VICTORIA — American duties on Canadian softwood lumber and the ban of American alcohol by B.C. will be on the table when Premier David Eby meets the U.S. ambassador to Canada in Victoria today.
Ambassador Pete Hoekstra is the same representative who said last year that U.S. President Donald Trump thinks Canada is “mean and nasty” for avoiding American travel and banning its alcohol.
Eby says he plans to bring up the softwood lumber dispute as the forest companies face tariffs and duties of about 45 per cent, and he expects the ambassador to bring up the removal of American liquor from government stores.
The premier, who has also urged Canadians not to travel to the United States, says he will also talk to Hoekstra about the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement on trade that is scheduled for review this summer.
While B.C. is diversifying its trade, Eby says the province needs to have “good relations” with the United States, because it “cannot replace that trading market.”
Eby says he will also use the meeting to ask Hoekstra to tell the U.S. administration that adopting the same time zone along the West Coast would be “a good win” for both countries after his government announced the province won’t be shifting back the clock in November.
Interim B.C. Conservative leader Trevor Halford says he hopes the meeting will result in more than just announcements.
Halford says Eby has been over-promising and under-delivering on the file.
“So, whatever he’s doing, he should probably do the opposite.”
Halford said the government’s decision to remove all U.S.-made alcohol from its public stories was a “symbolic gesture.”
Eby has previously said that most Canadians would be “proud to be considered mean and nasty” and said that Trump’s comments as described by the ambassador show that Canadian countermeasures, such as pulling liquor off shelves, are having an impact.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2026.
Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press
