The bonding of Washington State and British Columbia: Even with our border closed, we share a gorgeous corner of the world

While the U.S.-Canada bor­der remains closed to non-essen­tial traf­fic, nei­ther the pan­dem­ic shut­down nor the 49th Par­al­lel and Strait of Juan de Fuca have obstruct­ed the bond­ing between Wash­ing­ton and British Columbia.

Two sig­nals have come this month.

Vic­to­ria and eight oth­er Van­cou­ver Island com­mu­ni­ties are no longer dump­ing raw sewage into the Strait. Decades in the mak­ing, a new state of the art treat­ment plant in Esquimalt has begun oper­a­tion, cel­e­brat­ed in a bud­dy phone call between Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and B.C. Pre­mier John Horgan.

The pre­mier has also tapped provin­cial leg­is­la­tor Rick Glumac to serve as Liai­son for the State of Wash­ing­ton, tasked with “ensur­ing our gov­ern­ment remains engaged in cross-bor­der issues.” Hor­gan and Inslee have mul­ti­ple irons in the fire, from pro­tec­tion of the Sal­ish Sea to a high-speed rail link for the region.

The Unit­ed States and Cana­da share the world’s longest peace­ful bor­der. B.C. shares a bound­ary with Wash­ing­ton, Ida­ho and Mon­tana, as well as a bor­der with Alas­ka topped by the 15,300’ Mount Fairweather.

It is, how­ev­er, a bound­ary that has endured stress.

The late Prime Min­is­ter Pierre Elliott Trudeau (father of Justin) likened life next door to “the States” to being in bed with an eight hun­dred-pound goril­la: “You feel every twitch.” On a mem­o­rable White House tape, Pres­i­dent Nixon was heard call­ing the elder Trudeau “an ass­hole.” To which Trudeau replied, “I’ve been called worse things by bet­ter men.” A pri­vate chuck­le for Cana­di­ans: The tree plant­ed by Nixon on Par­lia­ment Hill in Ottawa grew up crooked.

“This is a sov­er­eign coun­try,” then‑B.C. Pre­mier Dave Bar­rett once intoned to a vis­it­ing “Yank reporter.” Cana­da has need­ed to stress that point, such as when Pre­mier Jean Chre­tien would not join the “coali­tion” orga­nized by Pres­i­dent George W. Bush to invade Iraq. A vis­it by Chre­tien to Bush’s Texas ranch was called off, and the pli­ant Prime Min­is­ter of Aus­tralia wel­comed in his stead.

The links of Wash­ing­ton and B.C. have under­gone stress at times. Inslee and Hor­gan are avun­cu­lar guys, both one­time high school jocks, both pro­gres­sives, so the rela­tion­ship at present is cor­dial – with pan­dem­ic-caused dis­tance keeping.

It wasn’t always so. In the late 1970s, Canada’s Nation­al Ener­gy Board raised the price of fos­sil gas exports to the Unit­ed States. Wash­ing­ton Nat­ur­al Gas had put big bucks behind the 1976 cam­paign of Gov­er­nor Dixy Lee Ray. It decid­ed to cash in, send­ing Ray over to Vic­to­ria in a bid to chal­lenge the gas price hike.

As often the case, Ray did not read her brief­ing papers.

She arrived under the impres­sion that Pre­mier Bill Ben­nett could roll back the price increase. Over lunch in the Ben­gal Room of the Empress Hotel, with a cou­ple drinks in her, Dixy demand­ed that Ben­nett do just that.

Ben­nett tried to explain Canada’s gov­ern­ment, not­ing that the Nation­al Ener­gy Board was a fed­er­al, not provin­cial, agency. The gov­er­nor then told the pre­mier he could take B.C.’s gas and put it where the moon don’t shine. Ray land­ed back in Seat­tle, called a press con­fer­ence, and urged Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to shift to oil.

Wash­ing­ton Nat­ur­al Gas took months repair­ing the dam­age. A seri­ous guy, Pre­mier Ben­nett would break out in a broad smile when the inci­dent came up.

Years lat­er, how­ev­er, Gov­er­nor Chris­tine Gre­goire and Pre­mier Gor­don Camp­bell lob­bied suc­cess­ful­ly to expand Amtrak’s cross bor­der Cas­cades rail ser­vice in advance of the 2010 Van­cou­ver Win­ter Olympics.

