

Nations collaborate to steward salmon

Volunteer Riley is Lillooet Tribal Council’s fisheries manager. She has participated in the river cleanup program three times, beginning in 2018 when she saw an advertisement in the newspaper. 

Although she’s been on the Fraser and Thompson rivers many times throughout her fisheries career, she said that the ghost net removal program was “eye opening,” regarding the number of fishers out on the water.

She said that Lillooet Tribal Council is happy to help as the neighbouring nation to Nlaka’pamux territory, given the large area to cover and the shared value of protecting salmon.

“When we’re having the long days and we’re getting splashed and it’s cold, if we save a salmon or two that are still alive and let them free, or we clear out a net so we know that other animals can’t go in, it’s very gratifying and humbling,” she said. 

“At the end of the day, when you’re riding the bus home and you’re cold and hungry, you know in the back of your mind it was so worth it.”

While the focus of the program is cleaning up the river, volunteers take the opportunity to support other initiatives while on the water, such as mapping traditional fishing sites to prove occupancy. 

According to Conservation Biology, “Proof of occupancy is the foundational legal and moral requirement needed to establish Aboriginal Title, regain territorial sovereignty and protect ancestral lands from unauthorized exploitation.”

Lillooet Tribal Council’s extreme heat resiliency planner, Lyza Adolph, did a lot of heavy lifting over the two days removing ghost nets, but also had a mission of her own. 

A member of the Stʼatʼimc Nation, this was her first time participating in the ghost net removal program.

“It was very cold, but with the group that we had, it was very enjoyable and uplifting,” she said.

With a focus on planning for extreme heat in her position at the tribal council, Adolph monitored fishing sites during the program to see if there were any shade trees nearby, scoping out areas to potentially plant some. 

“The program tied in with my traditional shade tree planting. I know more about the upper river, but from Lillooet to Lytton and beyond, I didn’t know too much about it. It was definitely nice to see the various fish camps and see if there were shade trees,” she told The Narwhal.

Shade trees are beneficial for both humans and aquatic life.

As spawning salmon break down, their nutrients feed the trees. In turn, trees offer shade to cool the water, which is critical for survival on a warming planet, and tree roots and branches give salmonids space to hide from predators while also preventing erosion.

In the Fraser Canyon, which includes the communities of Yale, Lytton and Lillooet, fishing sites can be hard to access. Adolph’s shade tree monitoring data, collected by boat, will be used in future tree planting projects. 

“I would definitely do it again,” Adolph said. “Although it was very cold, it was very refreshing and rewarding by the end of the day.”

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With the provincial election just days away, promises from B.C.’s main political parties are piling up. Voters have been offered tax breaks, tax increases, price caps and new health-care resources. But none of the main parties vying for votes has had much to say about the environment or climate change. It took more than two weeks for the BC NDP and BC Greens to release their climate platforms. The BC Conservative Party put out its full platform — with the party’s first explicit mentions of climate change — on Oct. 18, two days after advance voting began and just six days before the final vote.

After nearly a decade in government, the BC NDP isn’t offering much in the way of new climate-focused policies in this election. The party’s climate platform, released on Oct. 10, includes a pledge to cap the amount of power available for AI and data centres, a policy already enacted into law last year. If re-elected, Leader David Eby is promising to hold data centres in B.C. to high standards for water efficiency and require them to report their water use publicly.

The BC Conservative platform mentions climate just once, stating “climate decisions” should be based on three principles: protecting people from extreme weather, reducing emissions in B.C. and beyond and delivering measurable results. “The need to develop our natural resources must always be weighed against the need to conserve our bounty through responsible resource management,” the platform states.

Unsurprisingly, the BC Green campaign platform promises to put climate policy at the centre of the provincial agenda by making climate targets central to “major policies, infrastructure investments and industrial decisions.” In addition to a dedicated climate platform, many of the party’s campaign promises include climate-conscious components. The Greens’ economic platform focuses on ways to build “a prosperous, resilient, low-carbon economy” and the party’s housing platform includes a commitment to reduce emissions related to buildings by focusing on lower-carbon designs and materials, as well as conserving existing housing stock.

With all three party platforms published, The Narwhal dug in to see where the parties stand on key issues — and what they’re promising to get rid of.

What B.C. election platforms say about LNG, fracking and fossil fuels

Both the NDP and the Conservatives are committing to expanding the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in B.C. Producing natural gas usually involves hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that shoots high-pressure water mixed with chemicals underground to fracture the rocks and release the gas. Making LNG requires running massive compressors 24-7 to cool gas into a liquid. It’s an energy-intensive process that — so far in B.C. — is largely powered by burning natural gas.

The Conservatives have promised to make B.C. an “energy superpower” by doubling LNG production by 2032 and tripling it by 2035. When that policy dropped, the NDP was quick to point out the five LNG projects in development are already on track to more than triple the province’s LNG production by 2035.

The Conservative energy platform also pledges to get rid of B.C.’s industrial carbon tax and replace it with new rules that it says would ensure B.C.’s gas exports are competitive with the United States and Qatar. 

A BC Conservative government would take a new approach to tallying B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that runs counter to the 2016 Paris Agreement. The Conservative platform proposes taking credit for “emissions avoided through cleaner B.C. exports,” using the example of exported gas replacing coal. 

If his party forms government, Leader Lorne Doerkson has also promised to use deregulation as a tool to spur economic development, partly by bringing back a ministry dedicated to getting rid of rules, processes and laws it deems burdensome or unnecessary. For every new regulation a Conservative government makes, it would axe two existing regulations, according to Doerkson.

The NDP is promising to use some oil and gas royalty revenue — $50 million to start — to promote climate action and create jobs. The “Clean Futures Fund,” as the NDP platform dubs this promise, might sound familiar, possibly because some of the revenue raised by B.C.’s consumer carbon tax was once dedicated to similar spending priorities.

Speaking of oil and gas revenues, Eby refused to confirm whether his government is still committed to its original plan to collect 50 per cent of profits reaped by gas companies in B.C. The new gas royalty system is scheduled to take effect in 2027.

“We’re going to hold on to high royalty rates,” Eby said in response to a question from The Narwhal about whether he remains committed to the 50 per cent target announced by the B.C. government in 2022.“We’re going to demand as much as possible and we’re also going to build the economy.”

The BC Greens’ platform promises a 50-50 profit split under the new gas royalty framework. The Green climate platform notes B.C. is expecting to collect about $1.1 billion in gas royalties in the 2027-28 fiscal year. Bumping the province’s share of that royalty revenue up to 50 per cent would yield over $4 billion, according to the Greens.

The Greens have also pledged to end further fossil fuel development in B.C., banning new fracking operations, LNG facilities or expansions and pipelines, and axing provincial subsidies, favourable tax policies and public financing for fossil fuel production.

Leader Emily Lowan was the only provincial party leader to criticize LNG Canada’s decision to proceed with Phase 2 of its Kitimat LNG facility. The final investment decision to proceed with the expansion — which has been fully permitted since 2018 — was announced on Sept. 28 and celebrated by both Eby and Doerkson.

Neither party leader mentioned the integrity issue with the existing LNG Canada facility’s flare stack which resulted in Kitimat community members being subjected to excessive noise, black smoke, a towering flame — at times reaching the height of New York’s Statue of Liberty or London’s Big Ben — for months.The consortium of companies behind LNG Canada wants the facility’s permit changed to accommodate higher emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24-7 until the stack can be redesigned in 2028.

B.C. election platforms on Indigenous Rights and DRIPA

One of Doerkson’s first public statements after becoming interim leader of the BC Conservatives was to declare his desire to repeal B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

The pledge, which is a top priority for the Conservatives, appears in the party’s platform under a section titled “protect private property rights” — despite the fact that DRIPA doesn’t deal with private property.

A Conservative government would pass a law requiring information about Aboriginal Title claims and ongoing negotiations to be made public. The proposed law would also publicize information about legal actions and agreements related to First Nations Rights and Title.

The party’s platform also promises to “restore equal access to Crown land and provincial parks,” a pledge that appears to target annual temporary closures of Pipi7íyekw/Joffre Lakes Park that restrict visits to members of Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua First Nations, whose unceded territories encompass the park. These reconnection periods have been taking place since 2023 and are intended to allow the Nations to conduct traditional harvesting, as well as ceremonial and cultural practices.

Under a BC Conservative government, reconciliation with First Nations would focus on “practical cooperation, clear and fair treaty agreements and economic opportunities,” per the platform. It emphasizes opportunities for First Nations to benefit from projects via revenue sharing and ownership opportunities.

The BC NDP platform doesn’t mention DRIPA but Eby confirmed near the beginning of the election campaign that he would stick to his plan to amend the law to block further court challenges.“We do have to respond to that court decision, it’s not up for debate,” he said on Sept. 25. “We’ve been working with First Nations over the summer to see if we can find a path forward that we all agree on.”

The Greens are promising to leave DRIPA as is and to work with First Nations to develop a process aimed at resolving disputes proactively as a way to avoid court cases — something some NDP MLAs have often stated the law was intended to do.The Greens are the only party with a dedicated Indigenous Rights section in their platform.

Protecting lands and waters in B.C.

An NDP government would stick with its commitment to protect 30 per cent of B.C.’s lands by 2030, a promise the party has been working on since 2022. 

In the party’s 2026 campaign platform, the 30-by-30 goal is linked to the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor, a federal initiative announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney in November 2025 and referred to the Major Projects Office as a potential national interest project. According to the NDP, the corridor will “add protections to an area equivalent to 12,000 Stanley Parks, while enabling responsible natural resource development.”

The NDP is also promising to continue funding the Watershed Security Fund at $30 million per year. The fund was created in 2023 with a $100-million commitment from the province making this another stay-the-course pledge from the party.

