Eby says southern route pipeline proposal “just rumours,” after talk with PM

Premier David Eby said he had a “productive” phone conversation with Prime Minister Mark Carney that included a discussion about a potential new pipeline to the West Coast.

A recent Globe and Mail report cites federal government sources as saying Ottawa is in favour of a route through southern B.C. for the pipeline, instead of a northern route that has been pitched by Alberta.

Eby said Carney assured him that those reports were not coming from the prime minister’s office. 

“These are all just rumours, and it’s really hard to work with rumours,” Eby told reporters on Thursday.

Eby said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has not raised the idea of a southern pipeline route with him.

Ottawa and Alberta signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) last fall related to a new pipeline project. Alberta is expected to submit an application to the federal Major Projects Office to fast-track a pipeline by this summer.

Eby has repeatedly spoken out against the need for a new pipeline project to carry Alberta oil to Asian markets, citing the long-standing oil tanker moratorium on the north coast.

“For B.C.’s part, as I said to the prime minister, there is not a world in which the B.C. government would support a pipeline that required the ships to transit through the tanker-banned area,” said Eby.

“It doesn’t change the reality that this pipeline, where ever it goes…needs somebody who actually wants to build it, and we’re not there yet,” he said.

B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix also said earlier this week the northern route is not realistic because of the tanker ban.

“If this report indicates a federal government acceptance to that point of view, I think that’s a good development,” said Dix. 

He said the province is always ready to discuss major projects with the federal government. He reiterated B.C.’s position that the focus should be on increasing the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline.

Eby said his conversation with Carney also touched on B.C.’s ban on liquor from the United States.

He said the province won’t put U.S. liquor back on the shelves in provincial stores until trade issues are addressed, particularly around softwood lumber as U.S. tariffs climb to around 45 per cent. 

“No ifs, ands or bourbons about it,” said Eby.

B.C. and several other provinces pulled U.S. liquor from store shelves last year in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on a range of Canadian products, and his rhetoric about making Canada “the 51st state.”