
David Eby is Ready for a Trade War
Back in January, with an inconveniently prorogued Parliament and the U.S. president pressing on their necks with some very un-ally-like tariff threats, Canada’s premiers decided to defend themselves. For Alberta’s Danielle Smith, this manifested as a friendly trip to Mar-a-Lago; Doug Ford, on the other hand, leaned into dealmaking and merch. For David Eby, B.C.’s premier and leader of the provincial NDP, however, it meant war. He adopted an economic eye-for-an-eye approach, and nothing was off the table—not export bans, not travel boycotts and certainly not retaliatory import tariffs, right down to Florida orange juice.
The power-premier pose makes sense: excluding Trump, Eby’s province is in a time of serious flux. Along with political live wires—like involuntary drug treatment, screen bans in schools and out-of-control home prices—his cabinet is planning an economic future for B.C. beyond lumber and minerals. Climate change is hitting the Okanagan hard. Vancouver, meanwhile, is flirting with becoming the new Hollywood North (condolences, Toronto) and, despite the risks, a bit more cryptocurrency-friendly. I spoke to Eby four days before Trump’s inauguration and three weeks out from the premiers’ big trade mission to Washington. (It was a busy month.)
You and the other premiers are off to Washington soon. Have you packed your “Canada Is Not For Sale” hat?
It’s a pretty slick hat. My colleague, Wab Kinew, suggested that an orange version would be a good idea.
A lot of political chaos broke out at the top of the year—Trudeau’s resignation, our prorogued Parliament, the smorgasbord of tariff responses from the premiers. From the outside, you could look a bit like a dysfunctional family rolling up to the White House reunion. Are you feeling any unified Team Canada spirit?
It isn’t ideal not to have a strong federal presence right now but, in the absence of that, we’re a tight team. From the inside, I don’t think the premiers have ever been this united. Obviously, Premier Smith disagrees with possible export bans, but aside from that, we’re coordinated. Our complementary networks have become apparent: I’m able to talk to the Democratic governors down the West Coast of the U.S., and Premier Smith can talk to a lot of Republicans. The rest have relationships with their closest northern states.
With Trump, it can sometimes be quite hard to distinguish a late-night joyride on Twitter and a legitimate political threat. When did you realize you needed to prepare a plan for the worst, tariff-wise?
The day after his post about tariffs on Truth Social—his own social media platform—last November. The stakes are so high, in terms of livelihoods and jobs, we had to take his threat deadly seriously—though I hoped it was a passing fancy. I understood Trump’s concerns about drugs coming in. We’ve got a serious fentanyl problem in B.C.; we see the precursor chemicals coming into B.C. from China and Mexico. We see ties to Asian and Mexican organized crime groups. We’d been discussing all of that with the American ambassador and fellow governors. That’s why it was such a strange turnaround, from “Hey, we’re working together on this!” to suddenly finding ourselves in the crosshairs.

Just how much damage could tariffs cause your province at ground level? I’m talking hits to industries, jobs—real math.
It feels a bit selfish to complain considering the possible devastation to Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba. For us, it affects about half our exports. We’re also talking about a potential loss of 100,000 jobs. And there would be tariffs of almost 50 per cent on lumber headed for the U.S., an industry that was already struggling because of wildfires, the pine beetle infestation and the softwood tariffs. This afternoon, I’m meeting with the Truck Loggers Association—independent contractors who borrowed money to buy trucks to haul logs. It’s going to be a tough lunch.
This tariff push came with a backfire guarantee, though.
I don’t expect them to last once everyday Americans realize that their electricity and gas cost more; that one in four sticks of lumber that they use come from Canada and that they’re suddenly 50 per cent more expensive. And that American lumber outlets will match prices.
B.C. also sells minerals Americans would struggle to find anywhere else.
The Teck smelter in Trail, B.C., produces germanium, a metal essential for the defence industry, and China recently banned exports of it to the U.S. It’s used in night-vision goggles.
Good luck in the dark, guys.
At the end of the day, it’s these kinds of things that’ll cause most Americans to say, “Why are we doing this to ourselves?” And, “Why are we doing this to our ally?”
Canada’s Not For Sale
Let’s pivot to some of Canada’s contained chaos for a bit. It’s possible that Pierre Poilievre—someone who has, in the past, lumped you in with radicals—could soon be PM. Have you readied a diplomatic strategy for that working relationship?
One thing I’ve learned during my time in politics is the significant difference between campaigning and governing. Strangely, one of the strongest premier-to-premier relationships I have is with Danielle Smith—even though we don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. We recently signed a deal on direct-to-consumer wine sales that had the potential to blow up. (This sounds like a minor thing, but wine is a big deal in British Columbia!) Anyway, I hope that whoever’s in the prime minister’s seat is able to put aside partisan approaches and get things done. I have a big reaction to “symbolic” politics and posturing.
Politics is a funny career to pick, considering your allergy to bluster.
