2015 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 40th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 27, Number 11

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. T. Stone: I call continued second reading debate of Bill 30, intituled the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 30 — LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS
PROJECT AGREEMENTS ACT

(continued)

Hon. A. Wilkinson: Of course, it’s a great pleasure to have the support of my compatriots on this side of the House, and of course, it’s a great pleasure to stand up and speak in support of this bill, as this is an historical move in the history of British Columbia.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We are developing an entirely new industry with new capital investment; new skills and opportunities; and, of course, new revenue and new employment. This is an opportunity that depends on a few factors coming together. As part of a modern economy, of course, there has to be an underlying economic opportunity. In some fields, that might be writing software, and the opportunity arises in the mind of the writer. In this case the opportunity arises because of very substantial and reliable gas supplies in northeastern British Columbia, the combination of both liquid and methane gas. These are valuable deposits.

These can be developed, even though gas prices are low, through the efficient systems that the private sector has developed in concert with the provincial government. The technology is available to extract gas which is worth very little at the wellhead and move it to tidewater and export it as liquid natural gas.

This is a new and unprecedented opportunity. It has rarely been used in North America. It is widespread in Asia, Australia and, increasingly, in Africa. This is a worldwide market. It is extremely capital-intensive.

It requires large amounts of capital, committed for the long term, to put in the necessary infrastructure to make this opportunity available. It is difficult to assemble this capital and difficult to assemble the necessary technology. That requires certainty. No investor will go into this space unless they are guaranteed a stable playing field for many years to come.

This government, because of its approach — because of its attitude, because of its fiscal record and because of its underlying philosophy — is prepared to provide that certainty through this bill which is before the House today.

[1335]

The Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act provides exactly the kind of stability that will attract capital into this very capital-intensive industry.

Underlying this, of course, is the need for good government. We have a major advantage in this space in that Canada has a long record of orderly, democratic government — committed to peace, order and good government — and a steady, reliable provincial government under the guidance of Premier Clark and the B.C. Liberals.

The effects of all of this are that British Columbia reaps the financial benefits — royalties, taxation, employment opportunities. And of course, it gives our people the confidence to have exciting, interesting, very-well-paid work into the future and also to be able to develop those skills that are in demand around the world so that British Columbians — like Texans, like Albertans and like British fieldworkers — will be able to work anywhere in the world in related fields and bring that income back to British Columbia as their home base.

A good example of this is in the gas pipeline business. Detractors can say this is a one-off opportunity. In fact, building pipelines is extremely capital-intensive and requires modern technology and extremely well-trained staff at various levels, from engineering right down to the welders. And of course, it provides a whole spinoff category of work in terms of logistics workers, food service workers and so forth.

This comes around to the issue of talent, something that we have in abundance and something that we will continue to cultivate and will continue to build upon and invest in. We believe in our population. We believe that British Columbians have the goals, have the opportunities and have the capacity to make the best of themselves.

That’s why my ministry, Advanced Education, is a very pleasurable place to work. We help British Columbians to maximize themselves, to make the best of themselves, to build their talents and abilities and become successful in the world. This is not only good for their income and good for their self-esteem, but it builds them into bigger and better citizens so that they can have the confidence to take on the world.

In pursuit of these goals, the province is recalibrating its apprenticeship system and re-engineering its education training model to be more responsive to labour markets. This is partly related to liquid natural gas but partly related to this enormous demand for skilled workers that faces this province in the years to come. With nearly one million job openings coming up in the next seven years, two-thirds of which are related to retirement, we have to train a workforce which will be able to pick up the path that we have already laid out before our economy and build it and make it even more successful into the future.

The province is working with industry and labour to
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update occupational forecasts on an ongoing basis for the economy as a whole as well as for the LNG sector. We’re facilitating trades and occupational training in a variety of communities and particularly along Highway 16, which is, of course, the backbone of the natural gas industry. I will actually be in Terrace this Thursday to make a further announcement about training opportunities in Terrace, so that the people in northwestern British Columbia can reap the benefits of this new industry.

More particularly in terms of skills training and the trades, this year we have targeted $13 million to reduce wait-lists in high-demand trades by creating 2,917 additional critical trade seats at 14 of our post-secondary institutions. We’ve invested more than $700,000 in 326 seats in the trades discovery program for young people to explore a career in the trades. We provided $5 million last fiscal year to 14 public post-secondary institutions to purchase new trades-training equipment, and we’re anticipating that a similar amount or more will be spent this year to make sure that the equipment our tradespeople are training upon is up to date and so that their skills will be directly transferrable into the workplace.

In addition to this, we’ve provided a B.C. access grant for labour market priorities that provides up to $16,400 for eligible students to travel to the place where they can complete their post-secondary education in in-demand trades. We have a completion grant for graduates that helps students reduce their student loan after completing their programs that support these in-demands occupations. In addition to that, we have a B.C. loan forgiveness program that has been expanded to include more occupations. We are fully committed to training our workforce so that they are ready to take on the future and to build the opportunities that they want to expand their lives and become confident in the world marketplace.

This, of course, is related to the issue of our First Nations relationships. Our post-secondary system has the capacity to absorb basically all applicants, at this state. We have 430,000 students in the system. But a growing and pressing priority is to make sure that our First Nations youth, and many First Nations adults, take advantage of those training opportunities. This is a generational change, where we have a First Nations population that is ready, willing and able to grasp those training opportunities, upgrade their skills and become full economic participants in our society.

[1340]

The liquid natural gas opportunity turbocharges that opportunity because there will be capital inflows in many communities where aboriginal people are undertrained and underemployed. This will be a golden opportunity for those populations, for those people, for those nations, for those youth, for those students to become bigger, better, more prosperous individuals in our society.

My colleague to my left, the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, has worked hard to reach 16 agreements related to the pipeline out of the 19 First Nations along the proposed route. The companies involved have been delighted to see the level of mature negotiation that occurs with our Ministry of Aboriginal Relations so that these agreements can be completed in a timely fashion.

Of course, the benefits spin out of this in large numbers. These have already been alluded to, but they never will suffer from repetition. Royalty revenue of $3.64 billion; LNG income taxes, nearly $700 million; carbon taxes of $1.16 billion; corporate income tax of $1.2 billion; provincial sales tax of $1.26 billion; motor fuel tax of $462 million; and property tax of $253 million. Let’s not forget that these are recurring. That property tax is paid every year into communities along the pipeline routes.

Most of these revenue sources are ongoing. They provide a boost to the northern populations of British Columbia and, for that matter, to all of British Columbia through general revenue and also through all of the many professions and trades and sources of expertise across the province that will travel to the areas where the work is needed.

One has to wonder why on earth anyone would oppose this opportunity. One has to wonder why the members opposite see fit to try and kibosh this arrangement which will lead to unprecedented opportunities for British Columbians. We have to wonder why the NDP cannot find it in their hearts, find it in their souls, to give opportunity to people who’ve never had it before.

We only have to look at what Dan Miller, the former Premier of this province and a leading member of the NDP, had to say back in January of 2014. This is a reference to some rather unfortunate remarks that were made by the then Premier, Glen Clark. “We’re going to build three aluminum smelters in British Columbia. We’ve got the downstream power coming back. We’ve got cheap power. We’ve got an advantage that nobody else has, and by God, we’re going to get these built.” It was all sham. Nothing ever came of it. That is the record of the NDP in terms of economic development.

Mr. Miller goes on to say: “Now, I think it makes sense to develop the LNG industry. I think it makes a lot of sense.” That’s the story that we are facing today.

This is bringing an opportunity to fruition, not blowing off a pipedream, not dismissing a chance that never came to be, as the NDP did. This is actually crystallizing an opportunity, turning it into jobs, turning it into revenue and turning it into a success.

