Premier David Eby says he thinks B.C. will be the "engine of a newly revitalized sovereign-growing Canada."
Eby's comments came Wednesday (May 8) after the virtual First Ministers' meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney and provincial and territorial leaders earlier in the morning.
"We face three-quarters of the world population right out of our port here," Eby said in Victoria. "We have the opportunity for market diversification. We have the resources that the world needs and wants very badly and we have the people to make this all happen. As well as the clean and cheap electricity to realize that vision."
Eby said he and the other premiers emphasized to Carney that softwood lumber is a "momentum builder."
"You know when there's billions of dollars sitting in a bank account, that is an incentive to both sides of the border resolving this dispute."
Eby said there was a growing consensus among major timber-producing provinces that there's an opportunity for an agreement with the U.S. as one of the early opportunities to reset the trading relationship with the country.
He said he sees a strong future for B.C. and a united Canada "that's standing on our own two feet."
"But part of that is just understanding what's our relationship with (U.S. President Donald Trump), and so that's my hope is that yesterday (was), what I understand, a relationship-building meeting leads to that kind of clarity," Eby said, referencing Carney's meeting with Trump on Tuesday.
The premier added that while he didn't want to speak for the prime minister, his sense of the meeting is that "none of us would want to be accountable for what the president is or isn't going to do."
"It's very hard to predict what he's going to do, very unpredictable in terms of things he tweets, and then what happens and the tariffs are imposed and they're taken off."
Eby added the goal is to "get to bedrock" and understand where Trump wants to end up and then get the negotiations done.
Trump earlier this week announced "100 per cent" tariffs against foreign films entering the United States.
