BC NDP government disappointed many with its determination to finish Site C regardless of physical or financial obstacles. That is despite the party’s position when Official Opposition that recognized lower cost and less damaging alternatives.
Unfortunately, misinformation spread by BC Hydro and Peace River dam proponents left voters confused in 2020, wondering if they should believe facts presented by project opponents or information promoted by official sources.
For me, Site C is just one failure of the BC NDP.
Policies to promote increased production of fossil fuels may be even more dangerous.
We know that people pocketing a share of the billions spent on unsafe energy projects are aggressive promoters. The New York Times science writer Henry Fountain reported the powerful fossil fuels industry…
lobbied against policies to tackle global warming, and funded efforts to obscure the well-established science that global warming is caused primarily by greenhouse gases generated by burning fossil fuels and other human activities.
These efforts are often obscured from public view, but their influence becomes clear in regulatory and lobbying records and by piecing together information from insiders and other sources…
Climate change deniers are like remorseless people who promoted the spread of killer opioids, preferring financial gain above all else.
Within hours of the NDP government’s reelection, it approved the Woodfibre LNG project that will result in dangerous movement of LNG tankers in the constrained waters of Howe Sound.
Knowledgeable observers of BC NDP policies are not surprised government decided it is acceptable for Howe Sound to be a potential sacrifice zone. The Horgan Government has even greater commitment to promoting LNG than Christy Clark’s administration.
NDP has often been blamed by critics for being too heavily influenced by labour unions, lobbyists and dreamers while lacking basic business sense. NDP energy policies are proving critics correct.
GlobalData, an international analytics and consulting company put out a release today that included:
Significantly low gas prices and the global LNG supply glut caused by COVID-19 has led to a delay in upcoming LNG projects in Canada. Prevailing market conditions are making it difficult to find investors…
Rising competition and a supply overhang might make it challenging for Canadian LNG producers to remain cost-competitive…
In February 2020, Woodside wrote down US$720 million [C$955 million] in the Kitimat LNG project in which the company owns a 50% stake…
[Haseeb Ahmed, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData] concludes, “Canada’s LNG sector needs to come up with strategies to thwart competition from the US…
Attentive taxpayers know what those strategies will be.
In few words: a demand for direct cash subsidies. There is nothing else left to give.
British Columbia has already offered the LNG industry carbon tax exemptions and other tax holidays, discounted electricity worth hundreds of millions, interest free loans, tariff exemptions and welcome mats for foreign workers.
Perhaps more significantly, LNG producers will enjoy natural gas feedstock that is almost free of royalty and rights payments to the public.
Early in 2020, the Horgan Government suspended monthly auctions of petroleum and natural gas rights. It is continuing royalty reduction programs that have already totalled $10 billion since 2007 and, with credits accrued, have resulted in net royalties being negative in four of the last five years.
While natural gas producers now pay nothing to the BC public in comparison to earlier days, production of the fossil fuel has about doubled in the last ten years.
Fossil fuels may pose an existential threat to the world, but politicians in western Canada are either unaware or indifferent. Evidence suggests the latter.
Categories: LNG, Methane Gas
in-sights.ca 
The NDP is going to bankrupt BC and our grandchildren are the ones that are going to suffer
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/kids-tried-to-sue-canada-over-climate-inaction.-they-lost
Here is further proof that the courts are also indifferent to the suffering that will be caused in the future.
Yet another institution that is not worthy of our trust.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Despite the hype and hoopla by the likes of Tieleman and others, the NDP are not Green, not one iota. They talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.
The NDP is a labour party and what is good for big unions, is good for the NDP. and to hell with the rest.
This means the NDP are tied to big mega projects, which will use union workers and to hell with taxpayers.
Site C, the trucking industry (union trucking), highway and bridge construction, and expensive transit projects like the BS Line, all will keep their union friends employed. Green, they are not.
The Horgan/Meggs Premiership is not based on what is good for the province or the environment, it is based on what is good for union employment.
With the BC Greens, still in their infancy, gives the NDP an almost undisputed claim that they are indeed Green and this, supported by the lackadaisical mainstream media gives the public the idea that the NDP are Green.
It is the old “repeat a lie often enough and the people are bound to believe it”.
The trouble for the Horgan/Meggs Premiership is that Covid-19 has thrown a spanner into the financial works and Horgan will have to decide how and by how much will he have to tax the people to supply union jobs for needless mega projects, which are Green only on paper.
The Horgan/Meggs Premiership must be aware that the taxpayer in BC will rise up and protest, as what happened to Gordon Campbell and as higher taxes were ignored, this could be the NDP’s undoing in 2021.
The NDP are living in interesting times.
LikeLike
What the f**k is the matter with people (I’m loosely including Horgan in that classification).
There is absolutely no reason at all for these twin travesties!
Jawbs? There are lots available in renewable energy, honoring Chrispy Clark’s promise to four lane the TCH and I’m sure a host of other less damaging developments.
Financial gain? For whom? Certainly not the Province, or 99% of the population. Perhaps a few 1%ers, some International parasites. Why in the world should we give a hoot about them?
Environmental concerns? That’s the last thing these governments care about!
I know, I’m just pissing in the wind! Maybe blame the population? After all, it is they who voted this scurvy bunch in. I’m sure if there was an answer, someone much more capable than I would have divined it by now.
Thanks Norm, for your efforts. Perhaps if we’d cloned a couple of thousand of you we’d have a chance!
LikeLike
One of the answers is SNC Lavlin. They have bribed foreign governments and purchased ours.
Our elected officials have been compromised and are now doing the bidding of corrupt businesses like SNC. LNG, Site C, TMX all are money losers. Why would any government risk lives and destroy the environment for a project that will lose money?
Because the contracts are big and there will be a lot of money sloshing around and management jobs for ex-politicians and public servants.
Every public institution is a sham here in BC. I’ve seen the inner workings and the only thing that can save us from the corruption and incompetence is to expose the rotten apples and remove them … unlikely if some of the rotten apples hold all the power.
LikeLiked by 3 people
A letter was sent to David Eby asking for a judicial inquiry for TransLink a year ago and the answer was shocking, as Eby said that Translink could do as it wishes without any sort of investigation.
The letter showed quite convincingly that the claim that Broadway was the busiest transit corridor in Canada, no North America was a fabrication and the idea of an inquiry made TransLink restate that Broadway was their most congested bus corridor.
SNC own the Engineering patents (inherited from Lavalin) for the now called Movia automatic Light Metro, used on the Expo and Millennium Lines and despite reports to the contrary are still involved in many BC mega projects.
Bombardier own the technical patents for the proprietary railway.
From Rail for the Valley
http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/life-with-snc-lavalin/
LikeLiked by 1 person
No Green New Deal for BC; just the Brown Old Deal!
LikeLike
Humanity will cease to exist… someday.
We will delay that day or hasten it’s arrival by our actions.
The people in power today seem to want to end our story sooner rather than later.
LikeLike
The worst of it is that he was reelected, an ignorant electorate. Democracy is a failure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not sure if this has been around for a while and I missed it, but I heard a term used yesterday that seems apt in this situation.
Horganized labour.
I’m also reminded again of Richard Dawkin’s warning.
“We should not forget that the only reason we have oxygen to breathe is that most of the carbon in the world is tied up underground. We burn it all at our peril.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Horganized crime.
Slightly better than Clark’s cleptocracy.
LikeLike
So more production than ever yet less money than ever for the public resource.
What is the difference between the Liberals and NDP again ? Business is the only entity that profits in BC.
LikeLiked by 1 person