The BC Conservative platform claims conservation is a conservative value but doesn’t offer many specific conservation-focused commitments. The party pledges to increase enforcement in parks and wilderness areas with more conservation officers in the field, and to establish sustainable fish and wildlife population objectives.The platform promises a science-based approach to wildlife management with input from hunters, anglers and First Nations. It also repeats a 2024 campaign commitment to develop a made-in-B.C. species-at-risk law. The Conservative platform doesn’t mention B.C.’s existing 30-by-30 commitment. In May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad told The Narwhal he would abandon the goal.

The Greens would make 30-by-30 a minimum goal. The party also promises to boost funding by BC Parks and recreation sites across B.C. to $114 million, a 50 per cent increase.

In its tourism strategy, the Green Party platform promises to put environmental impacts front and centre when considering development opportunities for new and existing tourism destinations.

The platform has a section dedicated to water management and protection, including a commitment to implement a proactive, long-term approach to protecting water security and ensuring industrial users pay a fair share for the water they use.

None of the party platforms mention the future of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), which have been a key tool for advancing conservation efforts in B.C. and Canada. In northern B.C., members of the Kaska Nation say the snap election has slowed efforts to finalize protection of Dene Kʼéh Kusān, a proposed Indigenous-protected area that would cover one of the province’s largest intact wilderness areas.

B.C. election platforms on logging, old-growth forest protections

B.C.’s forestry industry has struggled for years with multiple mill closures and hundreds of jobs lost since the 2024 election. At the same time, the province’s forests have been impacted by wildfires and drought.

On the campaign trail, Eby pointed to the support his government secured from Ottawa to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber and efforts to get more woodfibre to mills. The NDP platform promises to continue to support the forest industry by providing more cash for mills to upgrade their operations, spending $120 million to protect jobs at mills that are at risk of closing and focus on making sure mills get the fibre needed to keep operating.

The party’s promises to protect B.C.’s forests are less robust.

A re-elected NDP government would dedicate $50 million to permanently protect some of B.C.’s “most irreplaceable and rarest” old-growth forests. The party’s platform makes no mention of the 2020 old-growth strategic review, despite a 2024 campaign commitment to fulfill all of its recommendations.

The BC Conservatives are promising to do many of the same things the NDP has done but better, bigger and faster. The party’s forestry platform promises to make more trees available for harvest — but does not address how the party would ensure companies actually harvest the maximum amount allowed, something that has not happened in years due to largely to the dwindling availability of economically viable trees to log. The Conservatives are also promising to focus on streamlining permitting, reduce costs for forestry companies and support value-added manufacturing.

The platform projects Conservative forestry policies would double government revenue from stumpage fees by 2028-29. The 2026 provincial budget did not include a specific revenue estimate for stumpage but estimated total forestry-related revenues will increase 3.3 per cent per year through 2029.

A Conservative government would “encourage Indigenous participation in the forestry industry by investing in skills training” and dedicate a portion of federal funding for targeting the forest industry to First Nations.

The party is also promising to “resolve” the issue of old-growth deferrals by “protecting original old growth” and making the rest eligible for logging. The platform does not define original old growth but does say that B.C.’s “most endangered and rarest ecosystems” would also be protected.

The Green platform proposes shifting B.C. forestry from a fibre-supply model to one that prioritizes ecosystem health, wildfire resilience, cultural values and healthy communities. A Green government would permanently protect old-growth forests and large second-growth forests from logging, fully implement the old growth review’s recommendations and provide conservation financing to help First Nations replace forestry revenues in favour of protecting forests.

The Greens are also promising to ban the use of glyphosate and other chemical herbicides as part of forest management practices — a pledge the NDP and Conservatives both made in 2024.

Energy, electrification and renewables

Beyond boosting natural gas and LNG production, the BC Conservatives are promising to boost B.C.’s energy self-sufficiency, a commitment that would mean building a considerable amount of additional energy generation capacity. The province currently balances its energy needs through a mix of energy imported from other jurisdictions (mostly Alberta and western U.S. states) and locally generated power.The strategy, basically, is to use local sources when they are cheap and convenient and buy imported power — such as solar-generated power from California — when it is plentiful and cheap. To date, the strategy has worked out well, though recent drought conditions have put a squeeze on those margins. 

The Conservatives are committed to boosting B.C.’s energy production “from every available source,” according to its platform.

Boosting biomass production is a key part of the Conservatives’ energy pitch. The party is proposing to increase the use of logging and mill waste to make renewable fuels. On renewables, the Conservatives support wind, solar and small-scale hydro power “where economics and reliability make sense,” as well as geothermal projects where a business case can be made — i.e. with little investment from the provincial government.

Notably, the 2026 B.C. Conservative platform doesn’t mention nuclear power, a source the party touted as part of the solution to B.C.’s energy crunch during the 2024 election.Beyond increasing exports, a Conservative government would also consider opening the door to more natural gas power production in B.C. by making them eligible for BC Hydro’s call for energy project proposals. 

The Conservatives are also promising to “restore choice in energy for home heating and cooking” — a commitment to attacking restrictions and bans on natural gas use implemented by local governments — and overhaul B.C.’s Energy Step Code, which sets energy efficiency standards for new buildings.

While the NDP government hasn’t exactly shied away from natural gas as a power source, the party’s platform touts efforts to ensure nearly all of B.C.’s electricity is generated from renewable and low-emission sources.

An NDP government would continue funding for heat pump rebates to the tune of $50 million per year and dedicate $16 million to building out the province’s electric vehicle charging network. 

The Green platform promises to one-up the NDP on most of its existing energy promises. This includes heat pumps, insulation and energy-efficiency upgrades, restoring BC Hydro’s abandoned net-metering system for residential solar power and allowing plug-in balcony solar in B.C.The Green energy platform also emphasizes community-owned energy projects, an area where B.C. currently lags behind several provinces.

A Green government would ban oil and gas hookups for new homes and residential buildings and set a goal of using electricity to supply at least 35 per cent of B.C.’s total energy needs by 2035. Currently, about 20 per cent of all the power used in B.C. comes from electricity, according to the Canada Energy Regulator, while 34 per cent comes from petroleum products and 31 per cent is natural gas.The final voting day in the B.C. election is Oct. 24.

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In Kaska territory, summer turns toward fall earlier than in much of British Columbia. Pressed up against the Yukon border, where the Alaska Highway cuts across the landscape, it’s a place where leaves start changing colour in August, and by September, snow already dusts the mountaintops. Seasonal change has always held meaning for Kaska, and this year autumn was supposed to mark something new: the final few steps in their effort to protect a massive swath of their territory, called Dene Kʼéh Kusān. 

But when BC NDP Leader David Eby called a snap election in late September, Kaska Nation leaders say it stalled that process. Now, they’re worried the election could derail, or at least slow, the entire multi-year planning process for the roughly three-million-hectare protected area. 

“We’re disappointed an election call has once again interrupted our discussions with the government as we had hoped to achieve a protection designation within the last political mandate,” Liard First Nation Chief Harlan Schilling said in an emailed statement.

Liard First Nation is one of four nations that make up the broader Kaska Nation, whose traditional territory stretches across northern British Columbia and southern Yukon. Two decades ago, the nation created the non-profit Dena Kayeh Institute to protect its language, culture and lands. In June 2019, the institute announced plans to create a massive Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area to protect one of the province’s largest intact wilderness areas. It is called Dene Kʼéh Kusān, which, translated from the Kaska language, means “always be there.”  

“Dene K’éh Kusān is a vision that includes all British Columbians. It will protect some of Canada’s most important wildlife habitat and create world-class opportunities for hunters, anglers, naturalists and backcountry recreationalists,” Schilling said.

In June 2024, the British Columbia government signed an agreement with the Kaska nations to undertake land-use planning in its territories. In the coming years, the ministry explained, the government, the nation and other stakeholders would sit down for a comprehensive land-use planning process that would formalize provincial protections for Dene Kʼéh Kusān. That process stalled a few months later when the province went to the polls in October 2024, but picked up again after the election. On July 2, 2026, the province issued a press release announcing public consultations on the new protected area. 

“This work shows what’s possible when we all come together to protect the places that matter most,” Tamara Davidson, then-minister of environment and parks, said at the time. 

That process was supposed to conclude this fall, with Schilling expecting to finalize protections for the area before the end of the year. Now, the election has stalled the process. He’s worried about the lasting impact the delay could have, especially since a temporary ban on mineral staking inside the area is set to expire in January.“The current pause on mineral staking in Dene K’éh Kusān is set to expire just three months after the election,” he said. 

Neither NDP nor Conservatives have pledged support for IPCAs during election

Since the election was called, polling shows the BC Conservatives with a narrow but consistent lead over the BC NDP. Projections from 338Canada point to a likely change in government, with the Conservatives currently expected to win the most seats. 

Tim Burkhart, director of landscape protection at the conservation group Yellowstone to Yukon, said in an emailed statement the next government will have “a generational opportunity” to protect the unique wilderness area, but added time is running out, given the scheduled expiry of the mineral tenure pause. “The window to act is closing,” he said. 

“The years of planning, broad stakeholder endorsement and public engagement are done, and there is consensus to secure this wild legacy forever,” Burkhart, whose group supports the Kaska project, said. 

“We want to ensure all parties know protecting this unique wilderness is important for British Columbians and Canadians,” Schilling said.

No major party directly addresses Dene Kʼéh Kusān in its platform, but the BC NDP has reaffirmed a commitment to meet the pledge to protect 30 per cent of B.C. lands and waters by 2030, known as 30-by-30, and “work with First Nations on this goal.” As of December 2025, 15.9 per cent of the province was protected areas, according to the federal government. Since Dene Kʼéh Kusān covers around four per cent of the province, it would go a long way toward closing the gap.

The BC Conservatives have made no specific promises or platform announcements on conservation in this election. They have promised to repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which the previous government cited as part of the reason it entered land use planning with Kaska. And in May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad described the 30-by-30 conservation goal as “nonsense” and pledged to scrap it if he formed government. 

