In January I reminded readers that for all the bluster of the Christy Clark years, with LNG and 鈥渄ebt free B.C.,鈥� John Horgan never actually opposed chilling and exporting northeast B.C.鈥檚 abundant shale gas to Asia.
He鈥檚 fine with hydraulic fracturing too. He just promised an independent study, like he did with the Site C dam. As NDP opposition leader, it was politically convenient to sound like he detested both of these time-tested industries, the better to calm urban voters raised on a steady diet of environmental scare stories.
Now that he鈥檚 premier, the real Horgan emerges. It鈥檚 a more abrupt transition than I expected, considering his government hangs by the thinnest of green threads. Horgan seems to have found one of Clark鈥檚 old LNG hardhats in the premier鈥檚 office, and he likes the fit.
The Shell-led LNG Canada project, $40 billion worth of pipelines, processing and shipping out of Kitimat, is now Horgan鈥檚 top priority. The 鈥淟NG income tax,鈥� brought in by the B.C. Liberals, will be repealed. Construction will be exempted from sales tax as with manufacturing plants, and LNG Canada will even be exempted from carbon tax increases that start this year.
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B.C. Hydro power will be sold at the industrial rate, as it should be, although the old Horgan used to call that a subsidy from residential ratepayers.
When Clark and the B.C. Liberals were in full flight, summoning the legislature in the summer of 2015 to set conditions for the Petronas-led Pacific Northwest LNG, Horgan took to calling lead minister Rich Coleman 鈥渢he gas man.鈥�
He railed for years against what we now know are much more modest LNG tax breaks. 鈥淪hell does not need handouts from government,鈥� he told a Victoria鈥檚 CFAX radio in 2013.
鈥淐hristy Clark reassures us that moving India and China away from coal-burning facilities to LNG facilities is the cleanest, greenest answer,鈥� NDP MLA Michelle Mungall in 2016. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 believe how ridiculous that is. It鈥檚 still a fossil fuel.鈥�
Guess who is now Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources? (Much to her own surprise I suspect.) And guess who鈥檚 the new gas man, as LNG policy is directed by the premier鈥檚 office?
Horgan made his first visit to China in January, where he experienced the smog-choked air in a vast country that is still building hundreds more coal-fired electricity plants to power its mind-boggling urban development.
鈥淚 stood on the bank of the Pearl River and I couldn鈥檛 see the other side,鈥� Horgan said.
I toured China two years ago and I agree with him. It has to be seen, and smelled, and tasted, to fully appreciate the scale of the building boom and the pollution crisis.
Green leader Andrew Weaver has been proven right for once. If this deal goes ahead, Site C power will be used to green up B.C. LNG, sold at the same discount industrial rate sawmills get.
Weaver was briefed on the government鈥檚 talks with LNG Canada, a rare consortium of Shell, PetroChina, KOGAS of South Korea and Japanese giant Mitsubishi. He insists that B.C.鈥檚 2030 and 2050 targets can鈥檛 be met with LNG. They can鈥檛 be met without it either, barring some miraculous technological breakthrough.
Weaver will vote against the tax breaks, especially the carbon tax relief, when legislation comes this fall.
For now, that doesn鈥檛 matter, because the B.C. Liberals have to support LNG. We鈥檒l see how outraged Weaver is next February, when he is asked to support another NDP budget.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca
tfletcher@blackpress.ca
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