British Columbia’s escalating confrontation with the United States is no longer just a matter for trade officials and exporters. It has moved directly into the provincial election campaign. B.C. NDP Leader David Eby is promising new “Built in B.C. and Canada” procurement rules that would favour domestic materials on publicly funded infrastructure and put U.S.-made products at a disadvantage when contracts are awarded.
The proposal arrives only days into a snap provincial campaign and against the backdrop of renewed Canadian and American tariffs, restrictions and procurement measures. Eby is presenting public spending as another tool for protecting Canadian jobs. His opponents are challenging both the timing and substance of that argument. What emerges is a debate about much more than where government buys steel: it is about how B.C. should respond to an increasingly difficult economic relationship with its largest foreign market.
Trade Policy Has Become an Election Promise
Eby unveiled the procurement commitment on September 24, two days after writs were issued for British Columbia’s 44th provincial general election. Elections BC says Final Voting Day is October 24, with voters choosing MLAs in 93 electoral districts. The election is occurring well ahead of the previously scheduled 2028 vote, putting the Canada–U.S. trade confrontation near the centre of an unusually early campaign.
Eby has explicitly connected the election call and his campaign message to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies. At the procurement announcement, he argued that B.C. should become its “own best customer” by directing more of the money already being spent on schools, hospitals, electricity infrastructure and transportation toward Canadian suppliers. That is a campaign argument rather than an established economic outcome, but the amount of spending involved is substantial: B.C.’s latest quarterly report forecasts approximately $18 billion in total provincial capital spending in 2026-27, including $12.9 billion in taxpayer-supported infrastructure.
What “Built in B.C. and Canada” Would Actually Require
Under the proposal described by Eby, provincial ministries, Crown agencies and health authorities would be required to favour B.C.- and Canadian-made goods and materials when a domestic supplier can provide them at a competitive price and meet project schedules. The policy would establish minimum domestic-content requirements for materials such as steel, aluminum, cement and wood. Municipalities would not initially face the same requirement, but the NDP says they would be encouraged and assisted in buying more Canadian products.
That qualification about price and availability is significant. The proposal, as announced, is not an absolute order to buy Canadian regardless of cost or whether a suitable domestic product exists. The language instead leaves room for procurement officials to consider price, availability and delivery. That resembles the approach already taken in several Canadian procurement policies, where preferences operate within defined thresholds and exceptions rather than functioning as an unrestricted prohibition on foreign suppliers. The federal Buy Canadian framework, for example, uses Canadian-content preferences while retaining procurement rules, thresholds and exemptions.
The U.S. “Penalty” Is Not a New Consumer Tariff
The most politically striking element is the promise to penalize U.S.-made materials when public contracts are evaluated. According to reporting on the announcement, American goods would count against the minimum B.C.- and Canadian-content requirements. The detailed penalty formula has not yet been released, so it is not clear whether that disadvantage would ultimately take the form of bid-evaluation adjustments, content calculations or another mechanism.
That makes the proposal different from a tariff charged when ordinary goods cross the border. Canada separately imposed new counter-tariffs on September 8 covering $27.6 billion in U.S. imports, with rates of 15, 25 or 50 per cent on specified products. Eby’s campaign proposal instead concerns how provincial public bodies spend procurement dollars. B.C. has already moved in this direction: a 2025 provincial procurement directive required covered government entities to exclude U.S. suppliers from procurement unless an exemption was necessary for operational requirements and directed them to avoid acquiring goods or services under existing U.S. contracts where doing so was viable.
The North Coast Transmission Line Would Be the First Major Test
Eby says the new approach would immediately be applied to BC Hydro’s North Coast Transmission Line. His commitment calls for Canadian steel to be used for 70 per cent of the towers in Phase 1 and 100 per cent in Phase 2. Phase 1 runs from Prince George to the Glenannan substation near Fraser Lake, while Phase 2 extends the new 500-kilovolt system roughly 275 kilometres from Glenannan toward Terrace. Construction activity is already underway.
The project is economically significant well beyond tower manufacturing. The province estimates the transmission expansion and industrial development it enables could support approximately 9,700 direct full-time jobs, while construction itself could employ as many as 1,400 people at its peak. BC Hydro also announced in August that four companies shortlisted for major line-construction work are Canadian firms. That existing Canadian participation is relevant because the Conservatives argue the project was already sourcing domestically where practical. Eby’s proposal would go further by setting specific Canadian-steel percentages rather than relying solely on existing purchasing practices.
Billions in Infrastructure Spending Give Procurement Rules Real Weight
The policy matters because provincial purchasing is attached to a large construction program. Budget 2026 provided for $37.7 billion in taxpayer-supported capital investment over three years, including $13.8 billion for transportation and transit, $11.1 billion for health facilities and $3.9 billion for school construction, renovation and seismic upgrades. Commercial Crown corporations were expected to spend another $15.3 billion, primarily on electricity generation and transmission.