We will not follow the mantra of the BANANA team: build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. We will build this province. We will take advantage of opportunities. We will invest in our people because we believe in the people of this province. We will continue to invest in them through higher education. We will utilize our resources responsibly. We will engage this province in the world economy, because we are not scared of it. We intend to lead it, not to follow.
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We cannot hide from the world. We have the confidence to lead in this world of ours, not to follow, not to hide, because as Franklin Roosevelt said, the only thing to fear is fear itself. In the words of another individual, Wilfrid Laurier, the future is ours.

K. Corrigan: I’m pleased to rise and speak on Bill 30 and the project development agreement that we are dealing with in this bill. Much has been said on the other side of the House suggesting, incorrectly, that we are not supportive of the LNG industry. We are supportive of the LNG industry, but what we have said from the beginning is that if there is going to be LNG in this province, it needs to meet four conditions that benefit British Columbia.

The first condition is that there has to be a fair return.

Deputy Speaker: The member for West Vancouver–Capilano wants to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

[1345]

Introductions by Members

R. Sultan: My apologies for interrupting the learned discourse. I’m looking forward to hearing the balance of it.

I wish to introduce a bright young woman from Victoria named Rachel Sibbald who is entering her third year in economics at McGill University, is working in one of our leading personal injury law firms in Victoria but is intrigued by a friend who is working in the environmental department of the United Nations. So she has some very interesting career choices ahead of her.

Would you please make Sibbald welcome.

Debate Continued

K. Corrigan: I’ll, perhaps, go back to the beginning to some degree.

What we have always said is that we are supportive of the LNG industry, the liquefied natural gas industry, for British Columbia. But we have said since the beginning that this has to be a good deal for British Columbians. There are four conditions that we believe need to be met in order to qualify as a good deal for British Columbians.

The first qualification is that this has to provide a fair return to British Columbians who…. Don’t forget. We own the resource. The second qualification is that there have to be jobs for every British Columbian who is ready to work or be trained. The third qualification that will provide a fair deal for British Columbians is that any deal needs to protect our air, our land and our water. And the fourth qualification. For many this is, perhaps, the most important. This deal has to represent a true partnership with First Nations.

On each of those counts…. Does this provide a fair return to British Columbians? The answer is no. Does this provide jobs for every British Columbian ready to work or be trained? The answer is no. Does this provide adequate protection for our air, land and water? The answer is no. Do this deal and this agreement provide a true partnership with First Nations? Again, the answer is no.

In fact, contrary to the outlandish promises that we had by the Premier and by the government prior to the 2013 election, what we actually have now, in the government’s own words — I believe it was the Premier’s own words — is: this deal is better than nothing. British Columbians deserve better than it’s better than nothing.

What’s the problem? What is the problem that we have here? Why have we been forced into a deal that does not provide a fair return for British Columbians? The reason is that we had a Premier who, prior to the 2013 election, made all sorts of outlandish and outrageous promises in order to get re-elected. She is now — and the government is now — stuck with those promises and has been put in a terrible bargaining position.

What were some of the promises that were made in the run-up to the 2013 election? Here’s one: at least one natural gas export terminal on line by 2015 in Kitimat and at least three in operation by 2020. That was before the election. That was in 2011, in fact, in the jobs plan. The claims got actually more grandiose as we came into the run-up to the election in 2013. In the election year the claim was five new LNG plants in British Columbia before the end of the decade.

We had promises that we were going to have a $1 trillion industry. I’m not sure there are too many British Columbians who can even wrap their heads around that. I believe that a trillion dollars is $1,000 billion, and that’s quite a promise to make.

There was a promise or, at least, an aspiration — a plan to eliminate the debt within 15 years, a plan to eliminate the sales tax, promises that there would be $100 billion of taxes and royalties, 100,000 new jobs. In fact, that was what was slapped on the side of the election bus — that we were going to have a debt-free B.C.

[1350]

Perhaps largely on the basis of that promise, we now have a post-election situation where we have a Premier and a government that have made outlandish promises in order to get elected — quite publicly, obviously — and have staked their political reputations on these promises.

What is the reality? Well, the reality is that here we are in 2015. No proposal has reached final investment decision. That was an election promise broken. The promise in the jobs plan, prior to the election, that we were going to have one plant on line by 2015…. That promise has been broken.

Unfortunately, these promises have been rooted not in reality, not in good planning, but rooted in politics and political expediency. Certainly in the time I have been
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elected, since 2009, it seems to me, unfortunately, that very little is done by this government rooted in good planning and prudent behaviour but instead is rooted, like almost everything else the Liberals do, in the interests of helping the B.C. Liberals or their friends, their donors, or getting themselves elected.

The Liberals have been increasingly desperate to get a deal. They now say that anything is better than nothing. I think British Columbians deserve better than that.

What kind of a bargaining position is it when the government is desperately bargaining in order to say that we got one deal, better than nothing? I’m not so sure about that when you look at the opportunity costs. What kind of a time is it to be making a deal like this when (1) the proponent knows you’re absolutely desperate to get a deal, and (2) the price of LNG is at historic lows? There is significant competition all over the world.

If you went to a car dealer…. You walked in the door and said: “I guarantee I’m going to buy that car. I want you to know that right from the beginning. I guarantee” — to the dealer — “I’m going to buy that car over there. Let’s start negotiating, and let’s do some really tough negotiating. But by the way, I promise you that when I walk out the door today, I’m going to buy that car.”

When you go into negotiations…. Mr. Speaker, you’ve been in many negotiations before, as I have. When you go into negotiations, one of the things you should have the ability to do is to walk away from those negotiations and say: “This deal isn’t good enough. I’m going to walk away.”

This government has proven to be quite capable of that when it comes to the teachers. They’ll walk away from the bargaining table in all sorts of different circumstances when it suits their political will. But they didn’t have the ability to do that now. The terms of this agreement make that very, very clear.

What are the results of that poor bargaining position? We have a bad deal for British Columbia. We have a valuable resource, but we’re not getting the full value for that resource because of a government whose aim is primarily political and who is not acting in the best interests of British Columbia.

I mentioned a second ago the opportunity costs. It’s not just the terms of the deal. It is: what could we do with that resource? It is our resource. It is in the ground. We should not have to hurry, and hurry for political expediency.

What about job promises? What about the job promises that were made? We were promised there would be 39,000 construction jobs and 75,000 full-time jobs once the industry was in operation. First of all, to date, none of these jobs have been created because no LNG terminals have begun construction.

The real concern about this deal is, in fact, that the government fully intends that a good portion of those jobs will go not to British Columbians or Canadians but rather to temporary foreign workers. The Liberal government pressed the federal government to expand the temporary foreign workers program and signed a memorandum of understanding with China that would allow foreign workers entry to B.C. to expand the LNG industry.

[1355]

Petronas, the proponent we are talking about here, has said that it expects to hire 70 percent of temporary foreign workers during peak construction. That’s a good deal for Petronas. That is not a good deal for British Columbians.

In fact, Petronas has also said, essentially, that wherever cheaper foreign labour can be used, it will be used, and there is nothing in this agreement that stops them from doing that. I will quote here from a Globe and Mail article by Brent Jang, where Petronas has said it will shift engineering design work to lower-cost centres overseas and also source materials overseas. The quote, from December 4, 2014:

“Engineering firms are expected to revise their plans with a view to greater input from ‘high-value engineering’ offices in countries such as China and India, where labour costs for engineering work are lower than in North America and Europe. Firms wanting to do business with Petronas will be pressed to use their connections with Asian suppliers to get better deals for orders of raw materials.”

