The BC Conservatives led in 63 of 93 districts with 48.05 per cent of the vote in Elections BC’s preliminary count of the Oct. 24 election. The Globe and Mail and The Canadian Press, with 99 per cent of polls reporting, put the Conservatives at 64 seats elected, the NDP at 27, and the Greens at two. Mail-in and absentee ballots are counted at the final count on Nov. 6.
For Ottawa, the result changes who sits across the table on Pacific Link. The federal government now has a premier-designate who says he wants the pipeline built, so the main question is whether its own timetable and its July promise on the north coast hold up. On the record so far, Ottawa’s schedule is the slower partner.
What Doerkson has said
At a news conference in Vancouver on Oct. 25, B.C. Conservative Party leader Lorne Doerkson listed an independent review of provincial finances, citing a $14-billion deficit, along with an emergency-room commission and a tax break meant to return $1,000 to every British Columbian. He also said he would work with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to move Pacific Link ahead, the Globe reported. “We’ll work very closely with him, and of course, our neighbours,” he said of Carney.
He also plans to repeal the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDRIP), which passed the legislature unanimously in 2019, in a spring session. He also did not rule out a fall sitting. “I am still committed to the repeal of DRIPA,” he said.
Ottawa’s clock
The federal file has moved slowly. Ottawa and Alberta signed their memorandum of understanding on a West Coast oil pipeline on Nov. 27, 2025, and the Prime Minister’s Office listed Pacific Link as a project of national interest on Oct. 1, 2026, 308 days later. The PMO release sets Sept. 1, 2027, as the target for the conditions document, another 335 days on.
The release says the proponents still have to develop “a final concept,” including route mapping, cost estimates, and procurement, over the next year. The PMO projects 140,000 jobs, more than $20 billion a year in GDP, and $100 billion in government revenue by 2060.
The government’s defence is that the southern route, ending near Delta, “protects British Columbia’s North Coast” and that a single federal review will give “investors and builders the certainty they need.”With Victoria no longer a likely obstacle, the remaining delay sits largely in Ottawa’s own process, and 21 months from memorandum to conditions is a long time in a 4-year mandate for Doerkson's Conservatives.
The tanker ban
On July 2, Carney and David Eby signed a deal keeping the north coast tanker ban “fully maintained,” with $3 billion for the Fraser River Tunnel and $10 billion at Roberts Bank, Global News reported. The Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, introduced by the Liberals in 2017, bars tankers carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of oil from that coast. Eby campaigned to keep the ban.
Doerkson has not said since the election whether he wants that agreement changed. Asked on Oct. 1 whether he would seek to repeal the ban, he did not commit, saying he was “very concerned about the notion that we simply just open everything up,” Daily Hive reported. In Ottawa, Conservative MP David McKenzie’s private member’s bill, C-264, would repeal the moratorium, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and other Opposition MPs have written to Carney asking him to lift it, The Canadian Press reported on Oct. 26. Coastal First Nations – Great Bear Initiative president Marilyn Slett said in July that “oil tankers will never be part of our vision” for the north coast.
Would Ottawa reopen a deal that is less than four months old for a new partner? Carney tied the July agreement to the proposed route of the new pipeline, which suggests his government sees the ban and Pacific Link as one package.
The DRIPA risk
The repeal plan carries its own cost for the pipeline. The Globe reports that critics say repeal could invite lawsuits if Indigenous groups find provincial laws out of step with the act. Any such suits would complicate the Pacific Link further, as Indigenous communities along the route have been given options on at least 10 per cent ownership of it.
The timing is comes at an interesting juncture. The election result comes two days before Monday’s First Nations–First Ministers meeting in Ottawa. David Eby B.C.’s outgoing premier, is not expected to attend. This gives the first word on the possible repeal to First Nations leaders, potentially setting the terms of any future discussion with Doerkson's government.
What comes next
We welcome B.C.'s first Conservative government in nearly 100 years, and look forward to the province building an economy that embraces its natural resources rather than treating them like a dirty secret. We hope Doerkson can successfully navigate the large reforms his government has been burdened with, without alienating the voter coalition that delivered him the premier's office. It will be nice to have a serious B.C. after nearly a decade of governments more concerned with virtue signalling and special interests rather than improving the livelihoods of working British Columbians.