Those figures help explain why procurement has become a trade-policy tool. Redirecting even part of that purchasing toward Canadian steel, lumber, aluminum, cement or manufactured equipment could create additional orders for domestic businesses. But there is also a taxpayer consideration. A 2026 OECD review found that domestic-preference policies can strengthen industrial capacity in some circumstances, while reduced competition can also increase procurement costs or limit efficiency and choice. Eby’s promise that Canadian suppliers would need to remain competitive on price and delivery appears designed, at least in principle, to address that trade-off. The eventual details would determine how strong that safeguard is.
B.C. Still Has Enormous Exposure to the U.S. Economy
British Columbia is less dependent on the U.S. market than some other large Canadian provinces, but the relationship remains enormous. Provincial data show that 52.8 per cent of B.C.’s merchandise exports went to the United States in 2024. Softwood lumber was particularly exposed, with 74.8 per cent shipped south of the border. U.S. goods also accounted for roughly 34.5 per cent of B.C.’s imports, including machinery, agricultural products, food and energy-related goods.
There are signs of diversification in 2026. B.C.’s September quarterly report said total goods exports were up 4.2 per cent through July while exports to non-U.S. destinations had risen 16 per cent. At the same time, the province forecast only 0.9 per cent real GDP growth for 2026, while employment had declined 0.6 per cent through August and the unemployment rate stood at 6.5 per cent. Those figures do not prove tariffs caused the slowdown, but they illustrate the uncertain economic environment in which both trade diversification and domestic purchasing have become campaign issues.
Ottawa Is Already Moving in the Same Procurement Direction
Eby’s proposal would not be occurring in isolation. Ottawa’s Buy Canadian Policy took effect in December 2025 and gives preferences to Canadian suppliers, content and materials in qualifying federal procurements. The threshold for the strategic procurement policy was reduced from $25 million to $5 million in June 2026, greatly expanding the number of contracts potentially affected. By late June, the federal government said 14 contracts worth a combined $726.4 million had already been awarded under the framework.
Washington has responded directly to Canadian procurement measures. On September 16, Trump issued a memorandum directing U.S. officials to identify Canadian-origin items that could legally be removed or made unavailable in the American federal civil procurement system. The White House specifically cited Canada’s Buy Canadian policies and restrictions imposed by Canadian provinces. The American document presents those policies as discriminatory; that is the Trump administration’s stated position rather than an independent legal finding. The episode shows how public purchasing has become another front in the broader trade dispute.
International Trade Rules Still Matter
B.C. cannot design procurement policy entirely without outside constraints. The province’s own procurement guidance says covered contracts should be planned and conducted in accordance with applicable domestic and international trade agreements. Canada is a party to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement, and that agreement includes commitments involving federal, provincial and certain other public entities. For 2026-27, the federal government lists the WTO-GPA threshold for covered sub-federal goods and services procurement at $653,200 and construction services at $9.2 million.
Canada and the United States do not use CUSMA’s procurement chapter for their bilateral government-procurement commitments; Global Affairs Canada says those Canada–U.S. obligations instead run through the WTO GPA. B.C. nevertheless has specific provincial legislation allowing procurement directives in response to tariff pressures. The Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act authorizes cabinet to issue procurement directives to government entities, and its procurement provisions remained in force in the current 2026 consolidation. How a new campaign promise would interact with particular treaty-covered purchases would depend on the eventual legal and procurement design.
Conservatives Say the Announcement Comes Too Late
B.C. Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson has responded by challenging Eby’s record rather than accepting the NDP’s framing of the trade dispute. The Conservatives argue that B.C. industries have dealt with U.S. trade disputes for years, pointing to longstanding softwood-lumber duties and earlier American steel and aluminum tariffs. They also argue that domestic procurement was already occurring on the North Coast Transmission Line and describe the latest promise as a campaign-period repackaging of existing efforts. Those are partisan claims made by the opposition and should be understood as such.
The dispute is part of a broader fight over how each party characterizes its response to Trump. Eby has accused Conservative members of being too accommodating toward the U.S. administration. Doerkson, meanwhile, has called the election itself cynical and argues that economic resilience requires stronger long-term action rather than campaign announcements. The contrasting messages leave voters with a policy question separate from the rhetoric: whether stronger domestic procurement requirements would materially expand Canadian sourcing beyond what provincial agencies already do.
Important Details Are Still Missing
The September 24 commitment establishes the direction of Eby’s policy but not a complete procurement rulebook. Public descriptions identify covered organizations, priority materials, domestic sourcing conditions and Canadian-steel targets for the North Coast Transmission Line. They do not yet provide a detailed formula for the proposed U.S.-goods penalty, a province-wide implementation date, comprehensive definitions of what qualifies as B.C. or Canadian content, or a full list of exceptions for projects where domestic supply is unavailable.
Those details could determine both the economic impact and the cost to taxpayers. OECD research emphasizes that domestic procurement can be used to build supply-chain resilience and support national production, but it also warns that restricting competition can increase costs if preferences are poorly designed. B.C.’s proposal therefore enters the election as both an industrial-policy commitment and a trade-response measure. With Canada and the United States already exchanging tariffs and procurement restrictions, the question during the campaign will be how far a future B.C. government intends to push domestic purchasing—and what price, legal limits and supply constraints it would accept in doing so.
