Western Canada: B.C. is about to get a new premier

Good morning. It’s James Keller.

British Columbia is about to get a new premier.

David Eby is the new leader of the province’s governing New Democrats after the party executive voted to disqualify his only competitor. Mr. Eby, a 46-year-old former civil-rights lawyer, will take over from Premier John Horgan, who announced his resignation earlier this year after going through cancer treatment.

Mr. Eby was the only sitting NDP MLA to put his name forward for the leadership and he entered the race with broad support among caucus. He was expected to be coronated and it wasn’t clear whether the party would even need to hold a leadership election as scheduled in December or would simply acclaim him.

But a rival did emerge – climate advocate Anjali Appadurai, who announced her candidacy in August. Ms. Appadurai is the director of campaigns for an organization called the Climate Emergency Unit and narrowly lost her bid for a federal seat in Vancouver last fall to the Liberal candidate in one of the closest races in the country.

She faced allegations in the leadership race that she improperly co-ordinated with environmental groups. There were also allegations that people joining the NDP to support her were Green Party members; the NDP asked the Greens for help verifying whether this was true, but the party rejected that request. Ms. Appadurai denied any wrongdoing.

Earlier in the week, Elizabeth Cull, the NDP’s chief electoral officer, alleged that activity by two environmental groups supporting Ms. Appadurai constituted a contribution from a third party that skirted political financing rules. Ms. Cull recommended disqualification.

Ms. Appadurai responded by publicly putting pressure on the party to let her run, but it didn’t work. The party’s executive council voted on Wednesday to disqualify her, which meant that Mr. Eby would be acclaimed. He became leader on Friday.

Her failed candidacy tapped into frustration from environmentalists who say the NDP has not fundamentally proved different than the former Liberal government on fracking, liquefied natural gas, the Site C dam and old-growth logging. In addition, the NDP government is being sued for its failure to get the province’s climate targets back on track.

Mr. Eby has since appealed to climate activists who joined the party to support his opponent to “stick around” and work with him. He also said he hoped to work with Ms. Appadurai.

On Friday, as he officially took over the party, Mr. Eby promised to block new infrastructure for British Columbia’s oil and gas sector as part of his first 100 days in office. He argued that the government cannot continue to subsidize fossil fuels or expand fossil-fuel infrastructure while trying to meet climate goals.

Neither he nor his office provided details on what that would look like in practice, but it could have an impact on expansion projects currently under consideration in B.C.

FortisBC wants to expand production of liquefied natural gas at its Tilbury LNG plant in the Vancouver suburb of Delta. And a consortium of five energy companies is proposing to double LNG Canada’s export capacity at the Shell PLC-led megaproject in Kitimat, B.C., the only LNG export terminal under construction in Canada.

Mr. Horgan’s government courted proponents of LNG to invest in the province and used subsidies to secure a $40-billion investment in the LNG Canada project. Mr. Eby did not say if those subsidies would be reconsidered.

The NDP government has already moved to eliminate its deep-well royalty program, which is the province’s largest oil and gas subsidy, but there are other incentives such as discounted electricity prices, exemptions of the B.C. carbon tax, and corporate income tax breaks that were used to lure LNG Canada.

It’s not clear when Mr. Eby will be sworn in as premier, though it is expected to happen in the coming weeks.

Mr. Horgan led his party to power in 2017 with a minority government, which he turned into a majority after calling a snap election during the pandemic. He is leaving office as one of the most popular premiers in the country.

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.