The Narwhal reached out to the BC Conservative and BC NDP candidates running in the riding of Bulkley-Stikine, where most of Dene Kʼéh Kusān would sit, but neither responded. The BC Green Party is not running a candidate in the riding. 

For now, Schilling and others working on protecting the region will have to wait until the votes are counted on Oct. 24 to figure out the path forward.“We’re hopeful the next government will see the importance of this initiative and bring it to completion,” Schilling said.

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Jessica Hutchinson, executive director of conservation group Redd Fish Restoration Society, remembers the long, restless night in December 2025 listening to the thrum of a rainstorm in Tofino, B.C. Lying in her bed, she hoped the culmination of years of planning, weeks of construction and eye-watering helicopter bills would hold. 

As Hutchinson lay awake, rain poured down from the steep hillsides surrounding Tranquil Creek like it normally did, sending a surge of water into the river below. But now the deluge had an obstruction: a tangled mass of around 50 trees, tufted like a giant bird’s nest and lodged into the riverbed, causing the flow to ricochet and swoop under and above. Pools and eddies had begun to form below the wooden mass of the river’s new intruder, also known as an engineered logjam, reflecting a years-long effort that is relatively uncommon in B.C.

Engineered logjams are large-scale interventions for places with large-scale problems. In Tranquil’s case, the watershed needed life support.

Redd Fish watershed restoration director Tom Balfour describes the approach as “open-heart surgery.” 

“You don’t do this to rivers that need a little help,” he says. “You do it when things are really desperate.”

Logged extensively between the 1960s and the 1990s, the valley soon became a funnel for sediment flowing down from the steep hills. The river weaving through it had become a highway of fast-moving water, and sand and gravel, threatening to bury or drag salmon eggs out to sea. By 2017, Chinook were on the verge of local extinction, while chum, coho and steelhead were in severe decline.

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, whose territory encompasses Hiłsyaqƛis (the Nuu-chuh-nulth name for Tranquil Creek), identified the region as an urgent priority, and Redd Fish subsequently launched their multi-year quest to figure out how to help it heal.

“Tranquil’s got a special place in my heart,” Tatt Charlie, lead guardian for Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, says. Tla-o-qui-aht guardians are working with Redd Fish to restore the watershed. “It’s one of those amazing ecosystems where we could get almost all of our salmon spawning in that again and rejuvenate it for our people.”

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation worked in partnership with Redd Fish to develop a long-term plan for Tranquil. It required learning about what went wrong, and then gradually bringing the missing pieces back. It wasn’t cheap or easy, but ten years into their journey, Hutchinson says it’s been worth it.

Tranquil Creek’s trajectory

“The dock is very slippery,” calls out Frank Witter as he steers the silver skiff up to the small wooden landing just outside the mouth of the Tranquil Creek inlet. Witter, Charlie and fellow Tla-o-qui-aht guardian Nathaniel Currie get ready to disembark.

The dock is remnant infrastructure from the watershed’s heavy logging days. So is the dusty sorting yard to our left, replete with metal loading skids angling into the ocean, as if the valley’s forests were still full of big trees to take away.

Hutchinson has come back from working on the riverbed to meet us, and we pile into one of Redd Fish’s company trucks. From the window, other signs of change soon follow: we pass a pile of pipes and metal planks near a recently decommissioned forest service road.

Witter, Redd Fish’s project manager, stops the truck as we reach a high point on the road, and we climb out to take a look. From here, the watershed’s history opens like a storybook. 

What appear to be white, fuzzy scars carved into the mountainside are actually landslides, Hutchinson tells me. These are the places where disturbance-loving alder trees have lodged themselves onto the scree slopes, their foliage still bare from the winter. 

After they lost the big conifer trees whose roots were anchors, the fine-grained sediment, gravel and jagged rocks that comprise the region’s hillsides started to fall. Logging roads made things worse, cutting holes in the hillside like a dispenser below a gumball machine. When Clayoquot Sound’s famous rainstorms bear down on the valley, they tend to pull the already-loose sand and rocks down with them. 

The valley bottom, too, had lost its defences. Once fortified by big, steadying trees like cedars and spruce, the flat-lying ground is now peppered with daintily rooted species like alder. Over time, the river got wider and flatter.

For salmon, this layered onslaught of sediment spells trouble. 

All five species of North American Pacific salmon have historically spawned in the Tranquil watershed, and for salmon, spawning is a miraculous event. It requires adult salmon to survive in the open ocean, replete with fishing nets, predators and pathogens, sometimes for up to around decade. If the salmon is fortunate enough to reach its elder years, it tracks the earth’s magnetic field and then draws on its keen sense of smell to return, sometimes over thousands of kilometres, to the same stream channel where it was born.

Under the right conditions, the salmon digs a nest beneath the gravel just deep enough for its eggs to stay covered during the river’s most turbulent months. If things go wrong, baby salmon can asphyxiate beneath a buildup of sand, or if the water moves too fast, they get washed out to sea. 

It wasn’t always like this, Charlie says, as he gestures to the mouth of the estuary below us. It was once the bustling village of Hiłsyaqƛis, one of many village sites in the territory, where members of the Tla-o-qui-aht came to fish and camp each year.

Back then, surrounded by an intact forest, the now-rushing Tranquil Creek consisted of meandering paths of water braiding together. For millennia, the Tla-o-qui-aht people helped keep it that way, using various techniques to keep the populations in balance: cultivating strong-rooted crabapple trees that helped mitigate erosion in the estuary, for example, and building rock weirs to count and manage how much salmon swam up to spawn.

“You would allow the strongest of the river to go up, enough fish to make sure every square inch of gravel is spawned,” Saya Masso, Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation’s natural resources manager, says. Once enough salmon had travelled up the river to support the forest and its animals, Masso says the community would then begin their own harvest. 

That stewardship was suppressed as Canada dispossessed the nation of its territory. 

Over a century later, the Tla-o-qui-aht partnered with Redd Fish to conduct a years-long investigation to determine the damage caused in the interim, piecing together Tranquil’s history of disturbance through historic photos and terrain assessments. Their research determined logging strongly contributed to the watershed’s downhill slide. They also discovered that the watershed was unlikely to heal on its own in time for salmon to benefit.

“It’s not on a healing trajectory,” Hutchinson says. “It’s actually unravelling and becoming worse through the years.”

Witter’s team worked to stabilize the landslides, creating terraces and staking willow trees, known for their hearty roots, to prevent further movement. Throughout the lower watershed, Redd Fish planted 120,000 trees and restored 100 hectares of young, replanted forests by thinning out trees to create light to help big ones grow. 

They also turned their attention to the river. 

“Rivers take annual presence to become productive,” Masso says. “Our plan is to get to a system of abundance.”

How logjams help salmon

Western science was slow to realize that wood and salmon need each other. 

Since at least the last Ice Age, salmon’s decomposing bodies have fed and plumped the big trees of the Pacific Northwest. Those trees, in turn, feed the river, depositing big logs that create the smorgasbord of habitat types and pools salmon require to survive. Logs and logjams act like sorting hats for gravel, distributing patches of coarse and fine gravel that suit different species’ needs.

“It quickly became apparent to me in studying the rivers of this region that wood was as important as sediment and water,” geomorphologist David Montgomery says. He was one of the early contributors to a growing scientific recognition of the relationship between wood and salmon in the 1990s. 

By then, much of the damage to these ancient Pacific rivers was done. Logging companies had clear-cut many watersheds, as they did in the Tranquil. Some fish biologists even encouraged wood removal from streams and rivers, thinking it would help fish travel upstream.

This antipathy to river debris had deep roots. Large-scale “log drives” in the late 1800s and early 1900s culled wood from the vast rivers, including in the Cowichan Valley, where people used explosives to clear off wood and other impediments. 

In B.C. and throughout the Pacific Northwest, government-funded restoration crews gradually began bringing wood back in the 1990s. Early interventions were often targeted to smaller streams where a single log or two could make a meaningful impact. But big rivers like Tranquil Creek’s mainstem require something sturdier.

A short walk downriver, one of Redd Fish’s many engineered logjams comes into view, knotted and gnarled with trees piled atop one another, holding firm like a fortress as water passes dutifully around its edges.

“Frank, have you seen it?” Hutchinson says, getting Witter’s attention. River debris is accumulating in the logjam, a natural addition to the engineered effort. “That’s not even us, that’s just wood piled up.”

This is the promise of a well-built logjam: it takes up a life of its own, collecting wood the river throws at it. Ideally, it becomes self-sustaining, forming forested islands in the river that contribute their own source of wood.

To match the ferocity of the Tranquil’s rainy season flows, Redd Fish had to craft logjams with around 50 trees piled atop and between each other, lasagna-style, staked in place with tall logs piled deep into the riverbed. 

“It basically is trying to mimic what an old growth tree would do if it rolled into the river with its giant root plate,” Hutchinson says. 

“It would maintain the force of the river.”

These human-made jams are not cheap, requiring heavy equipment to temporarily isolate a spot along the riverbed with pumps and sandbags, and helicopters to haul wood and logs up to 15 metres tall. They also require teams of engineers working closely with traditional knowledge holders, geomorphologists and other scientists to ensure the investment and design will hold up.

“It’s a team effort,” Montgomery says.

“All those gears have to sing. But when they do, I’ve seen really good results.”

‘They’ve done all their homework’

A shock of cold hits my legs as I venture forward into Tranquil Creek, in a channel that’s surprisingly deep and aquamarine blue. 

Last year’s work is already visible, marked by the first crop of young willow trees clawing their roots into the gravel, one of many impediments Redd Fish and Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park Guardians have installed to slow the water down. 

Redd Fish staff are here, hammering the new generation of stakes into the dry riverbed. For a moment, conversation lulls, and there’s just the sound of running water and syncopated tapping, then the conversation starts up again.

So far the outcomes of their efforts appear hopeful, though Hutchinson avoids drawing early conclusions. On snorkel surveys through the river, one of the organization’s efforts to monitor the completed work, Redd Fish has found salmon taking refuge in the pools created by the logjams, including during heat waves. In the last two years, those pools have gotten deeper.

