Rethinking CleanBC – time to reset the premise, not just the targets

A case study in ambition without execution – and the price we’re paying for it.

By Stewart Muir

British Columbians were promised a smooth transition to a cleaner economy. But as the CleanBC program undergoes a quiet handover and an internal review, it’s clear the plan has lost its footing.

CleanBC was introduced in 2018 as British Columbia’s signature climate and energy strategy – more of a collection of over 20 separate initiatives than a cohesive policy. These include measures like vehicle sales mandates, fuel regulations, emissions caps, and land-use controls. It's a sprawling patchwork that aims to reshape nearly every sector of the economy, albeit with the grace of someone assembling IKEA furniture without the manual.

Now, as scheduled by legislation, CleanBC is undergoing a review. But this isn’t the impartial, evidence-based audit British Columbians deserve. Instead, we’re getting a politically managed “reset” carried out by two career environmental activists, both drawn from the same organizational gene pool, hand-picked to evaluate a system they helped ideologically design. Fox, meet henhouse.

Any credible review must begin by re-examining the central claim behind CleanBC: that British Columbia could reduce absolute emissions while simultaneously growing its economy and maintaining affordability. It’s an optimist’s vision – one many supported in good faith. But as facts and outcomes catch up with the promises, the gap between ambition and reality is harder to ignore than a pothole on the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

CleanBC’s architects sold British Columbians on “clean growth.” But the uncomfortable reality is that the emissions reduction targets have always quietly relied on something else: economic contraction. This inconvenient truth sat buried in government data until a professional economist connected the dots. The response? Not a policy discussion, but a personal attack by the environment minister of the day – a masterclass in how not to handle criticism.

If shrinking the economy is the plan, let’s be honest about it. British Columbians deserve clarity, not character assassination.

Electric vehicles were billed as a cornerstone of the plan, with a legislated target of 100% new EV sales by 2035. But momentum is stalling. Consumers face affordability issues, infrastructure is lagging, and rural communities are skeptical. Meanwhile, dealers, utilities, and local governments are left to make sense of the jigsaw puzzle without the box cover.

CleanBC touts the development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as a key emissions lever. On paper, it sounds promising. But in practice, B.C. lacks the feedstock, infrastructure, and regulatory certainty to support a viable SAF market. The province is banking on a sector that doesn’t yet exist while treating it as a foregone conclusion. Bold, if not exactly prudent.

Come January 2026, the policy shifts from aspiration to enforcement. Airlines operating in and out of B.C. will be required to meet blending mandates that the market simply isn’t ready to support. The likely result? Higher airfares, fewer flights, and operational uncertainty – with the costs and consequences kept from the public like an awkward family secret. This isn't leadership. It's risk disguised as progress.

Nowhere is the disconnect more severe than electricity. CleanBC assumes widespread, large-scale electrification across transportation, industry, and households. But BC Hydro has consistently underestimated future demand. The result? Delayed transmission lines, industrial projects in limbo, and growing dependence on imported electricity – including U.S. power generated with B.C. natural gas, which we are barred from using ourselves. Kafka would be proud.

And then there’s the long-running policy ballet between the province, municipalities, homebuilders, and residents over natural gas use for heating, cooking, and hot water.

It’s a thicket of contradictions, made thicker by Victoria’s decision to axe the consumer carbon tax. That should incentivize investment in efficient appliances – except that your local council might (or might not) ban gas anyway.

Everyone is confused. CleanBC ought to offer a solution. Instead, it offers mime.

This is not meaningful emissions policy. It's a shell game where emissions are “reduced” at home by exporting them abroad.

No surprise, then, that the review lacks credibility. There's no one from business, Indigenous leadership, industry, or regional communities on the panel – no one who's built a project, managed a payroll, or delivered power to a mine or mill. In other words, none of the usual suspects who know how things actually work.

