BRITISH COLUMBIA — It’s not just the water, trees, and mountains that make B.C. special—it’s our ability to experience and benefit from them. The minerals in the ground don’t just create well paying and sustainable jobs—they helped build this province, starting with the gold rush. B.C. stands at a crucial crossroads. The federal and provincial governments have introduced a myriad of complex and overlapping policies affecting the natural resource sector, including the B.C. Old Growth Strategy, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework, Clean BC, Marine Protected Areas, the Watershed Security Strategy, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, the plan to “conserve 30 per cent of Canada’s land and water by 2030”, modernizing land-use plans and forest landscape planning. Taken together, these initiatives are cumbersome and create significant challenges to investment and job creation in British Columbia.

…To be clear, the need for Indigenous reconciliation and environmental stewardship are widely accepted and necessary. However, British Columbia now has a growing, overlapping patchwork of heavy-handed and top-down policies. …The potential consequences are severe: Lost jobs, reduced economic activity, decimated small towns and less tax revenue to fund vital infrastructure and social programs. And the effects won’t be confined to rural areas—urban centres like Metro Vancouver and Victoria will also feel the impacts, with fewer jobs, strained services, higher costs and a greater reliance on imports. …The issues surrounding this tangled web of policy initiatives may be out of sight for most British Columbians, but their repercussions will be felt soon enough if we don’t address them. B.C. can renew our economic prosperity in a socially responsible manner, but it requires careful planning and foresight.