While John Horgan’s government has been using billions of public dollars to improve profitability of private producers of fossil fuels, University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) professor Élyse Caron-Beaudoin has been examining effects of natural gas production on people living near BC gas fields…
BC’s GHG emissions worse than we’ve been told
Governments of Canada and three western provinces are committed to increasing fossil fuel production, despite science that says we must begin to reduce GHG emissions immediately. Canada’s Industrial and political leaders have gone well beyond ignoring the precautionary principle. They are now following a considered path to disaster. Caring nothing about the future, they care instead about reaping financial rewards today.
Production up; public revenue down
BC fights climate change by reducing the public share of natural gas revenues to almost nothing, while production soars. Meanwhile, unprecedented portions of the world are on fire
Numbers speak
Climate science is not accepted by the British Columbia government. BC NDP promises “environmentally responsible development of BC’s energy resources” and while that sounds reasonable, BC’s Public Accounts reveals the real plan. John Horgan’s government is accelerating promotion of fossil fuels with increasing subsidies.
Regulators who oppose regulation
A Boston Globe report ought to interest Canadians because the Massachusetts experience improves understanding of how regulators who do not believe in regulation work hand-in-hand with industry…
BC Government “deni-osaurs”
Canada’s federal government and its three western provinces are de facto climate change deniers. National Observer labelled this type denio-osaurs. All are committed to promoting increased production and export of fossil fuels. But, in some respects, British Columbia is worst of all.
Not even a peanut stand
Believe it or not, the Horgan Government is even worse than BC Liberals on natural gas. But don’t expect them to admit it.
BC NDP should pay attention to a Republican Senator
Long time United States Senator Charles Grassley is an Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He joined with retiring Democratic Senator Tom Udall to state a position that current BC NDP members ought to heed.
Future generations will decry what we’re doing
Subsidizing natural gas production by ending industry payments for rights and royalties, while the government is also offering billions in electricity subsidies is indefensible. But the most serious issue is the environmental effect, on the ground and in the atmosphere.
BC is eliminating natural gas revenues
Beginning in Premier Gordon Campbell’s term as BC Premier, natural gas producers lobbied mightily for reductions in the public share of revenue derived from exploiting the natural resource. BC Liberals were receptive to the idea. Surprisingly, when the formerly centre-left New Democrats came to power, they accelerated the reductions.
Indifferent to existential threats
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 Canada are either unaware or indifferent. Evidence suggests the latter.
BC Government hides fossil fuel subsidies
In 2019, BC’s Auditor General concluded natural gas operators were not required by government to decommission or restore inactive well sites. Furthermore, that funds collected from operators were inadequate to cover restoration costs for wells “orphaned” by gas company bankruptcies. The Auditor General found that because of these deficiencies, the BC Government had not effectively managed the environmental and financial risks of non-operating oil and gas sites. In 2019, taxpayers were on the hook for $3 billion in cleanup costs, an amount that has grown larger in 2020…
Privatizing natural resources, by stealth
Despite the NDP promise that resource development must provide a fair return to the public, John Horgan’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources functions just as it did under Christy Clark…
Our BC Hydro bills subsidize fossil fuel industries
You will find evidence at In-Sights proving government policies and subsidies have cut public revenue from petroleum and natural gas producers to a tiny fraction of what it once was. This despite substantial increases in natural gas production. But, gas producers have hands in our pockets in less obvious ways…
Clark formed the policy; Horgan accelerated it
Petroleum and natural gas rights sale results reflect policies of a government dedicated to increasing fossil fuel production. To do that, they are giving away the public share of these natural resources. Christy Clark formed the policy; John Horgan accelerated it.
Radioactive
We already knew the oil and gas business was poisoning land and water and polluting the atmosphere. Most people, including workers in the northeast gas fields, are probably unaware that people are being exposed to radioactivity as well.
Unmeasured GHG emissions ignored
One of the pre-election promises made quietly by the BC NDP to me and other concerned citizens was to apply best scientific practices in regulating British Columbia’s northeast gas fields. In another post-election policy reversal, John Horgan’s NDP government decided the only action needed was a little green washing…
Natural gas production up, public revenue down
Citizens of BC are misled by government about economic returns from natural gas. Relevant statistics are not readily available and the ministries prefer to conceal them. Since government does not issue press releases with awkward news, the incurious press gallery ignores information like that shown below…
Ruled by climate change deniers
Both the Horgan and Trudeau governments made symbolic commitments to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Neither was sincere. Horgan passed UNDRIP into BC law but now ignores the declaration. Trudeau said they would table a bill on UNDRIP but this week decided to put the promise aside. Indigenous people won’t be surprised by choices of either government. They’ve observed 150 years of oppressive acts and broken promises.
Delusion, deception, inertia
Faced with a choice between respecting Supreme Court confirmed indigenous governance and serving foreign financial interests (Shell, Petronas, and PetroChina), BC NDP joined with the land polluters, not the land protectors.
in-sights.ca 
Blair Fix at _Economics from the Top Down_ also wrote two very good papers on the converion of housing into…