Then-Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden led America’s del­e­ga­tion to open­ing cer­e­monies, after rais­ing mon­ey in Seat­tle for Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Murray.

Per­son­al­i­ties play on the inter­na­tion­al stage.

When Mike Lowry was elect­ed gov­er­nor in 1992, B.C. Pre­mier, and bas­ket­ball play­er, Mike Har­court ran down a list of sports in search of bond­ing. Did Lowry play golf? Was Mike a bas­ket­ball play­er? Was Lowry into rugby?

In the late 1990s, Wash­ing­ton-bound coho salmon pop­u­la­tions were in steep decline. Warm waters in Canada’s Fras­er Riv­er threat­ened the ear­ly Stu­art sock­eye salmon, who had an eight hun­dred and nine­ty mile upstream jour­ney to their spawn­ing grounds.

Both Gov­er­nor Gary Locke and Canada’s envi­ron­ment min­is­ter David Ander­son (MP from Vic­to­ria) had crossed swords with B.C. Pre­mier Glen Clark. The shar­ing of a mutu­al dis­like – along with shar­ing of baby pic­tures, since Locke and Ander­son became papas rel­a­tive­ly late in life – greased the way for a deal.

Cana­da would restrict sport fish­ing for U.S.-bound coho off Van­cou­ver Island. U.S. fish­ers would not ham­mer Fras­er-bound sockeye.

Inslee tried to raise the ques­tion of Vic­to­ria sewage dump­ing dur­ing his first term. He was blown off by B.C. Pre­mier Christy Clark, Horgan’s pre­de­ces­sor. The gov­er­nor received a valid form let­ter from B.C. envi­ron­ment min­is­ter Mark Polak.

It’s been dif­fer­ent with Hor­gan and Inslee.

Both want fast trains. Both have opposed the Trans­Moun­tain Pipeline, the 890,000-barrel-a-day pipeline that would bring Alber­ta oil to an export ter­mi­nal in Burn­a­by, just east of Van­cou­ver. The pipeline would bring a sev­en­fold increase in tanker traf­fic through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait, which sep­a­rates our San Juan Islands from the Gulf Islands of B.C.

The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment is bulling ahead with the six hun­dred and twen­ty mile long pipeline from Edmon­ton to Burn­a­by, despite its ten­u­ous eco­nom­ics. Inslee and Hor­gan have sought to point out that tankers would tra­verse sen­si­tive marine waters. A spill would have cat­a­stroph­ic con­se­quences for fish­eries, marine life, the recre­ation econ­o­my, and nation­al park prop­er­ties in both countries.

“We stand on guard for thee” are famil­iar words from the nation­al anthem O Cana­da. They car­ry mean­ing when your bed­mate is an eight hun­dred point gorilla.

Long ago, the fall of 1964, Pres­i­dent Lyn­don John­son and Canada’s P.M. Lester Pear­son met at the Peace Arch to sign the Colum­bia Riv­er Treaty. They were joined by flam­boy­ant B.C. Pre­mier W.A.C. “Wacky” Ben­nett. The treaty pro­vid­ed for con­struc­tion of three dams upstream in British Colum­bia, to store water that would pow­er the great third pow­er­house at Grand Coulee Dam.

As I write this piece, on a cold, dark late Decem­ber day, the third pow­er­house is help­ing keep lights on through­out the Northwest.

But… Wacky Ben­nett was tak­en to the clean­ers. The three dams did great envi­ron­men­tal dam­age north of the bor­der, killing wildlife and giv­ing the beau­ti­ful Arrow Lakes a fluc­tu­at­ing shore­line and dust storms. B.C. did not imme­di­ate­ly need its share of pow­er from the Treaty. Ben­nett sold it all for one lump sum. As Ben­nett beamed, giant repli­ca of the check was dis­played at the Peace Arch.

As three decades went by, the val­ue of that elec­tric­i­ty increased enor­mous­ly, but British Colum­bia was locked into Wacky Bennett’s deal.

Impacts are still felt on occasion.

Stu­pid­ly, they didn’t log out the nine­ty mile long reser­voir behind Mica Dam on the Upper Colum­bia. Canoeists on the Kim­bas­ket reser­voir have expe­ri­enced trees break­ing loose deep in the lake and pop­ping to the surface.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, rene­go­ti­a­tion of the Colum­bia Riv­er Treaty is a big­ger issue in “Beau­ti­ful British Colum­bia” than down here in “the States.”