EXCLUSIVE: BC NDP orders secret campaign to kill Alberta’s planned new Northern oil pipeline

VANCOUVER — BC Premier David Eby was quietly directing his government to undermine any attempt to build a new oil pipeline across the province weeks before the Canada-Alberta MOU was signed — even as he repeatedly told British Columbians the proposal was “fictional,” “political” and “not a real project” because no private-sector offers existed.An October 2025 internal briefing note obtained by the Western Standard under B.C.’s freedom-of-information laws and heavily redacted under sections 12, 13 and 17 — titled “Action to Respond to Alberta’s Proposed Oil Pipeline” — explicitly states that “Alberta is keen to get the project approved in the current environment” and orders officials to “mount the counter case” by engaging experts, mobilizing opponents, and preparing studies documenting the “adverse impacts and adverse economics of a new pipeline and tanker traffic in the North Coast.”The timing is telling. Eby had already begun publicly dismissing Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s push as “fictional” and lacking a proponent as early as early October 2025.In multiple statements he declared: “There is no route, there is no proponent, there is no project.” He repeated variations of the claim through mid-November, right up to the signing of the Nov. 27, 2025 Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding that fast-tracks a one-million-barrel-per-day bitumen line to the North Coast.Yet behind the scenes, Eby’s own government was treating the proposal as a serious and immediate threat requiring a coordinated counter-offensive — weeks before the MOU was even inked..A separate June 23, 2025 email chain in the same FOIP release shows the Premier’s Office keeping discussions with Trans Mountain strictly limited to “optimization” of the existing pipeline. Premier’s Office official Tom McCarthy instructed Trans Mountain’s Kim Henderson to focus the planned briefing for Eby on “optimization components, schedule, cost, capacity increase potential” and to put “less focus on other projects at this point… just the optimization.”The documents also capture formal opposition from the Gitga’at Nation. In an October 24, 2025 letter sent to both Ottawa and Victoria, the Gitga’at Leadership Council rejected the Alberta oil pipeline outright, citing risks to coastal waters.The internal planning occurred in the lead-up to the MOU signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Smith. That agreement positions Alberta as the initial proponent, promises indigenous co-ownership opportunities, and commits Ottawa to trilateral talks with B.C. while signalling possible adjustments to the federal Oil Tanker Moratorium Act.Smith has framed the project as essential for unlocking Alberta’s oil sands for Asian markets, with potential annual revenue of up to $2 billion and major indigenous benefits. Eby, by contrast, has called it an “energy vampire” and a distraction from “real projects.”The FOIP release demonstrates the gap between Eby’s public messaging and his government’s private actions: while the premier insisted British Columbians had nothing to worry about because the pipeline was “not real,” his officials were already hard at work building the case to kill it.The Western Standard has requested comment from the B.C. government, Alberta government, Trans Mountain and the Gitga’at Nation. This story will be updated with any responses.

EXCLUSIVE: BC NDP orders secret campaign to kill Alberta’s planned new Northern oil pipeline

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