One is left to wonder: does the B.C. Green Party now wield more policy influence than its single-digit vote share would suggest? A serious reassessment should lead to course correction – not a creative shuffle of the same deck of ideological playing cards.

The same pattern repeats in the forestry file. Key players are sounding the alarm that policy is being written by people with little understanding of how forestry works – or of the fact that forestry even does work. When forest companies – which steward vast carbon sinks and provide thousands of jobs – are locked out of policymaking, it’s not reform. It’s sabotage dressed in recycled paper.

If CleanBC follows suit, expect more grand ideas that can’t pass a field test. A flawed blueprint, both in vision and execution, this plan deserves to be retired and replaced with something built for the real world.

One fundamental lesson in energy planning: expect the unexpected. Remember Site C’s very vocal opponents? They nearly stopped it by claiming the clean electricity would never be needed. Today, it’s not just needed – it’s essential.

After years of green hydrogen hype, the province fell silent last fall. Turns out, every single project had been paused or cancelled. This has been painful to watch, if you follow hydrogen as a fuel and believe that better policy conditions would have made a difference. For now at least, the dream is paused.

Meanwhile, the most impactful environmental move B.C. could make – exporting more LNG to displace coal abroad – remains stuck in a self-made policy trap. The province says: “Yes, build the plant – but only if it runs on clean electricity.” Then adds: “Oh dear, there’s no clean electricity available. Try again in 2035.”

The era of limitless green optimism is colliding with a harder truth: we need more energy, not less.

Despite the clean energy rhetoric, around 20% of our electricity now comes from imports – often fossil-fuelled. As neighbouring regions face surging demand from AI, electrification, and population growth, banking on their spare capacity is wishful thinking. We talk self-sufficiency while quietly plugging in to someone else’s grid.

Just one thing: it can’t be nuclear, because that’s illegal in B.C. It can’t be natural gas, because that’s taboo. And it can’t be large-scale hydro because, well, it’s B.C. You’re starting to see the problem.

We’re at a crossroads where multiple truths must be held at once. Yes, we must reduce emissions – and we’ve done a pretty good job when measured properly. But no, the world is not undergoing an energy “transition” – it’s experiencing an energy addition. Renewables are growing, but demand is growing faster. And no, there’s no credible path to “net zero by 2050.” That noble-sounding target is cracking under the strain of physics, economics, and politics.

The real problem? No one in government wants to say so – and certainly not at the CleanBC review table.

If you’re wondering why industry isn’t making a fuss, let me assure you: it’s not because they’re happy. I speak regularly with decision-makers across sectors. Their silence isn’t agreement – it’s self-preservation. Fear of retribution. Fear of being called out. Fear of seeing permits evaporate like a snowflake in a hot policy meeting.

Call it what it is: a quiet energy omertà.

When silence is enforced through soft intimidation, the review process is rigged from the start.

While CleanBC spins its wheels, shrinks the economy, and sows confusion, quiet progress is happening where it counts – in the real world. Airlines are improving fuel efficiency. Auto dealers are transitioning fleets. Gas utilities are modernizing infrastructure and cutting emissions. These are the people who keep the neonatal units humming, your Uber running, and the pub boiler brewing.

If you want a glimpse of the future, don’t look to Victoria’s briefing notes. Look north. In Pouce Coupe, Forefront Energy is installing solar arrays to cut methane use at well sites. At Aspen Point, Enbridge is deploying all-electric compressors. And on the bluffs above Site C, the reservoir is filling, and turbines are about to spin.

That’s not a slogan. That’s what real progress looks like.

CleanBC was a political pact – crafted more to appease ideological allies than to solve actual problems. Its failures aren’t abstract. They’re showing up in lost jobs, investor hesitation, and public frustration.

British Columbians want real climate action. They also know when the salt of honesty, competence, and inclusion is missing from the broth.

If this review is to matter, it must begin with an honest admission: we’ve confused aspiration for delivery, sidelined key voices, and built a plan that crumples under real-world pressure.