I do not fault Petronas for whatever it does. As long as Petronas and the other companies involved are following the law and following the agreement that they have signed with British Columbia, I don’t blame them. That is their job, to get the best deal for them as a corporation — as a publicly owned corporation, I believe, in the case of Petronas, actually. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good deal for British Columbians.

The promise of jobs — the overinflated promise of jobs, by the way, because we now know that we’re only talking about 330 operational long-term jobs, which is a far cry from what the Premier promised on a per-plant basis and, overall, a far cry from what was promised a few years ago in the run-up to the election — 100,000 jobs, is simply not happening under this deal or any other deal.

Of course, another feature of these deals is that whatever template has been set will be the template for future deals — and, in fact, not only that, this agreement says that if another company gets a better deal in some aspect of some future deal, then Petronas gets to have that added better deal as well. They get to have that provision in their deal. So it’s very disappointing from that perspective.

I’ve got to say that in terms of the lack of protections — the lack of environmental protections, the lack of job protections — and the lack of benefits for British Columbia, I’m beginning to feel that this deal is one that puts us in a kind of Third World place. I’m not talking about Third World countries or that we’re going to be in a Third World situation. I’m saying that we are acting with the same kind of desperation and need, it appears, that some countries that are under great financial stress have been put in because they have to give away their resources because they’re desperate for money. Well, we shouldn’t be des-
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perate for money in this province, and we’re not getting nearly what we should as a return anyway.

I noticed that the Minister of Transportation this morning made the statement that the building trades, whose members would and should be doing a large part of the construction if there is a deal…. He said that the building trades are in support. Well, I’d like to just quote what Tom Sigurdson, the executive director of the B.C. Building Trades, said this morning on CKNW. I think the mistake the minister made was that the minister said he supported this deal, this project. And while the B.C. Building Trades, like the B.C. New Democrats, have been supportive of the industry, what they have now said very clearly is that they are not supportive of this deal as it exists — or if you want to call it support, it’s very, very lukewarm.

He said this morning: “When I take a look at the enabling legislation and the project development agreement that the province has entered into with Petronas, I don’t see sufficient enough support for British Columbian workers in the legislation or in the agreement.”

[1400]

Mr. Sigurdson — Tom — has said essentially that because the province owns the resource, they should see the benefit of those jobs. I think, in fact, he was being nice when he said that. I think he was being polite when he said that, because he wants to work on behalf of his members and try to work with the government. But obviously, he has come to the conclusion, as have the members of the building trades, that that is very difficult to do under these circumstances.

I want to go back to why it is that we, according to Petronas, may well not be able to fill those jobs with British Columbians or Canadians, but particularly British Columbians — up to 70 percent of the jobs during the peak of construction. They say 70 percent temporary foreign workers during the peak.

It’s the history of this government’s behaviour and this government’s actions with regard to training of apprentices and then journeymen and -women. It’s because of their failure and their acts over the last 15 years that the apprenticeship system is in shambles right now.

So there’s another good reason for us to sign an agreement. Over the past 14 years, the government destroyed what was a well-functioning apprenticeship system, took apart the training system and created a system which ended up with completion rates of apprentices of 40 percent. That was under the ITA.

We don’t have the workers. Of course Petronas is thinking they’re going to have to bring 70 percent of the workforce in, in addition to outsourcing whatever they can from engineering, design and possibly building the structures modularly and barging them over here. It’s quite stunning.

A major part of the problem is that we have an apprenticeship system and a training system which has been in shambles. Now we have a government that is saying we’re going to catch up. This is all backwards. This is being done backwards.

We had 14 years that we should have been building on a good apprenticeship system. We should have the people in place, and we simply don’t have that. Neither are there requirements in this project development agreement. There are no requirements that there be apprentices on the job. Once again, the provincial government has failed British Columbians.

It’s not necessarily a concern that we should have in this province or in this country, I guess. But I have concerns what this agreement is going to be doing to public institutions all over the world. Companies like Petronas are going to be saying all over the world: “Look at what we managed to pull off in British Columbia. Look at the great deal we got and how much we ground them down because they were desperate.”

They will then be going to other countries. The negotiating power of the public to provide resources to their citizens around the world is going to be compromised because of the lousy deal that the province made in this case.

I want to go back and say this destruction and dismantling of the apprenticeship system was warned of way back, as far as an Auditor General report of 2008. It said, “The ITA did not sufficiently consult or collaborate with its stakeholders in developing plans and strategy. Given the significance of the changes being introduced and the number of stakeholders involved, this was a large omission” — a guiding theme, I would say, of this government if I ever heard one. Lack of consultation, lack of consideration of what the impacts would be and a very high-handed approach to changes that are being made. I think this is another example of that.

[1405]

Another issue that I want to touch on for just a second is the fact that this deal, astonishingly, locks this province into 25 years of public policy. It’s 25 years that no other government can change many features of the act — 25 years this project development agreement locks us in. Subsequent governments can make changes, but if they do, they have to pay Petronas back for any costs that they incur. Twenty-five years — that’s astounding. It’s intergenerational.

I was just looking at an interpretation. I actually was looking at the development agreement in addition to the legislation. The interpretation of the agreement says: “A reference to a party or the proponent includes that party’s or the proponent’s executors, administrator, successors and permitted assigns, including persons taking by way of novation.” I mean, that, to me, reflects…. If you’re starting to talk about successors and administrators, we’re talking intergenerational here. Of course, that’s necessary in the agreement, because the government has signed an agreement that locks us in for 25 years.

I would describe that as a stunning privatization of the public resources of British Columbia — a stunning
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privatization. We are locked into…. If there are changes to the LNG tax or if there are changes to the special tax credit on corporate income tax or if there are changes to the B.C. carbon tax and other things that would affect the project costs, essentially, what this agreement says is that we, as British Columbian taxpayers, are going to have to pay compensation to Petronas. Now, it is understandable why the company would seek to get that kind of deal in what is, admittedly, a low-margin industry, but it is, nevertheless, astounding that they have agreed to that.

I mentioned earlier that this is at a time when the price of gas is so low. It’s a terrible time to be negotiating a deal like this. It costs about…. Now, this is an analysis done by Marc Lee at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. I know sometimes the members on the other side don’t appreciate those reports. But you know what’s interesting about the CCPA, as many on the other side would want to criticize those reports, I’ve never heard anybody come up with any credible opposition to the facts and the analysis that they do.

According to Marc Lee’s analysis, it costs about $10 per 1,000 cubic feet to land LNG in Asia due to the high costs of liquefaction and shipping, whereas current prices in Japan, Korea and China are $7.45 to $7.85. Any company exporting B.C. LNG in the current market would be losing lots of money. It may be — he goes on to point out — that Petronas is willing to sign this deal anyways because of the assurance that they’re going to have this deal for 25 years.

That does not point to anything the matter with Petronas. What it points to is how ridiculous it is for us to be signing an agreement under current conditions. Essentially, what we’re saying is that even though it costs more to get the gas to Asia than what we can get for it, than what will be paid for it, there is enough in this deal for Petronas that they are willing to take that chance.

Because the deal is 25 years long, we are in the position that this deal could be sold. It is something that has happened with P3s in this province. The moment the P3s are signed, they are such a good deal for the companies, and they provide such a good deal: a long-term commitment to money from the taxpayers of British Columbia, even though they are terrible comparative deals to doing it publicly — that suddenly there’s a whole new market in selling off those companies.

[1410]

So the deal that we’re making with Petronas today may be sold. We’ll see. I would suspect that the sooner…. If we see this deal sold to somebody else, we’ll know that they got a really good deal. We’ll see. I’m not sure. There may be something in the agreement that at some point in the future will limit that. I didn’t see it in my reading of it.

