B.C.’s premier speaks on lobby’s first meeting with White House

B.C.’s premier says his meetings with White House officials in D.C. have been constructive, but more are needed.

As Canada braces for the impact of 25 per cent tariffs on all goods entering the U.S., the country’s premiers are in Washington Wednesday to lobby American lawmakers to avoid a trade war.

Premier David Eby says the lobby met with the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Sergio Gor, and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair.

“I think it was positive, the frank conversation,” said Eby. “Both Mr. Gor, Mr. Blair urged premiers to take the president at his word that he should be taken seriously and his concerns on the border, on fentanyl, and his interest in ensuring that the globe respects and treats the United States fairly in terms of trade and other interactions they have with the United States, that his concerns that he expresses are quite sincere.”

He says the group of premiers was told it was still early for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, and key secretaries were still being confirmed.

“Once those officials were in place, they wanted us to reach out again and to meet again. And indicated the president may be interested in meeting with us as well at that time,” Eby said.

The premier says he pushed for more information in the meetings, asking the White House to make the “key irritants” spurning the tariffs as explicit as possible.

He says the lobby was also told to take Trump’s threat to make Canada the 51st state seriously, but the premiers were united and steadfast.

“We underlined that that was a nonstarter,” Eby told media Thursday.

That might be an uncontroversial position north of the border, but it received swift pushback from one of the officials on the other side of the table.

“To be clear, we never agreed that Canada would not be the 51st state,” Blair posted on social media platform X. “We only agreed to share Premier Eby’s comments.”

Nevertheless, Blair called it a “pleasant meeting,”

—With files from Marcy Nicholson, The Canadian Press