B.C. Premier David Eby has announced the launch of a cross-government task force to monitor the implications of the Iran war on the province.
Speaking in front of reporters inside the B.C. Legislature on Monday, Eby, and Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon said that the panel will meet this week to assess impacts and to debate possible solutions.
“We will be bringing together folks within government to be able to address where the pressure points are, the choke points are,” Eby said.
“We’ll be able to engage with different business leaders as well as our international partners to find solutions.”
According to Kahlon, the conflict in the Middle East is not only squeezing oil transport.
He says the conflict is starting to affect supply chains in industries such as health care, agriculture, energy, and transportation.
“40 per cent of the world’s helium, 40 per cent of the world’s fertilizer, 10 per cent of the world’s aluminum; all of these things are starting to have a real impact on everything from food to basic medicine that we require in our communities,” the minister explained.
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Canada is one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, and B.C.’s Rio Tinto aluminum smelter in Kitimat is a big part of that.
Rio Tinto has nine locations in the country, one in B.C. and eight in Quebec.
Both politicians say that they hope that the conflict will end soon, but in the meantime, they are calling on the provinces and the federal government to coordinate a response.
“We are getting to the point where we are going to need to start, step up, and take some action both to support our local economies but also to support our partners in different markets,” Kahlon added.
”By working together, we can weather any future storms,” Eby said.