Members of BC’s cabinet promised action and collaboration on resource development on stage in Prince George on Jan. 16.
The third and final day of the 2025 BC Natural Resources Forum in kicked off with a breakfast panel featuring six ministers and moderated by Colleen Giroux-Schmidt, the vice-president of corporate relations and environment with Innergex Renewable Energy.
They were Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix, Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Christine Boyle, Minister of Mining and Critical Minerals Jagrup Brar, Minister of Environment and Parks Tamara Davidson, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Innovation Diana Gibson and Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Randene Neill.
All save Dix and Brar are first-time MLAs, but all six ministers are new to their current portfolios, having been appointed after last fall’s provincial election.
Here’s a brief summary of what all six ministers discussed during their time onstage, arranged in alphabetical order by last name.
Indigenous Relations Minister Christine Boyle
As was expressed by many speakers over the three days of the forum, Boyle said there’s a lot of work to do in BC to partner with First Nations.
Boyle stressed that the path to economic development in this province is in partnership with First Nations and that economic reconciliation brings stability.
However, those nations face barriers in terms of investment and involvement in projects.
She highlighted the government’s programming from last year’s budget that introduced ways for First Nations to access equity financing.
“The province has been working with First Nations organizations and the business sector and many others, including the First Nations Leadership Council, to develop that program,” Boyle said. “There will be more coming out soon from the Finance Ministry on it.”
The minister pointed to the fact that eight of the ten wind and solar power projects approved by the government in December 2024, including the planned wind project near Hixon by Lheidli T’enneh, are 51 per cent owned by First Nations.
Mining Minister Jagrup Brar
Brar started his remarks by discussing mining- and mineral-related statistics.
Since 2017, he said, employment in the mining sector has risen by 10 per cent and private sector investment in mineral development has almost doubled. In that same timeframe, he said mineral exports have gone up by 41 per cent from roughly $12 billion to $17 billion.
According to Brar, there are 70 critical mineral projects in progress in BC that could help the province realize its potential in the sector.
He cited the creation of his standalone ministry, which used to share a portfolio with energy, as progress.
“We are fully committed to developing a responsible and competitive mining sector moving forward to grow the economy to create good jobs for the people of British Columbia and move forward in a real way on reconciliation with First Nations,” Brar said.
BC, he said, has the largest producer of copper in Canada and is the only producer of molybdenum. Of the 31 critical minerals in Canada, Brar said BC has 16.
In the past two years, Brar said the regional permitting process for mining has been reduced by 52 per cent and the mine approval timeline has gone down by 30 per cent.
Environment Minister Tamara Davidson
Davidson, the MLA for North Coast-Haida Gwaii, said 80 per cent of her ministry’s job is developing relationships with the remainder comprised of “really annoying paperwork.”
With environmental assessments, Davidson said properly assessing the future impact of projects is important — especially with water quality — because the province doesn’t want to burden First Nations and local governments with the cleanup when they’re done and gone.
After five years since the implantation of the Environmental Assessment Act, Davidson said it will be reviewed.
“But we’re going to be doing the largest engagement to try to reach people to understand where are the delays and how we can work across government, how we can streamline things with still maintaining the environmental protection that’s expected of us as a province,” she said.
She also pointed to the wind power projects, saying that First Nations involvement and input were key as well as the clean nature of the power they’ll provide.
Energy Minister Adrian Dix
Dix said we’re living in urgent times, pointing to the tariffs threatened by the incoming Trump administration down south as well as the fires ravaging Los Angeles.
“No one who lives in Fort Nelson or Williams Lake or Lytton will do anything but understand the impact of that (urgency), because we have urgent choices to make as a province and as a community,” Dix said in reference to fires those communities have suffered from.
He said that urgency has spurred the approval of the renewable power projects, the twinning of the North Coast transmission line because they’re needed by the mining industry, coastal communities, northwest BC and BC as a whole.
“It means that this is not the time for provinces to dispute with one another, but to act together,” Dix said.
“Urgency means going to Alberta and working with the Alberta energy minister to see if we can come together on common cause and common policy. Urgency means taking advantage of the incredible opportunities to make BC a clean energy superpower and to build on the work that’s done by people in this room, but also the working people out there who do the work to make that happen.”
Notably, Alberta was the only province not to sign a joint declaration between all the provincial, territorial and federal governments on the country’s shared response to the threatened tariffs.
The point of contention for Premier Danielle Smith was that she disagreed with Canada potentially cutting off energy exports to the United States as a response.
Later, Dix said that BC can expect action from his ministry and promised a review of CleanBC energy policies.
He also said that he thought the climate debate has been bogged down by discussion of the federal carbon tax for too long and we need to move past it. He referenced reporting that federal Liberal Party leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland would scrap the consumer-facing carbon tax if she becomes Justin Trudeau’s replacement.
“We have got to become, if I dare say, become more populist about climate policy and make it something that we all feel a part of and act a part of.”
Jobs Minister Diana Gibson
Gibson said Trump’s late-night tweet about the 25 per cent tariffs came shortly after accepting her portfolio, which includes economic development.
Developing BC’s response to that threat has been the biggest focus of her ministry, she said, saying fighting them with every piece of leverage the province has to defend its economic interests is part of her strategy.
On trade diversification, she said BC opened three foreign trade offices last year including Vietnam and Mexico. Across the entire world, Gibson said BC has 43 trade and investment representatives working in the province’s interests.
Within the province, she said the province is building relationships through its export navigator program, which helps businesses “pivot to other markets.”
“We have succeeded in doing that to some extent because we’re the least reliant on the U.S. of all the provinces,” Gibson said. “But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot to do to work together to defend our economic interests.”
Going forward, Gibson said she wants to work with forum attendees to find opportunities to move up the supply chain, bring in more manufacturing and specifically more value-added manufacturing.
Water Minister Randene Neill
Neill described her department’s focus as building the economy in a way that protects the environment.
“That’s not a false choice,” Neill said. “We can and we will do both of those together … I think we all get that and we’re forging a new path together in so many ways.”
During the election, she said she heard from local governments that they feel like a lot of provincial issues have been put on their shoulders, including water issues.
She said it’s the province’s job to help those communities succeed, especially when it comes to protecting watersheds.
Water permitting is a huge deal, Neill said, especially since water is BC’s predominant power source.
Neill said ministries need to work together to eliminate silos and allow projects to be built more quickly. The need for this has been hammered into her since day one on the job.
She cited other cross-ministry task forces for things like housing that she said are making a difference.
“(Water) powers our economy, whether it’s industry, whether it’s farming, whether it’s drinking water, whether it’s communities,” Neill said.
“We know so many areas are in drought right now. We need to work on solutions to make sure that we are not in the same situation 10 years from now, 20 years from now and 100 years from now.”