I didn’t set out to become the premier of British Columbia; I trained as a lawyer. I went into this job because of my work on the Downtown Eastside. The city of Vancouver could have done obvious things to improve life in that neighbourhood and they just weren’t doing them. I’m in politics more as a result of my past frustration with them than my ambition to have this job. There’s a lot of fanfare that comes with it—and I don’t mind a little partisan cut-and-thrust in the legislature—but that’s not why I’m here. I also know that, once this job’s over for me, there are other things that I can do—and like to do.
Was your job on the Downtown Eastside your first law gig?
No, my first was a summer articling job with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. I wrote a handbook for them on citizens’ rights during arrests, which exposed me to some of the issues in that neighbourhood. I actually came into law from technical writing, where I created loss prevention and safety manuals for big retailers—video scripts, stuff like that. I wrote an amazing one called “Good Food, Safe Food” for M&M Food Market, one of the big accomplishments of my writing career.
You did some advocacy work with Pivot Legal Society during your time on the Downtown Eastside. That same organization has spoken out against your government’s decision to expand involuntary care for people with brain injuries, mental illness and addiction issues. What scenarios have you seen on the streets that convince you this is the right path forward, despite the resistance?
When you’re walking downtown, there’ll be someone on a street corner in visible distress, someone lying face down on the ground, someone with their pants around their ankles, somebody who’s screaming and punching at the air. These are folks who are not capable of caring for themselves in basic ways. The worst, most expensive, least dignified way to care for people is to leave them outside until they’re in crisis, then bring them to the ER and send them back out onto the street. We can’t hang the entirety of our response on the fact that a person hasn’t said, “Please help me get out of this cycle.” The people without families, who don’t have a network—that’s the group involuntary care is aimed at. It’s not a way to address the toxic-drug crisis or addiction as a whole. It’s for a small group of people, one that is, unfortunately, growing.
I read that your first pet cause was the welfare of circus elephants? I’m curious about that.
As a kid, I was very interested in fairness—in a four-child family, that’s a key concern. (Did another kid get a thing that I didn’t get?) In my teens, I was exposed to animal rights issues; I became a vegetarian at 16. One time, my brother Patrick and I were supposed to go to church and, instead, we went to the circus at the town auditorium. We took a video camera—from the school my mom taught at, actually—and attempted to get footage of the elephants’ living conditions. It was very high school, very…
Harriet the Spy?
Maybe 90210. The plan was well intentioned, but not particularly well executed by me. I failed to hit the record button at a critical moment.
Was the vegetarianism just a phase?
I’m a pescetarian now.
In other news, Ken Sim, Vancouver’s mayor, seems to be going through a cryptocurrency phase. Recently, he said he’d been “orange-pilled.”
I don’t know what that is.
It’s a term for when someone is really into Bitcoin. Sim said he wants to make Vancouver more Bitcoin-friendly—in fact, he called it “the greatest invention ever in human history.” What’s your level of crypto-fluency? Do you own any?
I have a different perspective on it. I understand it’s now a mainstream asset class, but I think there are very serious issues that the crypto community needs to address.
So, not the greatest invention ever.
My interest in cryptocurrency extends to my anxiety about things like how it facilitates money laundering in British Columbia, how people are speculating on it as an investment and how that all relates to the exploitation of youth or people struggling with addiction. I’m not particularly sympathetic to it.

The year has just started and, already, it’s a political rollercoaster. How do you personally cope with all the uncertainty? Drink some Okanagan merlot and play “spot the B.C. landmark” while binging The Last of Us?
I think of this job as a bit like being in a high-level athletic scenario. The hours are quite long and it’s very stressful. There’s also a lot of alcohol available. I try to find healthy ways to deal with it, so I rarely drink right now. And whenever I get a little window, I try to practise yoga. It’s very West Coast. I’m sure that’ll entertain your eastern Canadian readers.
That’s responsible of you. Were you the oldest in your four-child family, by any chance?
I reject your stereotype, but yes, I am.
Are you also the “oldest child” personality among the premiers?
Yeah, no—I don’t know. We each play a different role.
B.C.’s economy is guaranteed to look drastically different within a few years. Climate change is forcing your winemakers to experiment with new grapes, and your cabinet’s been pitching B.C. as a film and TV hot spot in Hollywood. How much of your day is spent in the zone of optimism versus the zone of doom?
It’s a real time of contrast here in British Columbia. Yesterday, I was at the Natural Resources Forum, where a big aluminum totem pole was co-presented by the Haisla First Nation and Rio Tinto Alcan, which has a massive smelter in the district of Kitimat. That partnership resulted in what is now one of the largest Indigenous-led energy projects in North America. The pole itself is covered in Haisla crests, with a beaver at the base and an eagle at the top. The artist behind it explained one of the Haisla creation stories to us.
What was it?
A group of people were travelling in a canoe after they’d been pushed out of another community. They saw this thing that looked like a monster—it turned out to be a bunch of seagulls diving for oolichan, or candlefish. The group realized that would be a great place to set up their homes. That resonated with me, with respect to the tariffs. What looked like a monster ultimately turned out to be an opportunity, not a threat.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.