We already agreed, reluctantly, to a reduction of the taxes associated, because we thought we wanted to support that, in the fall. But now, when you add all of these other commitments, when you add the fact that we are not protecting the environment…. That’s another whole area that I haven’t talked about, the fact that 70 percent of the upstream emissions are not covered by this agreement. If there are any environmentally impactful changes, we have to compensate the proponent for it. We have not protected the environment with this agreement.

Overall — I see that my time is coming to an end — this is not a deal that I can support. This is not a deal that provides the jobs that were promised. This is not a deal that provides the environmental protections that British Columbians deserve. This is not a deal that in any way provides a fair return to British Columbians, who own the resource. This is not a deal that provides a guarantee of the jobs for British Columbians ready to work or be trained. It does not provide the protection for our air, water and land.

It certainly doesn’t provide the true partnership with First Nations. One would have thought that that work would have been done in advance and that there would have been a true partnership. Instead, First Nations are being relegated to a back chapter in the agreement under a title of “Other matters.”

I cannot support this agreement. I’m very disappointed in it. I’m very disappointed that it will pass. We’ll see whether or not the agreement is signed.

I think it’s interesting that one of the provisions of the agreement is that Petronas…. It all has to be in place — oh, what a coincidence — just before the next election. Once again, decisions are being based not on the basis of what’s in the public interest, but decisions are being made on the basis of what is politically expedient for the B.C. Liberals.

We are being sold out by this deal. We are not being protected. The jobs are not there. The B.C. Liberals have demonstrated once again that their priorities are not to protect the public interests of British Columbia.

L. Throness: It’s a great pleasure to arise in the House today to speak to Bill 30, the LNG Project Agreements Act.

Let me take a moment before I begin to welcome a new constituency assistant. Dagmar Lucak began in my office a couple of months ago, and she’s doing a great job. She’s solving problems left and right. I really appreciate her heartfelt commitment to the welfare of my constituents.

It gives me great pleasure to rise in the middle of summer, where we’re all working hard too, in this extraordinary session of the Legislature. It’s very unusual for the Legislature to sit at this time of year. We’re sitting in the middle of summer because it’s an extraordinary circumstance. B.C. is on the cusp of an economic boom that has never before been seen in the history of our province. So timing is important. It’s not a done deal yet. That’s why we’re here.

We’re here to fulfil our end of the bargain, to pass the legislation before the summer ends, and then there will be only one or two more hurdles to cross before this fantastic deal can be done in B.C. We’re doing everything
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we can to bring Pacific NorthWest LNG to a final investment decision this fall.

Today we’re considering a long-term commitment of the government to a consortium of companies, to Pacific NorthWest LNG. It’s a 25-year commitment. From time to time we make personal commitments that are long term, but rarely is it 25 years. It might be more of a four-year commitment to university or a car loan or an employment contract for a few years. Only on occasion, in extraordinary circumstances, do we commit for longer periods of time. I think, for example, of a mortgage.

[1415]

We commit ourselves to a mortgage because the benefit of owning a home is really great, but we can’t afford to pay for the house up front. So we get a mortgage. We commit to the bank to take on that mortgage. We try to lock in a low interest rate for as long as we can because we want the security of the principal as well as a low interest rate in return for our commitment to keep on paying to the bank. Whether we take on a mortgage or not depends on the magnitude of the interests that are at stake and the benefits that we will get from it.

Well, what is at stake? What are the benefits that might accrue from this extraordinary 25-year arrangement? Allow me to place this in context. Pacific NorthWest LNG is prepared to invest $36 billion in U.S. funds to construct and operate its LNG facilities. That’s equivalent in today’s dollars to $46 billion Canadian. It’s a massive amount of money. That’s more than our annual provincial budget. It’s an enormous amount of money.

Until now the largest private sector investment in B.C.’s history was in Kitimat. It began in 2011. It was just completed. It was the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter modernization project. It was worth $4.8 billion U.S. In today’s currency that’s $6.1 billion. That’s a lot of money. That was the largest private sector investment ever in B.C.’s history. But the Pacific NorthWest LNG investment will amount to $46 billion Canadian. That’s over seven times bigger than the largest-ever private investment in B.C. in just one project.

The size of this one project will dwarf every other private sector investment in over 100 years of B.C.’s history. That’s amazing. When a company is going to invest this massive amount of money, when it’s a project of this scope and size, can we blame it if it wants to fix its costs as much as possible over the long term?

There are many uncertainties in a project of this magnitude. For instance, it has to borrow to complete the project, so the company has to deal with interest rates that might vary, prices for natural gas that might vary, business partners that may have varying levels of success, competition in the marketplace, technical problems encountered during construction, politics in other less stable countries than B.C., a climate and geography that can be difficult in B.C.’s north, technological change, unforeseen environmental risks and many other uncertainties.

It’s natural for it to want to seek certainty from a major partner that it can trust, and that’s our government. We are a partner that companies can trust. So we’re helping to bring Pacific NorthWest LNG to the table by reducing their uncertainty. That’s a natural thing to do.

We’ve addressed construction and operation costs as the first great $46 billion Canadian benefit. As the second great benefit to British Columbians as part of this deal, allow me to talk for a moment about revenue. In addition to construction and operation, there will be a stream of revenue made up of taxes and royalties over the next 15 years right through to 2030. We can estimate how much that will be. Officials have projected it, and the amount is $8.6 billion over that period of time.

That amount alone would pay off a quarter of our taxpayer-supported debt. That’s a massive amount of revenue. Taken year over year, it would be about $575 million per year. It’s approaching the amount we take in from forestry every year and much more than we take in from mining, for instance, or natural gas revenues every year.

It would be my preference, of course, in the future that we reduce public debt with the majority of that money. But think of the immense and wonderful things that we could do with that kind of revenue right through to 2030.

A third most important benefit to British Columbians will be jobs. Construction alone at its height will employ about 4,500 people. Those people will be sourced, of course, from Canada first and regionally first. They’ll be buying things. They’ll be paying taxes. There will be all sorts of positive spinoff benefits.

After construction is complete, there will be 300 direct, permanent, well-paying jobs and 300 indirect, permanent, well-paying jobs. These jobs are going to help to build a highly skilled workforce that will be able to compete for other jobs, other projects, so there will be long-term spinoff effects from these jobs that will be created. That’s the third biggest benefit.

Another benefit to our province will be the momentum that this massive deal will create. Development begets more development. Optimism creates optimism. There will be synergies possible that weren’t possible before that will allow new entrants to reduce their own costs.

[1420]

Arrangements between companies could be made to benefit from another’s power source, others’ pipelines, others’ supply chains, workforce, port facilities, and so on.

There are now 19 other consortiums waiting in the wings who’ve expressed interest. None of them have backed out yet. Some are on the verge of making a final investment decision. The final investment decision by NorthWest LNG will be yet one more reason for others to say yes to more investment, more jobs, more prosperity in this province.

I just want to underline that $36 billion in investment and $9 billion in revenue is just from one of 20 possible consortiums. That is an amazing possibility, something
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that could never have been matched by an NDP government.

Allow me to answer objections. Of course, there are objections, as are inevitable. The NDP, for instance, says that there are not enough jobs in this agreement. But it is what it is. That’s how many jobs it takes to build this project. I guess we could hire people to sweep the floor and so on, but that wouldn’t be very efficient.

I honestly think that if the NDP had their way, there would be no deal and no jobs, because the NDP would never have seen — or if they would have seen, they would not have seized — the opportunity of LNG in the first place, because it is too internally divisive for that party.