Though costly and time-consuming, Redd Fish’s monitoring efforts and years spent studying the watershed are critical, Jason Hwang says.

“It’s an excellent example of a project in the current day that is doing all the right things,” Hwang, who is the chief program officer and vice president of salmon at the Pacific Salmon Foundation, says. “They’ve done all their homework.”

But the Tranquil faces pressures old and new.

Climate change is heating Tranquil’s waters, and fish farms nearby pose additional risks for the Tranquil river’s returns, potentially spreading pathogens that can infect migrating wild salmon as they move past. At the same time, restoration efforts across the province face constant funding challenges as government priorities shift. 

This February, the mining company Imperial Metals received a permit to conduct extensive exploration work in the Tranquil watershed’s headwaters, in hopes of eventually opening a gold mine there. The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation and representatives from the broader Tofino business community have voiced their opposition to the mine.

Many of Tranquil’s challenges remain, but for now, Hutchinson is glad to watch the river evolve on its own terms now that it’s had some help. She hopes it might be a model for what’s to come. 

“We haven’t restored a single entire watershed, top to bottom,” she says. 

“I was always hoping that Tranquil would be that watershed.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The leaders of B.C.’s three main political parties spent nearly two hours on Oct. 14 vying to be the province’s next premier. BC NDP Leader David Eby, Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson and Green Leader Emily Lowan faced more than a dozen questions each from moderator Shachi Kurl during the only debate of the election campaign.

Not one of those questions focused on environmental issues or climate change. Nor did any of the leaders question each other about their proposed environmental policies during the open debate portions of the broadcast.In fact, the only leader to mention the climate crisis was Lowan as she introduced herself to the audience. “I am the only leader on this stage that feels the decisions being made in the legislature, especially as it relates to the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis,” Lowan said, claiming she is the only one of the three party leaders who “has worked a minimum-wage job in the past decade.”

The lack of discussion about climate issues in the debate marked a continuation of an election campaign that has been focused on affordability issues. The NDP is promising to hike taxes on top income earners, cap prices on groceries and gas and freeze car insurance rates for three years.

The BC Conservatives are promising to cut income taxes for everyone, slash regulations in a bid to spur economic development and boost funding for police.

Both parties are promising billions in spending on health care and infrastructure without a lot of detail on where that money will come from. The province currently faces a deficit of nearly $14 billion. 

Meanwhile, the BC Green Party’s 2026 campaign is also focusing heavily on kitchen-table issues. Lowan has proposed a wealth tax the party estimates would bring in billions of dollars that could be used to improve housing affordability and health care access.

The top concerns for voters are either cost of living and affordability or jobs and the economy, with health care and housing typically rounding out the top three. Fourteen per cent of respondents to a recent Angus Reid poll put environment and climate change as their most important issue when considering who to vote for in this election. Just three per cent of respondents told pollster Research Co. the environment is the most important issue facing British Columbia today.

Compare that to October 2019, when Angus Reid found climate change was the top issue among Canadian voters.

What politicians are saying — or not saying — is likely tied to what voters have been telling pollsters lately.

Eby announced his party’s climate commitments over the Thanksgiving weekend, 19 days into the campaign. Most of them are already government policy or continuations of the NDP’s previous commitments, including protecting 30 per cent of the province’s land base by 2030. The Green Party put out its climate platform on Oct. 10, which includes a promise to halt new fossil fuel projects and end “subsidies, tax preferences and public financing that encourage the expansion of fossil-fuel production.”

The BC Conservatives have yet to mention climate policy during the campaign, except to state “unrealistic climate objectives” have stymied B.C.’s ability to launch a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. 

So why aren’t climate issues as prominent as they once were for many voters? 

Voting in a polycrisis

Voter priorities have shifted even from this summer, as wildfires cast a pall of smoke across much of B.C. and climate change was front of mind for a substantial portion of B.C. voters. In July, Angus Reid found 25 per cent of B.C. respondents listed climate change as their top concern, putting the issue in third place behind cost of living and health care.

And there are plenty of issues for British Columbians to fret over these days, Jamie Lawson, an associate professor of political science at the University of Victoria told The Narwhal. Many voters are experiencing what academics call a polycrisis. That’s when multiple crises are happening at the same time, Lawson added, citing the examples of democratic decline, climate change, a cost of living crunch and the threat of artificial intelligence eating into employment opportunities.

“The thing about a polycrisis is that it implies that pressing problems go well beyond your top three,” he said. 

“I think at the moment, a lot of people who do indeed care about the climate are faced with making choices. … They may be no less concerned about climate, but we might be in a case of trying to save the furniture.”

Economic anxieties tend to crowd out worries about climate change, according to Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who studies climate and energy policy. That’s partly because issues like the cost of groceries and gas are immediate and personal, while the impacts of climate change can seem less personally affecting.

“People know how much they’re paying for eggs, but nobody knows if their house is going to be the one that will burn down,” Harrison said. “There’s this uncertainty about who will bear those risks.”

Meanwhile, some politicians have leaned into the idea that addressing one crisis at a time is the best approach, Iglika Ivanova, senior economist and co-executive director at BC Policy Solutions, said. 

“People are worried about their jobs and about prices, so we need to deal with these immediate concerns,” Ivanova said of the way top politicians have been framing the current moment. “Once we sort that out, only then can we look at climate change.”

The political tendency to focus on the short term is short-sighted, she argued.

“It almost seems like they’re looking for an economic initiative that would generate money as soon as possible, rather than taking a longer-term view on what kind of an economy are we building?”

Lawson sees the federal government’s push to fast-track major projects across the country looming large over the B.C. election.

“I think the way the NDP and the Conservatives [in B.C.] have really pressed for this accelerated extraction reflects the way in which the Liberal Party federally has gone flat out for maximizing and diversifying that kind of extractivist economy,” he said. 

The NDP, for instance, has pledged to double B.C.’s critical mineral exports, while the Conservatives are promising broad deregulation to make it faster and easier to build projects like LNG facilities.

‘It’s so short-sighted,’ economist says of cutting climate policies out of B.C. election campaign

While the Conservatives might not want to talk about climate policy, Harrison thinks the NDP stands to benefit when voters are thinking about climate issues.

“Historically, climate and environment have been an issue that the NDP has had an advantage over the Conservatives on,” she said. “I think it’s reasonable for climate-concerned voters to say, ‘Tell us what you’re going to do on this issue that we care a lot about and that reflects a crisis that is only getting worse.’ ”

On the other hand, after years of not living up to some of its promises — climate-focused and otherwise — the NDP may have trouble convincing some voters the party will do as it promised if it forms government again. During the 2024 election campaign, the NDP promised to bring in a cap on oil and gas emissions, finish implementing recommendations from the 2020 old-growth forest strategic review and deliver a $1,000 grocery rebate — none of which happened in the past two years.

“Will some of the most climate-concerned voters vote again for the NDP because they fear that the Conservatives will be worse?” Harrison wondered. “Will they vote Green or will they stay home?”

Plenty of British Columbians may be fed up with the NDP but Lawson noted the Conservatives have gone through a lot of upheaval in the past couple of years, including the recent resignation of former leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay just 113 days after taking the reins of the party and only two days before Eby made the snap election call.

He also cautioned governments do not always do what they said they would while on the campaign trail.

“The B.C. party system is in flux and we’ve never, in recent years, had platforms that gave reliable insight into what governments do afterwards.”

Regardless of who forms B.C.’s next government, climate and environment should be central to its policies, Ivanova argued.

“Climate change is impacting us already and it will only impact us more,” she said. “It has immediate costs today and then there’s also health issues around wildfire smoke and all sorts of things that I think we ignore at our peril.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The parking lot off the highway is busy and there’s a line-up for the outhouses next to a Parks Canada information stand featuring maps from years past. To the left, a wide accessible trail leads to the well-trod bridges and pathways crisscrossing Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park in southern B.C. just 50 kilometres from the Alberta border. 

The walk up the length of the canyon is short, barely a kilometre, with a little detour near its end where the ubiquitous red chairs of the national park system sit on a rise looking back toward the parking lot. It’s about as far as most people venture, but those red chairs don’t mark the end of the trail system through the valley. 

A few more steps and walkers encounter a sign warning that the trail ahead — still listed on those yellowing maps — is no longer maintained. The sign doesn’t lie. Heading up through Tokumm Creek valley requires climbing over and under fallen trees, over collapsed log bridges and through overgrown brush. 

It’s the sort of trek that eats at Trevor Willson, the president of the Canadian Backcountry Trails Preservation Society. 

“I’m an engineer,” he says, driving through the Rocky Mountains toward Marble Canyon one fall weekend. “So if you have a problem, you don’t ignore the problem, you solve the problem.”

His organization is trying to convince Parks Canada to reinvest in trails it says have been abandoned, hindering backcountry access in parks at a time when more and more people are visiting. That’s particularly true for the Rocky Mountain parks of Banff, Kootenay and Jasper.

According to Willson, the cost of his plan to fix the nation’s parks is minimal, approximately $50 million to replace bridges and fix all of the existing trails, plus one-to-two million dollars per year in maintenance. Parks Canada, he says, doesn’t want to spend the money in an era of budget cuts, and doesn’t want volunteers taking on some of the load. 

But the question runs deeper than dollars and cents, touching on a philosophical debate about the purpose of Canada’s national parks and whether to prioritize recreation, conservation or some balance between the two. 

“Hiking and horseback riding are the classic activities to do in the mountains,” Willson says. “If you want to see the national park, you need to get out of the town of Banff because it’s beautiful, but it’s a very civilized, very well-developed little chunk of real estate.”

It should not be, he says, a “drive-through park.”

‘Proverbial pulling of teeth’: backcountry hikers frustrated with perceived lack of action from Parks Canada

Willson has been involved in trail building and maintenance for years, including building bridges and negotiating partnership agreements with governments. He was inspired to start his society when he tried to convince Jasper National Park to replace a bridge along a historic passage across its northern border — and was rebuffed. 

