B.C. Premier David Eby has finally acknowledged what constitutional lawyers have been saying for years: pipelines are federal jurisdiction and he doesn't have the authority to stop one. He announced his government will not go to court to fight a proposed pipeline from Alberta.

The catch, as Ezra Levant, Sheila Gunn Reid, and Drea Humphrey broke down on Friday's Rebel Roundtable, is that Eby still wants to be paid. Specifically, he wants ongoing compensation for what he calls the environmental risks B.C. would be taking on — even though the original Trans Mountain pipeline has been operating since the Korean War without incident, and pipeline technology has advanced dramatically since then.

"It's interesting that he's just now recognizing that he does not have the constitutional ability to block a pipeline," Sheila said, "because he's been saying the opposite for a very long time. And Mark Carney has allowed him to say the opposite for a very long time."

Ezra was skeptical the arrangement will attract investment.

Pipelines are typically the largest single property taxpayer in whatever county they pass through, he noted — not a burden, but a windfall. Construction phases generate enormous employment, including for nearby First Nations communities. The camps alone — cooking, cleaning, housing, and feeding workers — create significant local economic activity.

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"This is somehow a burden that Alberta needs to pay bribes for," he said. "I don't think this is going to succeed."

The deeper problem, Ezra argued, is that oil companies have been fleeing Canada for a decade — making investment decisions that favour Kazakhstan over Alberta because the risk-adjusted returns are considered more reliable there. "Imagine a company saying we believe it is less risky to get a rate of return from Kazakhstan than from Alberta," he said. "There is something wrong in Canada."

Sheila pushed back on the idea that pipelines are an environmental liability, noting she lives in Strathcona County — home to several refineries and numerous pipelines — which has some of the lowest property tax rates relative to home values in the country.

"Why? Several refineries and a bunch of pipelines," she said. "They pay such enormous property taxes. It keeps everybody else's lower. Every hockey rink has an oil company name on it." Eby, she said, is pretending the industry pillages communities and leaves. "They become long-standing parts of the community where everybody gets a benefit going forward."

Ezra compared Alberta's environmental standards to what she observed in Midland, Texas — where cleanup rules are far more lax — and noted Canada already operates under some of the most stringent environmental and social governance requirements in the world.

"At a certain point you have to say, maybe we're chumps," he said. "No one else in the world does this."

The Rebel Roundtable airs Fridays at 11 a.m. MT / 1 p.m. ET right on RebelNews.com.