Some don’t like fracking. Others don’t like fossils fuels — period. Others don’t like the possibility of foreign workers. There may be other objections. The deal would have been picked apart before it started, or possibly after it began.

The papers noted today that the very fact that they oppose giving 25 years of security to Pacific NorthWest LNG suggests that they would reopen the contract in midstream, and they never would have been able to strike a deal on that basis.

Another objection. One of my constituents accused the government of signing a sweetheart deal with Pacific NorthWest LNG. What’s a sweetheart deal? A sweetheart deal is a one-sided agreement where a preferred company is given a special favour they wouldn’t otherwise get for some political or personal, non-business, non-economic reason. But this is not a one-sided agreement.

We are giving long-term certainty to a company, but we are getting an enormous commitment in return; $46 billion and $9 billion in revenue could never be called a sweetheart deal by anyone.

This is a hugely expensive outlay by a consortium of world-class companies. Nor is this a preferential deal for any one company or group of companies. The legislation before us will apply to all LNG consortiums that want to invest in B.C. over the next ten years.

Some say that we’re tying a future government’s hands. Though it’s true that we’re trying to make sure that Pacific NorthWest LNG and other LNG consortiums don’t experience tax increases that specifically target their industry, we are not tying any hands of a future government on general tax policy.

If a future governments wants to raise the corporate tax or raise the carbon tax or institute some new general tax for the whole province, it will apply to LNG companies as well. But if a government wants to discriminate specifically against LNG companies, then the provisions of this legislation will kick in to indemnify the companies against this kind of discriminatory tax behaviour.

Really, I think that we’re simply putting into legislation what a good government would do in practice anyway. We’re not a banana republic. Our word is our bond. Our government can be trusted to make a long-term deal and that it will stick.

We would not intend to change the agreement after we’ve signed it, anyway, so it costs us nothing extra to give greater certainty to these international companies, which often have bad experiences in other countries. And that may be why they want that kind of security with us — to indemnify them against midstream changes in the rules.

We’ve been accused, even today, of providing fewer job guarantees than the Australians in their already well-developed LNG industry. But allow me to quote from the Australian Barrow Island Act, passed by the government of Western Australia in 2003. Let me give you some provisions of these so-called ironclad job guarantees: “except in those cases where the Joint Venturers can demonstrate it is not reasonable and economically practicable to do so, use labour available within Western Australia….”

Or how about this one: “as far as it is reasonable and economically practicable to do so, use the services of engineers, surveyors, architects and other professional consultants…within Western Australia….” I could go on. This document is full of caveats, full of where-possible clauses. There are no ironclad job guarantees in Australian LNG agreements.

[1425]

Someone else has asked: “If these benefits are not realized, you’ll be gone as a government, and future governments will have to deal with it.” What if that happens? What if the consortium goes bankrupt and walks away halfway through construction?

The answer is that we will gain less, but we will have lost nothing because we’ve invested and we’ve risked virtually nothing. If we only gain, say, $10 billion and not $36 billion in construction, we will still have gained $10 billion in construction. Because we have little or no investment in this proposal, there’s no risk to the people of B.C. There’s only an upside. They’re going to win from this proposal.

Another person said: “You will live to regret this deal.” Is that possible? Is there some unforeseen devil in the details that will cause us to regret this deal in the future? I suppose there could be. In every initiative there is some kind of risk. We have to weigh this possibility of regret against the probability of regret over doing nothing, over neglecting to capture this amazing opportunity.

So what if we did nothing and suddenly realized that we could have had a stream of benefits of over $45 billion and thousands of jobs but that we let it slip through our hands and, as a result, all British Columbians will have to live, over the next 25 years, with a lower standard of living? I think the likelihood of regret over doing nothing is far greater than regret over doing the deal.

In the end, if I have to choose our regrets, I would rather choose regret in plenty rather than regret in want. Regrets are far easier to bear on a full stomach. Doing this deal will allow us to have plenty.

I want to say a word about the NDP opposition to this bill, which I can hardly fathom. I spent eight long years in opposition in Ottawa as a researcher for the official op-
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position. I know what it’s like to be in opposition — to write endless questions for question period, to pour your heart and soul into being a good opposition member and then be rebuked by the voters for it. That’s happened to me a number of times.

The opposition has a job to do. It’s a legitimate job to highlight the problems that exist and provide the opposing perspective, but it doesn’t mean that they have to vote against a bill. In fact, I’ve often been in this chamber when the NDP have voted for a bill. Why aren’t they voting for this one? I think, as I said before, that the NDP are trying to preserve party unity in opposing this bill. There are internal divisions over different aspects of the LNG industry. Probably some MLAs on the opposite side would support it. Those MLAs who depend more on union support, perhaps, might like to support this bill.

But there are some who don’t like fracking, on principle. There are others who are philosophically opposed to the use of fossil fuels in any way. Others might reject the use of foreign workers. Some may not like development — period. They might like to, rather, leave the land alone. Or they oppose the use of ships to carry LNG.

We can answer these objections. We all know that there has never been a contamination of water through 50 years of fracking and that 75 percent of water used in fracking is now recovered and used again, that fracking is safe and becoming more safe and more efficient all the time. We could point out that in developing LNG, we’re making the world a cleaner place, because China will substitute natural gas for coal.

We could say that LNG ships have been carrying LNG for 50 years. In fact, they’ve completed 77,000 trips without incident. I can understand these principled objections, but they can be answered.

If the idea of the NDP is to preserve their own party unity over the best interests of our province, that is another thing. It could be a fatal mistake to make — to vote against a larger good of the province in order to try to satisfy all the elements within the party. I think that the NDP will have to answer for that in the next election. So I would encourage the leadership of the party to look at the big picture, to look at the broad benefits of this new clean industry in B.C. and to support this legislation. It’s not too late.

I want to close by talking about one final benefit, and that is northern development. Let’s remember something down here in southern B.C. — in Victoria and Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. We can become very Vancouver-centric. It’s very easy for the people from Vancouver, where the economy is humming — because of the Port of Vancouver and high housing prices and lots of construction — and where most of the population of B.C. lives. There’s oodles of investment, people moving in from all over the world. We’re close to the American border, and trade with the U.S. is booming because of the low dollar.

[1430]

It’s easy for us to discount the north, represented by fewer MLAs, where the population is low and there’s a lot of wilderness. It’s easy to forget them, easy for some to pass up the LNG opportunity in B.C.’s north in a knee-jerk reaction.

I spent all of my elementary school years in Fort St. John in the ’60s. At that time it was a small, tough, muddy northern town. Things have always been tougher in northern B.C. It’s very beautiful country, but it’s a harsher climate. The northern economy has always been more subject to the ebb and flow of international prices for natural resources.

Now Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Prince George, Prince Rupert, Kitimat and many other places will have the chance to make it big. B.C.’s north deserves the chance to thrive and to grow — not just Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Let’s not be stingy with the north just because we in the south have it good.

I note here that even the member for Skeena, a member who represents a vast riding in the north, will not stand up for the north. He represents Prince Rupert and Kitimat, some of the cities that will benefit most from the agreement. He doesn’t even represent the interests of his own riding, and I think certainly not his own political interests. To me, it is positively stunning.

Now on this side of the House we’ve made our choice. We will not so easily rain on someone else’s parade or shut down another’s opportunity. We’re standing for northern development. We are here to seize this opportunity on behalf of the people of northern B.C., to say yes to development, yes to long-term economic certainty, yes for all British Columbians to everything we enjoy here in the Lower Mainland.

I will be happy to support this bill. I also look forward to supporting it in the election to come, where in less than two years the voters will have their say. They’ll be able to make their judgment on the decision we are taking here. I look forward to that day, because I believe that British Columbians will want to say yes — yes to LNG and no to NDP.