The Simon Creek bridge broke around 2015, severing a trail that was once a thoroughfare for First Nations and then the fur trade. Willson says he approached Jasper National Park about fixing it but was told there wasn’t enough money. Not one to take no for an answer, Willson found private funding but says he was eventually told rebuilding the bridge would have a negative impact on the ecology of the area. 

Willson and his organization focus their efforts on existing trails and areas where bridges once spanned significant waterways. They do not, as he puts it, campaign to get rid of all obstacles or prevent your feet from getting wet. 

“The point is, if you come to a river or creek and it’s impassable — like you can’t get across — and therefore you have to turn back, that bridge should be replaced,” he says, adding the bridge on Smith Creek crosses a section of fast, opaque and boulder-filled water.

Gavin Fitch, a fellow society member and environmental lawyer based in Calgary, says the group had a formal meeting with Jasper National Park officials in April, but still haven’t received a response. 

“Our optimism has, I would say, changed to pessimism,” he says.

Not only is the Canadian Backcountry Trails Preservation Society trying to convince the government to make investments in trails and bridges — potentially one of Willson’s own designs — but to allow certified volunteers to help maintain the trails. That’s common in provincial parks, particularly in B.C., but Parks Canada has moved away from the practice and is reluctant to change tack, Willson says.

Parks Canada did not directly answer questions emailed by The Narwhal, but says it regularly reviews investments in the more than 8,000 kilometres of trails in its network based on visitation and conservation priorities. 

“These decisions help ensure available resources are focused where they provide the greatest benefit to visitors, Indigenous partners, communities and protected places,” spokesperson Charlotte Bordeleau says in an email. 

“In Kootenay National Park, for example, maintenance on portions of the Tokumm Creek Trail above Marble Canyon was discontinued as part of broader wilderness management decisions designed to support conservation objectives and wildlife habitat protection.”

Climbing over trees and scrambling through brush on the hike from Marble Canyon, Fitch says abandoning infrastructure doesn’t just prevent access to the backcountry, it erases public trails.

The trails are not decommissioned, simply allowed to deteriorate, he says. Then they disappear from government websites. Soon, the hiking apps used by modern adventurers downvote them into near obscurity. 

It’s one reason Fitch carries around a well-worn trail book from 1990, an encyclopedic guide to routes across the Rocky Mountain region that’s fading in the digital age.

“One of the issues here is — now I’m putting on my administrative lawyer’s hat — these are decisions that Parks Canada makes with zero consultation,” he says. 

“And of course, once the decision’s made, as we are finding out, trying to get them to reverse a decision that they’ve made on maintaining a trail is like proverbial pulling of teeth.”

Who is a national park for?

It’s only a matter of minutes up the valley from Marble Canyon and those red chairs before the crowds feel far away. It is quiet and empty and the trees blocking the route multiply as you move farther in. The live trees are short, showing only about 20 years of growth since a fire ripped through this area. Skeletal burnt trunks still hover high amidst the green. 

The quiet, even this close to a highway tourist stop, isn’t uncommon in the sprawling mountain parks that hug that Alberta-B.C. border. The vast majority of land in these parks is tucked far away from main thoroughfares. In Jasper, Willson says his own calculations show 83 per cent of the land is more than five kilometres from a highway. 

“If you don’t have trails to access that 83 per cent, that’s a huge loss,” he says.

But not everyone would agree. 

Bordeleau says Parks Canada has invested approximately $155 million in trail infrastructure since 2015, a figure that goes beyond backcountry trails. But she says the first priority of the agency is protecting the ecological integrity of the parks. 

Willson argues that focus is too restrictive and ignores Parks Canada’s commitment to enjoyment of these vast public spaces.

“Ecological integrity is the number one priority in national parks. It’s written into the National Parks Act, and it states that the national park shall be maintained for future generations, which is fine, is great,” he says. “But they interpret that as ‘Keep people out of the back country.’ ”

At the same time, he says, more and more people are crowding into tourist hot spots. 

According to data from Parks Canada, more than 11,000 people visited Lake Louise in Banff National Park each day in 2025, and the park itself set a new record with 4.5 million visitors that year.

Data from digital tools could help inform Rocky Mountain trail decisions: conservation advocate

Nadine Raynolds, the director of communities and conservation at the environmental group Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, says there are ways to balance human access with ecological integrity, given the proper data and funding. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean maintaining existing or historic routes and will depend on wildlife routes, the specific species that use an area, the impact of human activities and even the time of year. 

“What is the information that we need to support decision-making on the landscape?” she says. “Often what that leads to is making choices about where those trails should be and where is a place where we maybe shouldn’t put trails because of the wildlife needs.”

Unlike Fitch and his guidebook, her organization leans into digital apps and technologies to determine what areas are popular among humans and wildlife as it decides where to invest tight budgets. And she argues those tools can be effective in monitoring. 

“Land managers that we spoke with in B.C. and Alberta were really keen to explore all these options because they need this information,” Raynolds says, adding those managers don’t have the staff or resources to implement sufficient monitoring programs. 

When it comes to underused backcountry trails, the impact of human activity is unlikely to be significant, and it would be easy to manage numbers with trail restrictions and campsite access. 

But Fitch acknowledges the calculus could work against them, precisely because the number of people who want to trek in the backcountry is small. 

“So I think it would be the bean-counter argument, that the scarce resources which we have should be put to use on essentially front-country infrastructure, so the stuff you can reach easily from the highway,” he says.

‘A very quintessential Canadian thing’

In March, the federal government announced $3.8 billion for initiatives it says will protect Canada’s natural landscapes. Of that, $267 million will go to the creation of two new protected areas overseen by Parks Canada. The plan also calls for private partnerships and investments in Indigenous-led stewardship. 

It’s unclear if those moves will include a reinvestment in backcountry trails, but Willson and Fitch aren’t waiting to find out. They’re stepping up lobbying efforts, meeting with Corey Hogan, the sole Liberal MP in Calgary, and hoping that one of the doors they knock on opens.

Raynolds says the tools and the research exists to plan trails and parks that benefit both wildlife and recreation. But implementing those plans will take political will and a bit of investment.  

Willson hopes there’s more to it than a simple cost-benefit analysis. 

“The park is not only the highways and the towns,” Willson says. “The park is the trails too. Walking and hiking on a trail in wilderness is a very quintessential Canadian thing.”

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Poll after poll says B.C. voters are most concerned with affordability and health care. But interim BC Conservative Party Leader Lorne Doerkson had a different answer when asked what his top priority would be if his party wins: scrapping the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

“I will repeal DRIPA,” Doerkson told reporters in Vancouver on Sept. 22.

The act’s future has been a hot-button issue for much of the year. After years of touting the law as a major step toward working with First Nations in a better, more equal way, NDP Leader David Eby abruptly changed his tune in December 2025. His about-face came after a ruling from the British Columbia Court of Appeal that found the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable — meaning First Nations can take the province to court for failing to uphold the law.

In response, Eby vowed to change the law, a commitment he stood by at the start of the election campaign. 

“We do have to respond to that court decision, it’s not up for debate,” he said on Sept. 25. “We’ve been working with First Nations over the summer to see if we can find a path forward that we all agree on.”

Eby’s plan to change DRIPA proved unpopular with many First Nations leaders. When the election campaign began, the BC Assembly of First Nations called on B.C. politicians “to reflect on the divisiveness, misinformation and fearmongering that has defined this last year.”

“It is in the best interest of all British Columbians to reject these divisive politics and support First Nations by upholding the human rights of First Nations Peoples under DRIPA and returning their focus to the issues that matter most to British Columbians,” Terry Teegee, Regional Chief with the assembly, said.

Discussions about DRIPA are often rife with misinformation. Critics have claimed the law jeopardizes private property rights (it doesn’t) and gives First Nations a veto over proposed developments (also untrue). Campaign trail soundbites and promises from politicians aren’t likely to improve things.

“A lot of the challenges … have been created by the politicians themselves jumping out ahead of this issue for their own political benefit,” Adam Olsen, a former BC Green Party MLA, told The Narwhal. “It’s not for the benefit of British Columbians because the benefit to British Columbians is a calm, thoughtful, constructive relationship.”

“Politicians have an obligation not to promote racism against Indigenous people because when they are elected, they’re going to be the ones that are implementing reconciliation,” Cynthia Callison, a partner with Callison & Hanna Law who has advocated for First Nations in B.C. for 29 years, said in an interview.

Let’s cut through the rhetoric and dig into some of the claims about what the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act is, what it does and what lies ahead.

Fact check: Does DRIPA give First Nations a ‘veto’ over development?

When B.C.’s Declaration Act was introduced, the government stressed it did not amount to a veto for First Nations on issues like resource development. DRIPA does not alter provincial requirements regarding consultation with First Nations, and the provincial law has no impact on Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, which recognizes and affirms Indigenous Rights. 

DRIPA isn’t explicitly about industrial projects or resource development, but conservative political parties and others have claimed the law makes it more difficult for proposed projects to move forward.

“It isn’t taking one side or another in a project,” Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council, said in an interview. “It’s saying, ‘This is a list of things that should be contemplated and discussed and worked through as you go through these processes to get towards final investment decisions.’ ”

Some of the confusion may come from the fact that provincial project evaluation processes often involve asking First Nations to grant consent to a project. But consenting or not doesn’t make a nation the statutory decision-maker, Callison said. Legally, final say on whether projects are granted provincial permits rests with B.C. cabinet ministers.

“Now, are they going to consider whether First Nations consented or not? Yes, they are, but they’re also going to consider other factors,” Callison said. 

Ministers also consider potential economic benefits and environmental impacts when deciding whether a project gets the go-ahead. The FortisBC LNG expansion, approved right before the election call, for example, involved consulting eight First Nations; some of which consented, and some that didn’t.

