Premier David Eby says his government will be introducing a new law in the coming days that could charge a fee to commercial trucks driving through B.C. to Alaska as the latest response to the trade war with the United States. 

Speaking in Victoria outside outside of the legislature Thursday (March 6), Eby said the legislation will include several measures "to respond to this historic challenge, unprecedented legislation" from the U.S. Eby said the legislation will give the government flexibility to respond rapidly to executive orders from U.S. President Donald Trump. 

"It will provide legislative authority to remove internal trade and barriers that stop us from trading with our partners and friends, from coast to coast to coast."

Eby said it is a relatively small number of trucks driving through B.C. to Alaska, adding "there's not a ton of people that live in Alaska."

"It's an incredibly unfortunate thing that we have to consider. This is a state that we worked with to help build the Alaska Highway. You know we share so much with Alaskans here in British Columbia. Their state borders ours for quite an extended run up there in the northwest."

But he said this isn't about Alaskans or the volume of trucks.

"It's about sending a message to the president, to the Republican Congress representatives in Alaska, to the Republican governor in Alaska that we need them to be on side."

Eby said this legislation will be time limited, but "my hope is that he backs off."

"It's my sincere hope that our pressure on the United States that level head in the United States that everybody prevails on the president to back off of this self-destructive approach to hurting American families and American businesses," he said.

"You can see the U.S. stock market dramatically under-performing, the European stock market, that uncertainty, that damage to business in the United States is being caused by the president's tariff threats."

However, shortly before Eby spoke to media Thursday, Trump announced a pause on some of the tariffs until early April. Eby said he did see the reports that, "yet again, the president is sowing uncertainty and chaos, attempting to undermine our economy by implementing tariffs and then quickly pulling them off."

"We are not going to accept the continued threat, continued uncertainty. We're going to stand up for Canadians. This is unacceptable, and we're going to ensure that the Americans understand how pissed off we are, how unified we are, how committed we are to working as a country to stand up for each other."

More to come.