D. Eby: I’m going to read some partisan rhetoric. I’m sure it’ll be….

This is “a bad deal for B.C.”

“The fine print of that deal will commit our province to a course that is environmentally reckless, fiscally foolhardy and socially irresponsible….

“We should not accept this deal that would enshrine an unprecedented 25-year tax giveaway to state oil companies from Malaysia, China, India and Brunei and also to Japex. We should not accept this deal that effectively obliges all B.C. taxpayers to underwrite those companies’ risks as it also pads their profits.

“We should not be content to let the government sell out British Columbia’s long-term capacity to appropriately manage, tax and regulate our most valuable non-renewable resource or to properly price and minimize the massive greenhouse gas emissions that will result from LNG exports. Nor should we accept that the price for attracting any LNG project is a deal that amounts to a wholesale sellout of our provincial sovereignty.
[ Page 8958 ]

“Yet the Pacific NorthWest LNG project development agreement with Petronas and its partners would do all of this and more. In its totality, it is a deal that played our government decision-makers” — and I apologize, Mr. Speaker, but I’m quoting — “for suckers….

“Under no circumstances should we effectively consign away our ability to set LNG-specific carbon taxes or to impose new environmental regulations aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions that will skyrocket because of that industry. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for strengthening such industry-specific measures and subsidizing companies’ profits.

“There was a time not long ago when the B.C. Liberal government said it opposed business subsidies. This deal enshrines the worst type of subsidy. It would entrench a guaranteed 25-year tax expenditure that exposes B.C. taxpayers to unknown future unfunded liabilities that may flow from future needs to strengthen environmental protection. What is the value of that expenditure? We will not know until it becomes our cross to bear….

“The last thing we should be doing is putting in place long-term guarantees that freeze the rules and costs for pollution and negative environmental impacts in perpetuity. Yet that will be a hard, practical consequence of the Pacific NorthWest LNG project development agreement.”

[1435]

Where does that come from? It comes from Martyn Brown. Who was Martyn Brown? Who was that person? Who was Martyn Brown? He was former B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

D. Eby: I know why this is uncomfortable for the other side. I know why they don’t want to hear this.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Order.

Member, continue.

D. Eby: Martyn Brown was former B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s long-serving chief of staff. He was the top strategic adviser to not one, not two, but three provincial party leaders, and he was a former deputy minister of trade and investment in British Columbia. He was a proud B.C. Liberal.

When someone like Martyn Brown comes out and, in this strong language, sets out the problems with this deal, clearly the issues go far beyond the simple story that the other side is telling. For some reason they are unwilling to listen to these concerns about enshrining this sweetheart deal into a 25-year agreement.

I had the opportunity recently to hear a speech from the President of the Panamanian congress. I think in Panama and South America there’s still a poetry around politics that we haven’t seen here for a while. During his speech he said….

Interjections.

D. Eby: Remarkably disrespectful comments about the Panamanian people.

In any event, during his speech he set out the guiding principle by which he governs all his decisions as a legislator. He said: “I want to represent my country in a way that I will be my son’s hero.” That’s a remarkable quote, and it’s not just poetic. I think that they’re inspirational, certainly to me as a new father. I know for many people in this place with grandchildren and children and nieces and nephews, they’re thinking about the next generation when we sit in this place and our role as being heroes to them, that we are setting them up for success in the future.

I think we can all agree there’s a considerable natural gas resource in our province. Petronas, at least, according to the government and that gas company’s math, is considering investing $36 billion U.S. dollars to access that resource. It’s valuable. It has worth. It belongs to every citizen in British Columbia. And developing it brings with it very real challenges — environmental challenges, economic challenges, development challenges.

If we put this deal that’s being presented to us today against the test that was set out by that very poetic legislator, would our children look at this deal and say: “Yes, this is a deal that makes you a hero to us because you put our interests, the interests of the next generation forward, ahead of your own”? I think it’s very hard to make the case that it does.

From an environmental perspective, we’ve abandoned measurement of 70 percent of the emissions of this proposed project. Right now we’re seeing record temperatures, wildfires, ocean acidification. What will the world look like for our children as we abandon these regulations — the existing regulations, not even the tough regulations that are coming by international agreement?

Beyond that, how will we explain to them that we will need to use public money intended for schools, for hospitals and other public services to subsidize an oil and gas company, to subsidize them for regulations we would put in place to control carbon pollution, to control climate change? Does that sound heroic?

We are handing over as much as 18 million tonnes of LNG per year for export and perhaps an additional 25 percent burned for processing. What will we get in return?

From a jobs perspective, where we have more young people out of work and school than any other province in Canada, this deal presents absolutely no job guarantees for British Columbians. These are basic guarantees that other countries were able to negotiate in their deals. When we hand over a public resource of this size, the least we could do is ensure employment for British Columbians.

Even before this deal was presented in the House, Petronas was in the media saying: “Finding enough qualified Canadians won’t be easy.” The Globe and Mail reported that they were pressuring suppliers to use every-
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thing from engineering services to legal services to raw materials sourced from low-cost jurisdictions — in other words, not British Columbia. Could we be any further from heroic at this stage?

[1440]

We know how we got here. The Premier made absurd promises about the LNG industry that she could not deliver, and she couldn’t go back to electors without something in hand. She put our province in a terrible negotiating position.

When Petronas threatened to walk away, what happened? Well, the Minister of Natural Gas and the Premier cut the LNG income tax in half. They introduced a new natural gas tax credit to reduce the corporate tax.

Interjections.

D. Eby: This is very difficult news for the other side, I know. You can tell when we’re getting close here, because the other side gets louder. They can’t wait for their turn. They can’t wait for their turn to respond.

They reduced environmental regulations, restricting greenhouse gas emissions, and they presented an unprecedented 25-year guaranteed royalty deal, negotiated at a time when natural gas is at a historic low price. That is what this government is presenting for us to say yes to. Astounding.

Handing over a public resource for electoral advantage to cover up for promises made that could never be delivered on is a long way from heroic. I believe we should be governing in a way that our children will see us as heroes for stepping up and ensuring that their generation will be better off than our own, even if that involves temporary sacrifice for ourselves.

What are we being asked to vote on? A deal that sells out the next generation with a locked-in agreement for 25 years at the lowest price for LNG and promises to repay a foreign government Crown corporation if we ask them to comply with future environmental standards. A deal imposed over the objections of First Nations. A deal that hands over a massive public resource without job guarantees for British Columbians.

What do we get back? Well, so far a talking point for when the B.C. Liberal Premier is asked about her unsustainable election promises.

I will not be voting for this deal, because I wish to represent my community in a way that I will be a hero to my son and to the next generation, and this deal is the complete opposite of that principle.

R. Sultan: Bill 30, the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, will provide an additional measure of certainty to agreements the government has entered into with LNG project investors in B.C. Today certain levels of tax and regulation — carbon taxes, greenhouse gas regulations, LNG taxes and natural gas tax credits — are important elements of the 140-page agreement this government has entered into with LNG investors. However, future governments might have different ideas.

Accordingly, Bill 30 will indemnify investors with respect to additional taxes they might be asked to pay in the event laws are changed in the future, or with respect to additional costs which might be incurred through changes in greenhouse gas regulatory regimes specific to this particular industry. It should be noted, however, that such indemnification does not apply to possible future changes in provincial sales tax, corporate tax or other revenue measures generally.