DRIPA is about more than getting shovels in the ground, Smith pointed out. Applied properly, it makes projects more certain as they are less likely to hit legal hurdles or on-the-ground opposition.“It’s about how do we get a working relationship that is increasing investment opportunities, as opposed to chasing them out of British Columbia,” he said. “Unfortunately, because of the lack of clarity, political opportunism has made it look like DRIPA is chasing these investment opportunities out of town, where really, if applied properly, it can enhance them.”

Fact check: Has DRIPA always been controversial?

It may seem hard to believe now, but when the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act passed in the B.C. legislature in 2019, every MLA voted in favour of it. It’s rare to see such unanimity in the legislature.

At the time, the government described the act as “a path forward” for relations between First Nations and the province. The idea was that the legislation would hold the government legally accountable to its stated commitments on reconciliation and to align provincial laws and regulations with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

For years, there was little controversy or even public discussion about DRIPA. During that time, B.C.’s Declaration Act Secretariat — a government agency created to guide the law’s implementation — worked with First Nations and issued annual reports on its progress.

“They have focused on social issues like education and emergency services and child welfare,” Callison said.

The secretariat is also responsible for determining which laws and regulations get top priority to be aligned with the UN declaration. The Declaration Act offers few concrete details for what the province is bound to do and when, and that vagueness has contributed to misunderstandings and self-interested interpretations. 

“Everybody has their own subjective view beyond the legislation that’s in place,” Smith said. He believes DRIPA was introduced with the hopes it would be “sort of a silver bullet” for some of the tougher conflicts between the provincial government and First Nations — some of which resulted in lengthy and costly court battles. Instead, he said DRIPA has become “a political football” tossed around by party leaders, First Nations representatives, industry groups and think tanks.

Too often, it’s the perceived downsides of DRIPA that get put in the spotlight, he added.

“I really wish people would start looking at what are the opportunities as opposed to what are the shortcomings and what are the potential perceived failures around this.”

DRIPA provides a rubric that can help First Nations and companies navigate the ins and outs of project development, from the planning and assessments needed to determine whether a proposed project goes ahead, to what will have to happen when a mine or logging operation winds down. A handful of projects have already moved ahead under a specific section of the law.

Fact check: Does DRIPA create uncertainty for industry?

Members of the BC Conservative caucus have repeatedly claimed that DRIPA creates a climate of uncertainty that makes companies rethink their investments in the province. However, DRIPA’s stated goal is to “provide certainty and stability” about how projects can move toward approval by clearly defining the responsibilities of the provincial government and First Nations. And there are several examples of natural resource projects that have seen this benefit.

Section 7 of the law allows for joint decision-making agreements with First Nations regarding industrial projects on their traditional territories. These agreements enabled by DRIPA have helped advance a few natural resource projects, including the Eskay Creek revitalization, the Red Chris mine and the Galore Creek mine.

DRIPA’s goal of giving companies a set of expectations and a framework for engaging with First Nations on proposed projects was a good one, Smith said.

“My years in working with different industries on the coast of British Columbia have told me that industry just wants to know where they can and can’t operate,” he said. “DRIPA should have been a powerful tool to help illustrate that a little bit more.”

If anything, Callison argues, it’s the B.C. government’s handling of DRIPA that has created uncertainty. The 2025 ruling that caused Eby’s flip-flop was in response to a legal challenge brought by the Gitxaała Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation about the province allowing mining claims on their territory without their input. 

“Why did the Gitxaała case happen? Because the province did not make it a priority to amend the free miner system under the Mineral Tenure Act, and so the First Nation went to court,” Callison said.

A year of political punting and lingering uncertainty about DRIPA’s future has not improved economic confidence in B.C., according to Smith.

“It’s slowing down our ability to actually build certainty because we don’t know whether this legislation is going to get tinkered with or not,” he said.

Fact check: Does DRIPA threaten people’s ownership of homes and businesses?

The claim that DRIPA threatens private property rights in B.C. has come up again and again and again over the past year.

“That’s untrue,” Callison said. “Nowhere in DRIPA are they saying that reconciliation includes taking private property away.”

This claim is likely due to people conflating two separate court rulings — the Gitxaała decision and the Cowichan decision — which were issued just four months apart in 2025. 

The Gitxaała decision is the one that spooked Eby, in which the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled First Nations can take B.C. to court for failing to uphold DRIPA. 

The Cowichan decision dates back to 2014, when the Cowichan Tribes filed a case with the B.C. Supreme Court, asserting Aboriginal Title over lands along the Fraser River, in what is now known as Richmond, B.C. The lands claimed included a traditional summer village site, known as Tl’uqtinus, and the tribes’ suit asserted rights to fish and gather food in the claimed area. Although the claim was brought in B.C., it was launched prior to DRIPA becoming law and turned on Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, not provincial law.

In August 2025, 11 years after the case was filed, B.C.’s Supreme Court affirmed the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal Title under the constitution. The Cowichan case only named governments and government agencies, and the tribes have repeatedly said they have no intent of trying to take away any private property as a result of the court ruling. What the ruling made clear is the B.C. government cannot ignore the tribes’ federal Aboriginal Title rights but must negotiate with them to reconcile their Title with the interests of existing property owners.

“I haven’t heard one First Nation come out and say, ‘Well, yeah, we’d like to cancel people’s title and get rid of fee simple ownership,’ ” Callison pointed out.

The B.C. government appealed the ruling, and Eby has said his government will “go to the wall” to protect the rights of private property owners. He has also linked the Cowichan Tribes and Gitxaała cases, calling them “dramatic, overreaching and unhelpful court decisions.”

But DRIPA and the Cowichan decision actually have little to do with each other legally, besides being related to Indigenous Rights. Again, the Gitxaała case concerns the province’s actions — allowing mining claims to be staked on First Nations territory without notification or consent — and whether violating DRIPA makes them legally accountable. Meanwhile, the Cowichan case is about federally recognized rights that guarantee Indigenous Peoples access to traditional territories and to cultural practices.

Fact check: Would repealing DRIPA resolve all of these issues?

The BC Conservatives and others who support DRIPA’s repeal imply that getting rid of the law will clear away all friction of Indigenous Rights, Aboriginal Title and consultation obligations with First Nations. That is almost certainly not the case.

“That’s not the end of it; that’s the beginning of it,” Olsen said. 

“Simply just repealing it isn’t going to do anyone any service,” Smith agreed. “I wish the opposition parties would be a lot clearer about what the alternative is, because they all know there has to be an alternative.”

DRIPA’s repeal could prompt public protest from some First Nations, Smith added, while others would continue ongoing discussions with companies interested in operating on their land.

“A lot of us have deals that are in the making right now that we simply can’t stop because there’s an election,” he said. “So while the government’s in caretaker mode, we’re still talking with a lot of the industries that are looking at investing in collaboration with First Nations.”Getting rid of DRIPA would not eliminate the constitutionally guaranteed right of First Nations, which can be hashed out in the courts, and have been, Callison pointed out. 

Legal responsibilities aside, reconciliation should remain a priority for whichever party forms the next B.C. government, she added — something those parties should keep in mind as the election campaign rolls on.

“Why not take a little lesson out of history? If you are elected, you’re going to have to reconcile with Indigenous people in British Columbia.”

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“Look at the size of that logjam,” Richard Bussanich exclaims with excitement as we fly low over one of the upper reaches of the Skagit River just north of the U.S.-Canada border. Bussanich, a senior biologist for the Okanagan Nation Alliance, and two of his colleagues are surveying the upper Skagit River and its main tributaries north of the border. They want to understand if salmon could survive here — after more than a century of absence. 

The Skagit originates in the B.C. Cascades, following the mountain range south into Washington state before flowing west to the Puget Sound. But ever since the 1920’s construction of the Gorge Dam in Washington state, the Canadian waters of the Skagit have been devoid of salmon. It was the first of three dams built on the river south of the border by Seattle City Light, Seattle’s public electricity provider, which today supply about 20 per cent of the utility’s power. None of these dams’ construction included fish passage. But that might finally be about to change.

After decades of pressure from tribes and conservation groups, the publicly owned utility is now committing to design and implement a plan to allow salmon to once again reach the upper river.

A landmark multilateral legal settlement between Seattle City Light, several tribes and non-governmental organizations, as well as various federal, state and county governments, was reached in March 2026. It commits the utility to funding nearly US$1 billion over the next 24 years to restore salmon runs and create fish passage. The agreement by the utility represents a reversal of its long-held claim that salmon never reached the upper Skagit before the dams — a position contradicted by historical records, archaeological evidence and Indigenous Knowledge.

The agreement is prompting First Nations in British Columbia to consider what the return of salmon could mean on their side of the border. Bussanich is excited by the chance to witness and support the return of salmon on this stretch of river. “If you provide them the opportunity, the fish will find a way,” he says.

Assessing salmon habitat from the sky

Every 30 to 50 years, the three dams on the Skagit have required an updated permit from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to legally continue operations.

The project’s recent permit expired in 2025. Since then, the dams have been operating on annual licenses as negotiations for the terms of the new permit are settled. As part of the relicencing process, the public utility is required to carry out numerous studies to look at how the dams affect a variety of environmental, economic and social considerations and how to mitigate harmful impacts. This created the window for action by U.S. tribes to push the utility to deal with their role in depressing salmon runs across the entire Skagit River system.

The March legal settlement dictating the terms of the future management of these dams followed an ambitious lobbying campaign and legal action spearheaded by the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe in Washington state, along with pressure from the neighbouring Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, conservation organizations and the public spurred by regional and national investigative journalism.

At the signing ceremony for the legal agreement in May 2026, Scott Schuyler, a member of the Upper Skagit Tribe and its cultural and policy representative for natural resources, shared some hope and history. 

“Today is a day of reflection for the Upper Skagit People,” he said. “We do appreciate everything that has occurred over the last eight years [of negotiations] but this journey actually began 124 years ago for the Upper Skagit when we were not allowed a voice or a choice.”

