In British Columbia’s far North, the battle for Skeena-Bulkley Valley offers voters a stark choice on the future of the region — and serves as a microcosm for the future of Canada.
In the large, resource-rich riding that covers the north-west corner of the province of British Columbia, a remarkable showdown is unfolding — a contest between two men who couldn’t be more different: Conservative Ellis B. Ross, formerly a Haisla Chief Councillor, and incumbent New Democrat Taylor Bachrach.
More than just an election between two men, this riding’s decision represents a choice for the future of the North and the role it will play in Canada’s future as a nation.
Canada’s vast Northern regions are becoming increasingly central in a range of matters pertaining to economic development and national security. The relentless global demand of precious metals, a history of holding interest in establishing new trade routes, our renewed focus on sovereignty and defence, and, most importantly, the possibility of the Arctic becoming a new frontier for oil and gas extraction and transmission — each of these factors led Canadians, especially Northerners — to consider the future of the upper reaches.
This is a high-stakes election for BC’s North.
Skeena-Bulkley Valley specifically is strategically instrumental to Canada’s future as a precious metals producer. It’s home to the famous Golden Triangle, a 250 km long stretch of mountainous terrain that holds the most significant known gold, silver and copper deposits in all of Canada.
Voices representing these regions in parliament bear great impact on whether or not the North and their communities will actualize their potential as one of Canada’s most underutilized advantages.
Skeena Bulkey Valley, however, is far more than a partisan duel between diametrically opposed men. This is a fight that will define how Northerners choose their future. The election results of northern ridings will influence how our country’s Northern strategy moves forward, if at all.
Besides both having represented the same region in different levels of government, these two candidates come from completely different worlds and view the country, its economy and its future in completely different terms.
Bachrach has represented the riding in parliament since 2019 after serving as Mayor of Smithers since 2011.
Ross meanwhile, after serving as Chief Councillor to the Haisla Nation, had a successful career as a provincial MLA first winning a seat in 2017 and securing re-election in 2020 and running for leader of the BC Liberal Party, coming second out of seven candidates, nearly defeating political heavyweight Kevin Falcon.
But this is where the similarities between Ross and Bachrach end. You will not meet two men more different than Ellis Ross and Taylor Bachrach.
Ross has committed his political life to creating radical economic change. Taylor Bachrach began his career as a professional environmental activist, opposing economic development.
Ross is a passionate champion for energy security and energy independence, embracing fossil fuels, resource development and aggressive economic expansion.
Taylor Bachrach opposes all fossil fuel development, opposes pipelines, and believes in a state-directed, centrally managed renewable energy sector to replace all conventional fuels. He spent most of his career attacking, blocking and resisting development.
Ellis Ross was responsible for bringing in Canada’s largest ever single private investment of $40 billion, creating thousands of jobs and revolutionizing the economic prospects of his region and the entire province.
Taylor Bachrach has worked for organizations that directly attack and destroy Canadian jobs, inhibit technological advancement and hamper the region's growth.
Ellis Ross is a titan in BC politics and carries with him a story of struggle, spirit, reinvention, and economic reinvention.
Ross grew up poor on his reserve in Kitimat, spending many years searching for steady work to provide for his family. He’s worked for everything he has. At a young age, like so many of us, he ventured beyond his home to find work to support his family. Ellis struggled through some of Canada’s harshest socioeconomic conditions and persevered.
Unlike many of us, Ellis Ross didn’t just overcome hardship — he used it as motivation to achieve unprecedented transformation, both for his home community and the nation. After entering the political arena of the Haisla Nation, Ross was elected councillor, where he had to reckon with the harsh realities of poverty and economic immobility on reserve. His early years as band councillor were defined by chaos and infighting, but then he took a stand on an issue that would change his band, the region, the province, and indeed the entire country forever. He chose prosperity.
In 2006, Ross negotiated the LNG Canada liquified natural gas project that shattered generations of poverty and economic isolation, lifted his people and many others out of poverty, modernized their village and secured a future for his people.
