Eby Pledges to Curb Cabinet Power in Controversial Tariff Response Bill

The B.C. government is backing off on the part of a tariff response bill that critics said would give cabinet too much power to act without scrutiny from the legislature.

“Across the board people understand the intent of this bill, which is to ensure that we’re able to respond quickly to executive orders from the president that target our economy,” Premier David Eby said this morning. “But what they would like to see is increased ability and increased oversight, safeguards, in relation to the legislative assembly process.”

Attorney General Niki Sharma introduced Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, on March 13 saying it was “enabling legislation” that would allow the government to quickly respond to threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.

A section of Bill 7 would have allowed the B.C. cabinet to make regulations for “addressing challenges, or anticipated challenges, to British Columbia arising from the actions of a foreign jurisdiction,” reducing interprovincial trade barriers and supporting the economy of B.C. and Canada.

BC Conservative Leader John Rustad immediately described the bill as an “overreach.” This week BC Green acting leader Jeremy Valeriote said the party continued to have “strong concerns” about the bill and were in discussions with the NDP.

“It is important to note that our accord with the government does not prevent us from opposing this legislation,” Valeriote wrote on Facebook.

The NDP has a one-seat majority in the legislature and has entered into an agreement with the two Green MLAs that includes support on confidence measures.

Eby said he was particularly swayed by anxieties expressed through the province’s tariff response committee that includes representatives from business, labour and First Nations. “It’s the reason why we set the table up,” said Eby. “This is one they provided feedback on. It was very persuasive to me that they had concerns that needed to be addressed.”

The government plans to proceed now with the parts of the bill that provide power to increase access to B.C. for goods and services from other Canadian provinces and territories, favour non-American companies in government procurement and introduce tolls or fees on B.C. highways or ferries for U.S. travellers.

It will however remove the fourth part of the bill, the section that would have given broader powers to cabinet, so it can be worked on with stakeholders, Eby said. It could be reintroduced as a separate bill in a future sitting of the legislature, he added.

“My commitment to British Columbians is I will continue to ensure that we have the ability to respond quickly, but if there’s a chance for us to retool this and ensure the safeguards are in place to make people feel comfortable that there’s democratic and legislative oversight of these incredibly important provisions, then we will do so,” he said.

He acknowledged that he had gotten the balance wrong between giving the government the ability to respond quickly and keeping safeguards in place. “As much as I would like to be perfect, I am not,” he said.

The BC Greens said even with the change the bill remains a work in progress and that they have proposed further amendments to strengthen democratic safeguards in it.

“We expect to see these amendments, amongst others, included before we can determine whether or not we will support this Bill,” said Rob Botterell, the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

Since coming to office Trump has made various trade threats, and has followed through on some of them.

There is now a 25-per-cent tariff on steel and aluminum imports. On March 4 the U.S. introduced a 25-per-cent tariff on all trade with Canada and Mexico, but two days later exempted the roughly 40 per cent of trade that’s compliant with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term in office.

The legislature has been off the last two weeks and is scheduled to resume sitting on Monday.