The political debate in British Columbia over how to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threat continues to reach new lows, just at the critical moment the tariffs are set to land.

BC New Democrats and Conservatives have spent the week trading pointed barbs on social media, accusing each other, at various points, of being liars and traitors when it comes to the dispute.

It culminated in a video released by the Conservatives on Wednesday, comparing American tariffs to atomic bombs and warned “the atomic tariff” could vaporize B.C.’s natural resources sector.

The whole thing was played for laughs as a mock Second World War-era newsreel, including black and white scenes of people in gas masks and buildings being blown away from bombs, while an old-timey narrator mocked Eby for his “duck and cover” response.

It was a bit bizarre — made doubly so by the fact an overwhelming number of people who work in the forestry, mining and oil and gas sectors where the tariffs will cost the most jobs voted BC Conservative in the last election, right across rural B.C.

Instead of producing videos of its MLAs standing alongside workers at mills, mines and farms, saying they’ll fight like hell in Victoria to make sure........

© BIV