What the BC Conservative Majority Means for Carbon Markets in British Columbia

On Saturday, October 24, British Columbians elected a BC Conservative majority government, the first since 1928 and ending nine years of NDP rule. On Elections BC’s preliminary count as of October 25, the Conservatives are elected or leading in 63 of the province’s 93 ridings, well clear of the 47 needed for a majority, with the NDP at 28 and the BC Greens holding their two seats. The Conservatives carried roughly 48% of the popular vote, against 37% for the NDP and 11% for the Greens.

Interim leader Lorne Doerkson, the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin, is now premier-designate, while David Eby announced his resignation as NDP leader on election night. Results remain preliminary until Elections BC completes its final count, with certified results expected on November 18. The new government will not take its seats in the legislature until at least mid-November, though Doerkson has not ruled out recalling the legislature for a shortened fall session.

The Conservative platform

The Conservatives campaigned on Lorne Doerkson’s Plan for a Stronger BC, a growth-first platform built around tax relief, faster project approvals and an expanded resource sector, anchored by a pledge to double natural gas production by 2032 and triple it by 2035. For carbon market participants, three commitments stand out.

Repeal of CleanBC

The platform commits to repealing CleanBC, the province’s climate plan, to remove what it describes as barriers to investment and growth. The party points to the province’s own modelling, which it says shows CleanBC leaving BC’s economy CAD 28.1 billion smaller in 2030 than under the policies in place in 2017. The platform names several CleanBC-linked measures for removal or change, including ending the zero-emission vehicle sales quota, overhauling the BC Energy Step Code and aligning BC’s aviation fuel targets with the federal framework.

It does not, however, set out the full scope or sequencing of the repeal, including which remaining measures would be unwound, on what timeline, or what, if anything, would replace the province’s legislated emissions-reduction targets. The practical reach of the repeal will therefore be defined in legislation and regulation rather than in the platform itself.

Carbon price on large industrial emitters

The repeal stops short of industrial carbon pricing. The platform’s fiscal plan commits to keeping a carbon price on large industrial emitters, along with the revenue it raises, which implies the BC Output-Based Pricing System (OBPS) remains in place. The platform is silent on the price schedule and program design, though a separate pledge of competitive carbon costs for existing mines and smelters signals sensitivity to compliance costs in trade-exposed sectors.

Retaining an industrial carbon price is also not purely a provincial choice. The federal benchmark sets the minimum standards provinces must meet, and where a province does not maintain an equivalent system, the federal backstop applies. Alberta shows the likely path: rather than exiting carbon pricing, it negotiated a slower trajectory within the federal framework, now CAD 95 per tonne in 2026 rising to CAD 115 by 2030. We expect BC to track that federal floor rather than exceed it.

The new government also inherits the Canada-British Columbia Cooperative Prosperity Agreement, under which Ottawa committed to quantify the fiscal impact of the revised benchmark on BC and negotiate a funding agreement to compensate the province. A compensation arrangement is due on or before December 1, 2026, one of the first dated milestones the new government will face.

Emissions accounting and the three climate tests

The platform states that every climate decision will pass three tests: whether it protects people from fires, floods, heat and drought; whether it cuts emissions rather than moving them, and the jobs that go with them, to dirtier jurisdictions overseas; and whether it delivers measurable results.

The second test underpins the commitment to track emissions accurately. Emissions would still be counted where they occur, but BC’s inventory would be reported alongside emissions avoided through cleaner BC exports. The platform also commits to counting the full value of BC’s forests in the province’s favour as emissions offsets. Taken together, this points to a shift from a strictly territorial inventory toward an accounting framework that credits BC for LNG-driven displacement abroad and for forest sinks at home.

The platform does not specify how forest carbon would be quantified, whether these credits would be netted against provincial emissions or reported separately, or how they would interact with existing offset protocols and the BC Carbon Registry. For compliance markets, the key question is whether this remains a reporting exercise or extends to new forest offset supply eligible under the BC OBPS, which would add to the pool of units available to regulated facilities.

Fresh policy risk for the BC-LCFS

The BC election results introduce fresh policy risk for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, though the Conservatives’ 2026 platform points to a materially less hostile stance on the program than it took in 2024. Unlike the 2024 Conservative platform, which explicitly committed to repealing the BC-LCFS alongside the consumer carbon tax, the 2026 platform makes no mention of the BC-LCFS program. We read the omission as a possible softening and view outright repeal as a tail risk.

We expect the program could remain in place, but could face targeted changes, including a relaxation of jet fuel obligations and possibly guardrails aimed at containing credit price spikes as cost of living remains central to the new government’s agenda. With a majority in hand, the incoming government would not require opposition support to make these changes. The BC-LCFS rests on its own statute under the Low Carbon Fuels Act and is not reached by a repeal of the CleanBC plan on its face, so the scope of any CleanBC rollback, including changes to the Low Carbon Fuels Act or its regulations, will be important to watch.

Further support for retention comes from the program’s role in underwriting investment and jobs in the party’s core base. Pre-election polling showed the Conservatives leading by more than 20 points in the Southern Interior and North, home to Tidewater’s Prince George renewable diesel complex. Since 2014, BC-LCFS Initiative Agreements have provided more than 2.7 million LCFS credits to over 50 projects, tied to more than CAD 2 billion in low-carbon fuel investment.

Other elements of the Conservative platform would also affect the program. The commitment to end the zero-emission vehicle sales quota could slow growth in EV charging credits under both the BC-LCFS and the CFR over time. The pledge to align BC’s aviation fuel targets with the federal framework points to the potential for some relaxation of jet fuel obligations. However, key investments in jet fuel sit in party strongholds. Tidewater signed a new Initiative Agreement with the province on June 19 to fund pre-FID work on its 6,500 barrel per day SAF project. Removing all SAF incentives would weaken the economics of a major proposed investment in Prince George, one of the two locations the platform names for a Clean Fuels Hub, suggesting the approach may prove more subtle.