ICBA.ca OP/ED: Cabinet Nimbyism Yet Another NDP Hurdle to B.C. Prosperity

The Tilbury LNG plant has been making liquefied natural gas on the Fraser River since 1971. That’s 55 years. It was fuelling B.C. homes and industry before most of the people protesting it were born.

Last Friday, Energy Minister Adrian Dix and the Eby cabinet finally said yes to expanding it. FortisBC’s $2-billion project means about 1,100 jobs a year through four years of construction, more than $800 million in GDP, $260 million in tax revenue, up to $20 million a year in natural gas royalties, and an equity stake for the Musqueam Indian Band. It will fuel ships at the Port of Vancouver with LNG instead of diesel bunker fuel — cutting greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter and sulphur pollution by 90 per cent.

Jobs in Delta. Revenue for the province. Cleaner air over the harbour. A win for B.C.’s natural gas sector at the exact moment Donald Trump’s tariffs are pounding our exporters and every government in Canada claims to be hunting for new markets and new paycheques.

Then came the weekend.

Kelly Greene, Richmond-Steveston MLA and Premier David Eby’s Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, went public against her own government's decision. Not a backbencher. Not an activist waving a placard. A sitting cabinet minister, publicly campaigning against a project her own cabinet approved days earlier.

A few years ago, Greene opposed the project as a Richmond city councillor. Then, as an MLA with the project in environmental review, she suddenly had nothing to say, telling the Richmond News “it would be inappropriate” for her to comment on an independent process.

Then, once her own government said yes, she suddenly became a NIMBY, and spoke out again.

What she should have done is resign.

Cabinet government runs on one simple deal: fight for your position as hard as you want behind closed doors, then back the group’s decision publicly, or quit. Every minister knows the deal, and history is full of ministers with the spine to honour it.

Chrystia Freeland quit Justin Trudeau's cabinet in December 2024 rather than deliver a fiscal plan she didn't believe in. Three weeks later, Trudeau was done. Last November, Steven Guilbeault — the most dogmatic climate activist at Mark Carney’s table — quit cabinet rather than back Ottawa’s energy deal with Alberta. Blair Lekstrom quit Gordon Campbell's cabinet in 2010 because he couldn’t defend the HST to his constituents. Michael Chong resigned from Stephen Harper's cabinet in 2006 rather than support a motion he opposed. Jane Philpott walked away from Justin Trudeau's cabinet table in 2019 on principle. And when Bill Bennett kept blasting his premier from inside cabinet, Campbell turfed him.

Greene wants it both ways: the title, the salary, the prestige of the world ‘honourable’ in front of her name, the seat at the cabinet table – and the freedom to campaign against that table’s decisions whenever she wants.

Meanwhile, there’s real money on the table for B.C. families. B.C. is staring down American tariffs, a softening economy, and a construction sector hungry for work. Tilbury is exactly the kind of project this province needs: private capital, more than a thousand construction jobs, Indigenous partnership, cleaner marine fuel, on a site that has been doing this work for 55 years. If a cabinet minister can kneecap that from her own government’s front bench, why would any investor believe B.C. means it when it says it’s open for business?

Premier Eby has a simple question to answer: does cabinet solidarity mean anything in his government? If Greene truly believes Tilbury is wrong, she should do what Freeland, Guilbeault and Lekstrom did: resign and fight it from the backbench. If she won’t, the Premier should make the decision for her.

Donald Trump is trying to squeeze B.C.’s economy from the outside. We shouldn’t have cabinet ministers squeezing it from the inside. Pick a side, Minister. And if it’s not your government’s, hand back the keys to your cabinet office.

Jordan Bateman is Vice President, Advocacy and Communications, at the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA).