Murray Wood: Appropriately incorrect
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B.C. Premier David Eby says he’ll be telling Prime Minister Mark Carney that no trade deal with the U.S. is better than a bad one at a first ministers’ meeting where he says he’ll also push Ottawa for American-style anti-racketeering laws to go after organized crime.
Eby and other premiers are set to attend a Council of the Federation meeting on Prince Edward Island before the first ministers’ meeting with Carney.
The meetings comes after U.S. President Donald Trump declined to extend the Canada-United States-Mexico trade deal known as CUSMA for another 16 years, triggering concerns about the long-term future of free trade.
Eby says in an interview that B.C. has been consistent in holding that any agreement that entrenches current U.S. tariffs on key industries like softwood lumber would be worse than the status quo.
He says softwood must be a “key part” of any resolution, and Carney should “hold the line.”
Eby told an news conference earlier Friday that other issues he would press at the meetings included health care, interprovincial trade, wildfire co-operation and the need for a federal legal framework to target facilitators of crime who currently operate legally, similar to U.S. anti-racketeering and anticorruption laws known as the RICO Act.
He said a recent U.S. investigation that resulted in the indictment of three B.C. residents highlighted the need for such laws in Canada.
Eby, a former executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, says such groups would probably oppose the measures he proposes, and expansions of police authority should be tested, but there is a need to balance those concerns with preserving public safety.
The U.S. Justice Department last week announced the arrests of the B.C. trio among 24 suspects around the world, in connection with offences by India-based criminal groups
He says Canada doesn’t have the full capacity to protect citizens and their right to live in peace, and RICO-style laws are “something we should try.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2026.
Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press