The day after the settlement was signed, an engineering firm was hired to start work on designing fish passage, Schuyler later told The Narwhal. With the public utility committing to create a pathway for salmon to access areas above each of its three dams, and thereby potentially unlocking spawning habitat in Canada, the Okanagan Nation Alliance is interested in how this effort will interface with the lands and waters it is part of stewarding north of the international border. 

 “Our mandate is ‘kł cp̓əlk̓ stim̓, ’causing to bring back’ water and salmon,” Bussanich says during the field trip to the Skagit. “Salmon reintroduction … and restoring habitat and protecting it is the core of everything, that the Okanagan and its members in the nation adhere to and guide us.”

The goal of the upper watershed’s aerial survey Bussanich and his team are doing is to better understand conditions on the ground for returning salmon. According to Bussanich, the flight is part of ongoing work being carried out collaboratively by the Okanagan Nation Alliance (representing the Upper Similkameen Indian Band), Stó:lō Nation, Parks Canada, the Washington-based organization Conservation Northwest and a consulting company called Biodiversity Pathways. Their collective goal is to protect the area and its sensitive species through Indigenous-led conservation efforts.

We touch down briefly on a sandbar on the river on the Canadian side of the border to survey conditions more closely at the location. Bussanich carefully photographs and notes the structure of another impressive logjam and the side channel it helped create.

“Coho will spawn in side channels like this,” he says. In the Okanagan River east of here, the Okanagan Nation Alliance and its partners have been creating artificial logjams to restore streams where the wood was removed and the streambed was straightened for flood control and agriculture. Here, on the upper reaches of the Skagit, the braided channel and natural woody structure provide a template for what they aim to create elsewhere for salmon habitat. Through Bussanich’s eyes, this part of the river appears in excellent condition for the return of anadromous (fish that are born in freshwater, migrate to the sea and return to freshwater to spawn) salmon. Now they just need a path to reach it.

As we cross the border into the U.S., we fly over the massive reservoir backed up behind the Ross Dam, the northernmost of the three Skagit dams. Around us, the high peaks of North Cascades National Park rise up from the reservoir shores. Bussanich is impressed with the quality of the spawning habitat in several of the tributaries entering the reservoir we fly over. Some locations look better for sockeye, others for Chinook and coho, according to Bussanich’s keen eye.

Then we see the Ross Dam. At 160 metres tall, it is the largest of the three hydroelectric dams on the river. The height of the dam itself is still a formidable challenge for engineers to figure out how to get migratory fish around. In the first half of the 20th century, it was considered insurmountable.

The long road to salmon recovery

From the Ross Dam, we fly downstream over the Diablo and then the Gorge dams. Immediately below the Gorge lies a stretch of the river that is completely dewatered by Seattle City Light, with the entire river’s flow diverted into a tunnel leading to a power-generating station about three miles downstream in the town of Newhalem, Washington, a former village site of the Upper Skagit Tribe. After passing through the power station’s turbines, the water is returned to the Skagit, which continues unimpeded the rest of the way to the sea, meeting the completely undammed Sauk River, its largest tributary, along the way. 

Below the dams, the Skagit River is home to runs of Chinook, coho, pink, sockeye and chum salmon, as well as steelhead trout. The Chinook and steelhead populations are both listed as threatened under the United States Endangered Species Act and noted as a species of greatest conservation need in Washington state. In the U.S., the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe and the Swinomish Tribe all retained their right to fish these runs— a right that has been deeply impacted by the steep declines in fish returns in the river. These declines also affect other species that depend on salmon such as the endangered population of resident orcas in the Salish Sea.

The construction of the Gorge Dam cut off about 40 per cent of the watershed from anadromous fish, while also depriving the river downstream of sediments critical for refreshing fish habitat and the estuary downstream. The subsequent construction of Diablo and Ross dams upstream went forward also without fish passage. 

In the legal settlement agreed to in March, Seattle City Light committed to returning water to the reach of the river downstream of the Gorge Dam, a culturally significant stretch of the river for the Upper Skagit Tribe, and a vital step toward connecting the lower and upper rivers for anadromous fish. The utility also committed to funding studies of the technology needed to move fish back and forth over each of its three dams and to work on this collaboratively with the other stakeholders in the settlement, including the U.S. tribes whose territory includes the Skagit River.

The utility lists 38 different participants in the licensing agreement for the three dams, including conservation organizations and county, state and U.S. federal agencies, as well as 10 U.S. tribes and two First Nations in Canada, the Nlaka’pamux Nation and the Stó:lō Nation.

Tribes that signed the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1855 explicitly retained their right to harvest salmon in their usual and accustomed locations. This right was upheld in court in 1974. This fact provides a large portion of the legal leverage that tribes are using to pressure Seattle City Light to do more to protect and restore salmon, including creating access above the dams.

On May 12, the Mayor of Seattle formally signed the settlement agreement for the Skagit River dams. At the signing ceremony, Scott Schuyler, who led the Upper Skagit Tribe’s efforts, reflected on the moment. “We were not allowed a voice or a choice when the first dam was built,” he shared. “We see redemption today by signing this agreement. We do have that voice from now on.”

However, he also noted the signing of the agreement is not the same as real action on the ground. “Today is not the day to celebrate for the Upper Skagit. The celebration will come in the future. When we see the river return to its banks, the Upper Skagit people will rejoice and celebrate. When we see the first salmon pass over the dams and the dams start contributing to these depressed runs, then the Upper Skagit will celebrate.”Schuyler tells The Narwhal that while design work for fish passage above the dams has already begun, it could be years before we see water flowing again in the bypass reach of the river, or salmon moving back and forth over the dams, due to permitting and engineering. “I would like to see it done in my lifetime, but you never know.”

Editor’s note: David Moskowitz is involved in long-term documentary work of the Okanagan Nation Alliance and grizzly bears.

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LNG Canada is already the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in the country. Now, the Shell-led project is set to double its production. 

The consortium of companies behind the massive LNG export facility announced the decision to green-light spending on Sept. 28. Shell, along with its partners Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korea Gas, were originally approved by the provincial and federal governments to build two phases of the Kitimat, B.C., plant in 2015. Operations of the initial phase started last year, with the first shipments leaving Canada in late June.

Prime Minister Mark Carney touted the investment decision in Vancouver this morning. “Canada is building big again,” he said, speaking to a room of company executives, politicians, First Nations elected and hereditary chiefs, municipal leaders and stakeholders. “Today’s investment — as you know, over $30 billion in LNG Canada 2 — will make LNG Canada the second-largest facility of its kind in the world.”

“This is a very big deal indeed,” BC NDP leader David Eby said at the same announcement. “It will change lives, here and around the world.”

The $33 billion investment decision comes as the first phase continues to face problems with its equipment.

As first reported in The Narwhal, an integrity issue with the facility’s flare stack was identified in the early commissioning stage after the company began testing its equipment in late 2024. LNG Canada later reported the problem to the BC Energy Regulator and the facility has been continually in non-compliance with its government-issued permits since. For months, Kitimat community members were subjected to excessive noise, black smoke, a towering flame — at times reaching the height of New York’s Statue of Liberty or London’s Big Ben — and a concoction of unidentified chemical smells and various other emissions as plant operators tried to get things under control. 

LNG Canada and the BC Energy Regulator maintain emissions from the plant are not harmful to human health, but many residents worry the combined output from the new liquefaction facility and Kitimat’s aluminum smelter may impact respiratory conditions and cause other health issues.

Burning excess methane gas, or flaring, is a normal safety procedure at liquefaction facilities. It releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide as well as emitting dangerous pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and small particulate matter, which affect human health.

Earlier in September, LNG Canada held community meetings in Kitimat so locals could weigh in on plans for a permit amendment. The consortium wants an increase in allowable emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24/7 — until the stack can be redesigned in 2028. 

“There is an operational issue with the flare design where at very low flow rates, the gas being burned moves from the tip of the flare to within the flare tip itself, causing a hot spot in the metal there,” Teresa Waddington, a senior executive at LNG Canada and registered professional engineer, previously told The Narwhal. “To prevent these hot spots, more gas is sent through the flare system … to push the flame back up to the top of the flare tip.”

This “assist gas” amounted to around 10 per cent of all gas that was sent to the coastal plant last year. As The Narwhal and Point Source reported, LNG Canada flared 350 million cubic metres of gas in 2025, making it one of the highest sources of LNG flaring emissions globally.

What exactly is the LNG Canada Phase 2 expansion?

LNG Canada was approved for two phases: the second adds two processing units, called trains, to increase the liquefaction capacity from 14 to 28 million tonnes of LNG per year. This expansion also means Coastal GasLink, the contentious 670-kilometre pipeline supplying the export plant, needs to double its capacity. That will be done by building five new compressor stations along the route. 

“Thanks to LNG Canada’s decision today, TC Energy is moving forward with its own multi-billion-dollar Phase 2 of the Coastal GasLink pipeline,” Carney said. “That means doubling capacity, creating an additional 2,000 jobs and maximizing the value of … one of the most prolific natural gas basins.”

Coastal GasLink, which was built between 2019 and 2024 by Calgary-based TC Energy, faced widespread opposition in support of Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, who argued the company did not receive free, prior and informed consent from the Aboriginal title holders to land intersected by the pipeline.

When Indigenous land defenders and their supporters tried to stop construction, a series of infamous RCMP raids led to dozens of arrests and solidarity protests across the country.

In its announcement yesterday, LNG Canada noted the investment decision includes an equity option agreement secured this summer with “a limited partnership of the economic development organizations of five First Nations neighbouring LNG Canada’s operations: Gitga’at Nation, Gitxaała Nation, Haisla Nation, Kitselas First Nation and Kitsumkalum First Nation.” That agreement “represents one of the largest Indigenous ownership positions in major Canadian infrastructure,” according to the company.

LNG Canada also said the expansion has “the potential to generate more than $50 billion in government revenues” over the 40-year life of the project.

“A year ago, the federal government referred LNG Canada Phase 2 to our Major Projects Office. One office. One point of contact. One goal: get to the right decision, rapidly and efficiently,” Carney said. “Working with Shell and LNG Canada, British Columbia, and First Nations, we have accomplished exactly that.”

What comes next?

Construction on the pipeline and at the Kitimat facility will begin immediately, Carney said in his speech. According to the company, around 4,000 workers will be hired to build the expansion at the plant and around 2,000 people will build the pipeline compressor stations.

Community members in Kitimat continue calling for transparency and investment in health facilities and studies. 

“I wish that they could acknowledge [emissions from the plant] could be a problem,” one young resident, who asked not to be named, told The Narwhal. “We’re gonna have to be around the flaring either way.”

LNG Canada said a redesign of the malfunctioning flaring equipment will be implemented in 2028. In the meantime, the company plans to request an amendment to its permits to account for continued higher levels of flaring emissions. 

The BC Energy Regulator said “LNG Canada has reported ongoing instances where flaring from one or more of the facility’s flare systems is not consistent with the requirements of its air discharge permit to the [regulator, but] these instances have not had a measurable impact on local air quality.”

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As the September sun dips down towards the mountains on the western side of the Kitimat Valley in northwestern B.C., a blueish haze hovers over the coastal community. 

The familiar plume from Rio Tinto’s aluminum smelter, a source of local air pollution for more than seven decades, now mixes with emissions from the LNG Canada gas liquefaction and export facility, which started shipping cargoes overseas last year. At the centre of the sprawling industrial site, an orange flame glows continuously from the top of a red and white tower. That’s the flare stack, which earned the new gas plant the dubious distinction of being among the world’s highest sources of flaring emissions last year. 

LNG Canada, owned and operated by a consortium of five foreign companies led by Shell, maintains its emissions are safe. Some residents aren’t so sure.

At open-house events at the town’s recreation centre over two days in mid-September, company executives, engineers and other employees field questions from members of the public. Moments after walking into the fluorescent-lit room, I’m recognized by a company representative who asks if I plan to interview anyone while I’m there. I laugh, shaking my head incredulously. He grins and says he’s read my reporting. A few minutes later, Teresa Waddington, a senior executive at LNG Canada and registered professional engineer, approaches to shake my hand.

LNG Canada is holding the event so community members can weigh in on plans for a permit amendment. The consortium wants an increase in allowable emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24/7 — until the stack can be redesigned in 2028. 

Waddington tells me it’s not a perfect solution to problems that have plagued the flaring system since commissioning began in late 2024, but says the company has made significant progress to reduce flaring levels over the past couple of months. She says the original permit didn’t account for “higher flaring volumes” associated with getting an LNG plant up and running. 

But that’s not the whole story.

Kitimat sits at the end of a 100-kilometre long fjord, hemmed in by mountains. Its geography means the town experiences a specific set of weather conditions: regular high winds, temperature inversions, rollercoaster pressure systems fed by the Pacific Ocean and more. LNG Canada’s flare stack wasn’t built to handle those conditions.

When the liquefaction facility fired up its flare stack, locals and workers alike quickly realized something was wrong. As first reported in The Narwhal, an integrity issue with the main stack was identified and later reported to the BC Energy Regulator. For months, the community was subjected to excessive noise, towering flames lighting the night sky, black smoke and a concoction of unidentified chemical smells and various other emissions as plant operators tried to get things under control. 

“There is an operational issue with the flare design where at very low flow rates, the gas being burned moves from the tip of the flare to within the flare tip itself, causing a hot spot in the metal there,” Waddington tells me later in an email, after I follow up on our conversation. “To prevent these hot spots, more gas is sent through the flare system … to push the flame back up to the top of the flare tip.”

This “assist gas” amounted to around 10 per cent of all gas that was sent to the coastal plant last year. Locals nicknamed the flare, which reached heights of around 90 metres at times, the “Eye of Mordor” after J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

While LNG Canada is working to amend its permits, the consortium also appears poised to make a final investment decision on an approved expansion, which would double production at the Kitimat plant. As Reuters recently reported, a decision on the project’s second phase could come as early as October. Both the federal and provincial governments have signalled strong support for the expansion.

In the community, vast work camps built to support construction of the LNG plant sit vacant and quiet. Today, the flare burns low, a dull fiery glow at the heart of the haze like the ember of a cigarette seen across a dimly lit room. It’s been calmer and quieter lately — but problems persist, and the gas being burned daily continues to exceed government permits.

Flaring not a danger to human health, LNG Canada says

Kitimat is no stranger to industry. The community was built on Haisla lands in the 1950s as a company town — serving what was then known as the Aluminum Company of Canada, or Alcan. 

The town’s residents, while not accustomed to living alongside a liquefied natural gas plant, are familiar with being an industrial hub. As Kitimat mayor Phil Germuth previously told The Narwhal: “Being a town that was built by industry, people understand that every once in a while you’re going to have to put up with something to get the bigger goal in the end.” 

Kitimat is also a small town, with a population of around 8,000, and a major industry like LNG Canada has extensive connections throughout the community that might make dissenting residents think twice about openly voicing their opinions. 

Several community members The Narwhal spoke to, who asked not to be identified, said they’re grateful for LNG Canada grants they’ve received or sponsored programs they’ve participated in, but worry about how the combined emissions from the two major industrial facilities might be affecting their health. Most who shared their views say they’re not against having a gas plant in town — but they’re skeptical about claims the emissions aren’t harmful.

One resident tells me they avoid strenuous activity outdoors now — just in case. Another, who owns and operates a local business, wonders why Rio Tinto, which produces more hydroelectricity than it uses and sells the balance to BC Hydro, and LNG Canada, which is liquefying natural gas extracted from deposits in the northeast, don’t provide the town with free electricity and gas.

“I’d much rather not pay for hydro and gas,” they shrugged.

According to LNG Canada and the provincial regulator, excess flaring isn’t a problem for human health. Because the gas is burned at the flare stack, it’s mostly converted to carbon dioxide and water vapour, Waddington says. In other words, more gas being flared doesn’t necessarily increase local pollution levels — which have remained below provincial guidelines, according to the BC Energy Regulator. This claim is substantiated by local air quality monitoring, much of which was implemented when Rio Tinto underwent a major expansion between 2011 and 2015.

“There is a long-established air quality monitoring network that monitors ambient air quality in the Kitimat region, on an ongoing basis … to ensure no impact to human health,” Waddington says.

They’ve reduced the flaring volumes significantly since installing a new flare tip in July, Waddington adds, but until the whole system can be redesigned they will still need to burn more gas than originally planned.

The new flare tip has “the same design [with] upgraded metallurgy [that enables it to] operate with a bit more backburn and manage hot spots,” which she explains reduces the amount of extra gas being flared by about 60 per cent. “We are working with the company that designed the flare tip to improve this design further and to ensure it operates as expected in real-world conditions.”

But there are other emissions from the plant, too, including black smoke from the stack, which indicates particulates and unburned gases. As The Narwhal recently reported, LNG Canada predicted black smoke would be emitted between 15 and 60 minutes one to three times per year while it stabilized early operations, but the plant has exceeded that estimate. 

In April, the BC Energy Regulator ordered LNG Canada to identify the root cause and implement a fix by October. On Sept. 21, the regulator posted the first report since implementing these measures, which identified “20 black smoke events that occurred between April 22 and July 31, 2026, including events that LNG Canada self-reported as non-compliances.” The regulator noted LNG Canada also reported “four additional black smoke events during August 2026” and community members told The Narwhal of at least one event in September.

Still more types of emissions, visible only through an optical gas imaging camera, are also being released at the plant. Details of these emissions were published in August by The Narwhal and Point Source after being observed by Tim Doty, a former oil and gas inspector with the state of Texas.

“The emissions that could not be seen with the bare eye were shocking,” he said at the time, after monitoring emissions at the Kitimat facility with a camera earlier in the year.

In Strawberry Meadows, the residential neighbourhood closest to the plant, several homes and serviced lots are listed for sale. They’re nice houses: modern design, tucked in amongst the trees on quiet streets. But while the entire town is adjusting to living with the new industrial project, it’s this area that has experienced the most noise and emissions. 

Around this time last year, one resident of the neighbourhood told The Narwhal he and his family couldn’t sleep for days on end.

“We maybe got two hours’ sleep this whole weekend. I’m just useless now.” 

Because of the imminent provincial election, the regulator was unable to answer questions, noting “government is in a caretaker mode” and communications, including from Crown agencies like the BC Energy Regulator “are limited to critical health and public safety information.” A spokesperson sent links to data — LNG Canada’s daily and monthly flaring amounts, the latest air quality data map and B.C.’s air quality objectives and standards — along with a statement about its ongoing oversight of the liquefaction facility.

Residents ‘more curious than concerned:’ LNG Canada executive

At the open house, community members speak quietly with company reps, asking questions about flaring, emissions, smells and more.

Joanne Spencer, another senior executive with LNG Canada, says most residents who come through are more curious than concerned. Between four sessions over two days, around 120 people stop by.

“This is quite an engaging way to talk to members of the public,” she says, gesturing around the room at clusters of employees speaking with residents. “If you’re looking at somebody in the eyes, it gives the opportunity for you to acknowledge that they’ve understood or [see if they] have another question.”

For her part, Waddington says she’s committed to show up at council meetings and “many other places where people congregate to engage in the conversation on what LNG Canada is doing well and where we need to improve.” 

She tells me she previously worked as a plant manager at a Shell gas facility in Scotland where flaring “attracted community interest and concern.”

“As a result of a prolonged flaring incident, many of the staff from the facility were facing hard questions from concerned community members in their day-to-day lives,” she says, explaining she experienced tension while going about the community. 

“It was important to me then, as it is to both me and LNG Canada now, that the company engages directly with [the] community when they have concerns to provide information, listen for what matters and how we can improve in those areas or better communicate about them.”

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