Such legal assurances have been necessitated by the doubts and criticisms, if not hostility, which members opposite have articulated and which do not build investor confidence. The legal assurances are further justified by the unprecedented magnitude of the forthcoming private LNG investment and the corresponding risks. We are talking a totality of $36 billion U.S., which today translates into $45 billion Canadian.

For comparison, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the latter 19th century would be priced at a mere $5 billion to $6 billion, inflated to dollars of today. The St. Lawrence Seaway of the 1950s would today carry a similar price tag. The original Mackenzie River pipeline — which I happened to work on — billed as the megaproject of the century, was estimated to cost a mere $4 billion. We thought those were mind-boggling numbers at the time, in the late ’70s, which translate into about $18 billion today.

[1445]

We are today debating an LNG project whose dollar magnitude dwarfs the building of the railway connecting British Columbia to the rest of Canada, the seaway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic or the original proposal to tap into the Arctic natural gas.

So we are talking about a big chunk of money, and it is not taxpayer money. It’s not even, in the main, Canadian money. It’s money from abroad.

Who are these people? The lead investor of Pacific Northwest LNG is Progress Energy Canada Ltd., wholly owned by Petronas, an oil and gas company wholly owned by the government of Malaysia and the 75th largest company in the world.

The Financial Times has identified Petronas as one of the new Seven Sisters, as they call it, the most influential and mainly state-owned national oil and gas companies from countries outside the OECD. We’re not dealing here with a bunch of Calgary wildcat drillers.

Petronas has attracted several partners: PNW LNG Marketing Sendirian Berhad, a Malay subsidiary of the project; JAPEX Montney Ltd., a company of Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. Ltd.; Petroleum Brunei Montney Holdings Ltd., wholly owned by the Sultan of Brunei — no relative; IndOil Montney Ltd., the wholly owned affiliate of Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. based in New
[ Page 8960 ]
Delhi; Sinopec Huadian Montney Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, based in Beijing; Sinopec Huadian Canada, part of Sinopec Canada, another subsidiary of China Petroleum and Chemical; as well as Sinopec Daylight Energy and Huadian Canada LNG.

So what we are dealing with here is a partnership consisting of a cross section of the oil and gas organizations of Malaysia, Japan, Brunei, India, and China — representing, in terms of their countries of origin, almost 30 percent of the world’s population. We are fortunate to have investors such as these. Most private investors shelve their investment plans during the lean years. These sorts of investors choose not to. It is perhaps why they are in fact supremely profitable organizations.

There is much talk today about Canada signing on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, a proposed trade agreement among the major Pacific countries on a variety of matters. While Ottawa has been spending years developing TPP, British Columbia, led by our Premier, has in a much shorter span of time, through pushing and prodding all of her ministries, chasing some of them back and forth around the Pacific Rim, set the stage for a significant investment agreement among many of the same parties.

My colleagues, this agreement is a very big deal, entered into with some very significant global players. It’s a deal which will change the economic profile of Canada, and it comes along at an opportune moment in our economic history when conventional oil and the oil sands are stumbling a bit and dragging down our numbers.

Of course, the opposition party doesn’t see it this way. They ask — and they should: “What’s in it for British Columbia?” They describe the whole affair as a “political mess” created by overly grandiose political promises and — to cite further, one prominent front bencher on the other side — as simply “better than nothing” and “a giveaway.”

Is the whole enterprise as ill-conceived as members opposite say it is? Let’s see what McKinsey and Co. have to say. I’m sure most of you know McKinsey, a very respected American strategic consulting organization of considerable reputation. They considered LNG in their journal of July 2014, so what I’m going to quote from them saying is one year old.

[1450]

It’s an article with a headline: “Capturing Value in Global Gas: Prepare Now for an Uncertain Future.” Their point is really summarized in their lead subheading. “There is huge uncertainty about how global gas markets will evolve, but the extent of the value at stake makes it imperative for liquefied natural gas suppliers and buyers to act now.” Let me quote, quickly, three or four paragraphs.

“Unforeseen events have disrupted the gas market in the last eight years but paradoxically lent it a degree of stability, for the time being, at least. The shale gas boom in the United States, rapidly increasing Asian demand and the European economic crisis have driven huge price discrepancies among regional markets. The influence of these three disruptions is not likely to wane before the turn of the decade. But then what?

“Enormous value is at stake. Depending on how factors such as Asian demand, oil prices or North American exports play out, our analysis suggests that value creation in the global gas industry in 2030 could be anywhere between $310 billion and $725 billion, compared with $340 billion in 2011. This $415 billion difference in potential outcomes in a single year suggests very different prospects, not only for the industry as a whole but also for different participants, as the value gains will by no means be evenly spread.

“LNG, while only accounting for 10 percent of the global gas market currently, will be a key determinant of gas market prices generally and eventual value creation, as it is the only supply source mobile enough to plug supply-and-demand gaps in international markets. At the moment” — and this was a year ago — “it is in short supply. But because uncertainty about future prices has made buyers reluctant to sign new long-term contracts under traditional terms that link gas prices to oil prices, developers of gas reserves outside North America have been hesitant to sanction new LNG facilities, particularly as LNG project costs are rising rapidly.

“This may seem prudent in the face of so much uncertainty.”

Here’s the punchline.

“But by doing nothing, LNG developers risk forgoing future profitable supply opportunities, and LNG buyers risk extending the current supply shortage. While there is no denying the challenges that uncertainty poses in the industry, those most likely to prosper will be the participants that understand the uncertainties, anticipate market developments and build robust strategies capable of adapting to what the future holds.”

If that isn’t a McKinsey and Co. endorsement of what the Petronas partnership and British Columbia has entered into, I don’t know what is. But so much for the business case. Let’s turn now to the public policy issues, and they are big ones. Many of them have been raised in this House — jobs, government revenue. I’d throw in also balance of payments.

On the jobs front, this investment sets the stage for well over 8,000 construction jobs on the pipeline phase. Upstream drill rig activity with several hundred workers will be ongoing to ensure natural gas keeps flowing to the plant throughout its lifetime. Construction of the facility on Lelu Island itself is estimated to account for about 4,500 jobs.

Once operational, the system will employ, in my opinion, about 1,000 persons, including induced employment in local communities. So much for jobs.

On the balance of payments front, exports of natural gas may contribute at least in the range of $10 billion to $20 billion annually. It could be lower, significantly lower, or it could be significantly higher, which is the point of what McKinsey’s own value forecast indicates. But these will, regardless, help our balance of payments and be a significant lift to our GDP.

[1455]

Finally, consider the government revenues. It’s estimated that the province could see almost $8.6 billion in total royalty and tax revenues by 2030, or an average of between $500 million and $600 million per year. This is projected to be made up of royalties, LNG income tax,
[ Page 8961 ]
carbon tax, corporate income tax, PST, motor fuel taxes and property taxes over 15 years.

In comparison to the $500 million or $600 million a year in government revenues which are generated by this project…. Just to put that into context, we can cite forest industry revenues of $700 million actually received in 2014, $562 million in 2013, $474 million in 2012 and $437 million in 2011. So forestry revenues jumped around quite a bit too. But what we can say is that government revenue from this one LNG project will be in the same ballpark, if not exceed, as all of the royalties we receive from the forestry industry each year. Golly, we are creating another forest industry here, with one project.

Let’s deal with some of the other criticisms which have been levied. We hear members of the opposition, even their leader, say: “Why are they doing it? Their timing is all wrong. The market has disappeared. They don’t know what they’re doing.” Well, I find that an interesting point of view.

Here’s a group of international companies which, on a combined basis, probably have a GDP approaching that of British Columbia, and our critics on the left modestly assume they know more about how to run a successful global oil and gas business than they do. So they’re now going to save them from their own bad judgment by cautioning them that they don’t know what they’re doing. I find my vocabulary inadequate to come up with polite phrases to describe this.