But, while Ellis Ross was busy remapping the economic and cultural future for generations of British Columbians, Taylor Bachrach was doing the opposite.
At this time, Bachrach was advancing his career as a political operator in the $1billion environmental activism industry. After graduating from University of Victoria, Bachrach took a position with the Fraser Headwaters Alliance, before establishing a long-term position with the Dogwood Initiative, a climate-crazed, far-left, non-profit political action organization that opposes natural resource development and pushes radical policies like electoral reform, energy bans, and various resource moratoriums.
Almost every single component of the Dogwood agenda seeks to hamper, impoverish and silence Northerners, while stripping them of their due representation in our legislatures. Further, Dogwood specifically takes aim at northern jobs, seeking to kill resource projects, block pipelines and obstruct extractive resource development — the lifeline of the North.
But if you think Taylor Bachrach was finished there — you’d be wrong. He needed to take his career of economic sabotage to new heights.
He graduated from Dogwood to the Sierra Club, one of Big Environmental’s flagship international political action committees. This American-based organization is single-handedly responsible for funding countless economic obstruction campaigns to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, costing Canada billions in lost revenue — not to mention countless Canadian jobs.
Skeena-Bulkley Valley voters must understand this single fundamental difference: While Ellis Ross was literally fighting for the future of his people, confronting his Nation’s dire situation, and struggling through First Nations politics to show his people a different future, one with steady pay, healthy families, and a social fortitude to kick addiction… Radical left-wing Taylor Bahcrach was making a living at an organization famous for funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into Canada from the United States, with the express purpose of opposing natural resource development.
Sierra Club Canada Foundation has destroyed Canadian jobs, stripped British Columbians of their wealth, and robbed countless youth of desperately needed economic opportunities.
While Ellis Ross was grappling with some of Canada’s most severe social and economic problems eventually leading him to gear his thoughts, talents and love for his country toward, unity, vision, progress and prosperity, Bachrach was busy actively working to undermine Canadian interests by using American dollars to finance campaigns of division, panic, poverty and economic destruction.
The organizations that Taylor Bachrach worked for, and no doubt has since coordinated with, spent millions of US dollars pushing for the very policies that have placed Canada in a position of weakness, stagnation and disorder, and completely vulnerable to support itself in the face of American economic aggression.
Of course, the economic destruction business, while a $1 billion industry in Canada, didn’t exactly give Bachrach the spotlight that he lusted after. Once he was satisfied that the restless, anti-human, eco-radicals were ready to launch their unprecedented onslaught of anti-resource propaganda on our country, he made his transition to the ladder of elected politics.
This is the tradition for graduates of the activist class. In 2008 Bachrach became a village councillor in Telkwa, BC, an honest, quaint, working-class, resource-based, typically Northern Canadian borough south of Smithers. In 2011, Bachrach was elected mayor of Smithers.
Canada’s North is the future of the country. It holds the keys to untold wealth and critical geopolitical opportunities that affect continental security, open new trade and shipping possibilities, and advance science and our knowledge of the planet. It’s especially vital that Northern residents are represented by parliamentarians who share their experiences, have a serious vision for the region, and hold an unbreakable dedication to these communities and their values.
One candidate embraces the critical potential of the region, while the other has spent a political lifetime serving alien political interests by promoting the disdain of it.
Skeena needs representation that will work to build the region and empower the amazing citizens who call it home, not installed political interests that cripple communities, rob their youth and promote policies that relegate them to poverty and addiction.
In large part, the 2025 federal election is about radical economic reinvention in the face of American interference, energy security, addressing the wounds of our society, like addiction and mental health, and generating hope again for multiple generations.
As it happens, only one candidate running for Skeena-Bulkley Valley has a record of addressing every single one of those things.
That's Ross, and he represents the future of Canada’s North.
Benjamin Lawton is Chief Consultant at Lawton & Co. Campaign Finance.
