John Horgan is involved in a political game that could be called, “Look at This, Not at That!”

No one should argue with the need for energy consumers to use non-destructive, clean renewable electricity in place of fossil fuels. Encouragement of that shift is vital to human survival.

But another part of the Horgan plan is to increase use of fossil fuels and pretend no harmful emissions of carbon result from burning coal exported from BC ports or by liquefaction, transportation, regasification, and consumption of natural gas in other jurisdictions.

Each resident of British Columbia should argue vehemently with Horgan’s determination to continue expanding natural gas production and coal exports.

Encouragement of increased fossil fuel output is primarily done by government foregoing the public share of resource revenues, thereby making production more profitable. This has been achieved with credits granted to reduce royalty payments. Credits used and accrued by the industry since 2007 amount to more than $11 billion, including $968 million in the fiscal year ended March 2021. The BC Government never publicly talks about the level of these subsidies.

But royalty relief is only part of the corporate welfare program for gas producers. From the end of 1996 to December 2018, BC failed to hold a monthly auction of rights only twice (0.8%). From March 2020 to October 2021, 90% of monthly rights sales were cancelled. One brought in only a single bonus bid of $807.

This chart show hectares assigned to producers after public tenders of crown petroleum and natural gas rights.

Not surprisingly, revenue disappeared.

Instead of government subjecting gas companies to competitive bidding, rights are now mostly rewarded in the privacy of offices supervised by ex Fraser Institute proselytizer Fazil Mihlar.

If the goal was to decrease public revenues and raise gas production levels, the BC government has been wildly successful. These are marketable gas production volumes reported by Natural Resources Canada, with estimates for the last few months of 2021 based on established trends.

The world needs systemic change, not undue focus on individual carbon footprints, to effectively tackle climate change, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.

I think that only focusing on individual responsibility is what the big polluters would want us to do. That is not the answer. The answer is, we must get policy and systemic change in place. Policy is the way you get systemic change,