Another set of the declaration says: “It’s a fairy tale, a pipedream.” Well, I have a certain tolerance for this point of view since, I must confess, I myself thought the LNG strategy was bold, unprecedented and not without its risks, which is a polite way to describe it. However, my caution turns out to have been unwarranted. It is not a fairy tale. It is not a pipedream. It’s not something dreamed up in the communications shop. Billions have already been invested in proving up the necessary gas reserves in B.C.’s northeast — billions of dollars, serious money. That’s a fact. It’s not a speculation. It’s not a forecast.

Another interesting observation we have heard from across the aisle is: “It’s a sellout. It’s a giveaway.” Translated, this is saying: “Okay. You guys in government got a deal, but it’s a lousy deal. You gave away the family farm.” Now, this point is made by the same folks who say in the next breath: “You guys, the investors, are doing a dumb deal. The market has gone south. It’s not coming back. Your timing is all wrong. You’re making a big mistake.” I would say critics opposite cannot have it both ways. We cannot be exploited and exploiter simultaneously.

Certainly, in today’s uncertain world there’s no lack of reasons to proceed carefully, whether one is on the buy side or the sell side. We all understand that. If in our political opponent’s view there are substantial reasons backing up either position — and, indeed, there are — that may be a pretty good clue that a fair deal has in fact been struck.

Unless, of course, the opposition’s true position and true advice is to do nothing — exactly what McKinsey warned us against, as a matter of fact. I do not believe that’s what is expected of us sitting here as legislators. We have families to feed, government services to finance and investments to be made. To do simply nothing is not why the voters put us into this Legislature. When the opposition has followed such strategy themselves, they’ve either not been elected or, once in office, eventually get tossed out.

To sum up, this project has, in spite of the critics, proceeded to a very tangible and quantified agreement stage. We await the federal government’s environmental review decision. Given the relatively benign nature of liquefied natural gas, I’d be surprised if final environmental approval is not forthcoming.

One final note. Only 30 minutes ago a retired World Bank analyst friend who I respect a great deal — and he knows a great deal about energy and LNG projects around the world — sent me an e-mail. He surprised me, because he’s a confirmed skeptic about almost everything.

[1500]

Here’s what he said: “We have an opportunity to add a brand-new industry to B.C.’s portfolio, involving high tech and a lower-hydrocarbon-content fuel to a province with a triple-A rating, an industry which is a step to the future, as McKinsey says, all in a time of global economic recession. Value: priceless.”

Congratulations, government, for a tough, complicated job well done.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

M. Elmore: I’m very pleased to rise and join in the debate on Bill 30, the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, and I’m pleased to give my comments and analysis and also criticism in terms of what I view as the shortcomings of the act. I’ll be voting in opposition to Bill 30 for a number of reasons, which I will lay out.

I’d like to preface my remarks, before I get into the main points of my criticism, with the comment that in terms of our liquefied natural gas sector, myself and also the NDP, the opposition, are in favour of the industry. We’re certainly in favour of the LNG industry and have always said that it has been an important part of our economy for many years. Certainly, within the last number of years, with improvements and technological advancements, it’s proven to be a bigger and more potential part of our energy sector — certainly recognizing that.

But our perspective and my perspective is that in terms of natural resource development, it’s not development at all costs. Our natural resources, which British Columbia is blessed and very fortunate to share…. Certainly, it’s played an important role in our historical development of the province and the country, in terms of the development of our forestry, our mining sector, our fisheries and
[ Page 8962 ]
other natural resources. They have all played a key role and have had an important place in terms of not only our economy but providing jobs that have supported families and that have built our province and are an integral part of our economy and our society.

Certainly, we recognize on the opposition side that the LNG industry also has that role to play but in context of the appropriate stewardship and also leadership on the development of our natural resources.

It’s with the responsibility of not only a kind of blanket, all-or-nothing development, but with the expectation…. I think British Columbians also share this. British Columbians share the value that we have for our natural resources. There’s that collective sense, I think, in terms of recognizing that our natural resources, number one, are a shared resource and the expectation that when it’s developed it should also benefit British Columbians in a number of different areas that traditionally, through successive governments, have been employed.

Some of those expectations we have set out, the official opposition, in terms of the LNG industry. We support the industry but with the expectation that it needs to meet four basic conditions: that there needs to be a fair return to British Columbians, who collectively own the resource; that there should be jobs for every British Columbian who is ready to work or be trained; that there should be protection for air, land and water; and that there should be a true partnership with First Nations.

[1505]

Certainly, it’s a comprehensive view in terms of moving forward for economic development of natural resources. I’d argue that we’ve seen that when we look at the development of our forestry, our mining, our high tech, other sectors, our agricultural sectors. It’s important to have those components integrated in those sectors, in those industries.

Certainly, my criticisms and, I think, the shortfalls and shortcoming of Bill 30…. It does not meet those requirements. It falls far short, and it’s put British Columbians in a position which the government and previous speakers have characterized as: “Well, take it or leave it.”

We have to be prepared to basically agree to Bill 30, where we have seen, I think, the Premier negotiate quite well on behalf of the foreign-owned corporation in a number of different areas. But British Columbians think they are being shortchanged in terms of seeing the full benefits of the development of this industry.

When we look back in terms of how we got to the place where we are today, here in the Legislature summer session debating Bill 30 in terms of the contents of the bill, well, we can look at…. I think it’s important to have an idea of what the context is in terms of where we find ourselves — the bargaining context and the framework for Bill 30.

I think we should look back and appreciate what some of the campaign promises were that the current Premier made in the heat of the previous election as really setting the stage for negotiating this agreement and also putting us, collectively in British Columbia, in a weak bargaining and a weak negotiating position with international companies — and certainly with this current company, for Bill 30.

We heard in the previous election campaign a promise that we would have at least one natural gas export terminal on line by 2015, in Kitimat, and at least three operations by 2020. It’s currently midway through 2015, and I think it’s safe to say that we’re not going to see a terminal up and running. Certainly, that has fallen by the wayside.

We also heard during the election that we’d have five new LNG plants in British Columbia before the end of the decade. We have not seen that.

We have heard quotes from the Premier that the goal and the great promise for development of the industry is that it would create a debt-free B.C. There is the intention to reach that goal of being debt-free in 15 years. That was from 2013. As well, there were promises that development in natural gas would stimulate up to a trillion dollars in new economic activity across the province, with 100,000 new jobs, $100 billion over 30 years and the creation of a prosperity fund.

Those certainly were grand and quite wild promises to have been made. That has created the condition and the circumstances that, I would characterize, did not put us as a province in a strong bargaining or negotiating position given that there was a very clear political investment by the Premier and by the B.C. Liberals to deliver on these promises and to move forward in terms of signing agreements.

That was the backdrop in terms of how we’ve come to this place today. We’ve missed the timelines in terms of delivering on actually having plants up and running. We have not seen the creation of a prosperity fund, and certainly we’ve seen a backtrack from many of those promises in terms of jobs or opportunities coming forward from the industry.

[1510]

The shortfalls and the disappointments that I have in terms of Bill 30 — I’m going to outline them — fall far short of myself, of the opposition and, I would also characterize, of British Columbians in terms of expectations of benefits to be accrued from the development of the potential from a liquefied natural gas industry.

When we look at Bill 30, it certainly can be characterized as a good deal for Petronas but not necessarily for British Columbians. When we look at what has been negotiated in Bill 30, you can sum it up that British Columbians may come to the conclusion that our Premier was negotiating on behalf of the corporations and not necessarily for British Columbians.

We look at the pages and pages of protections for, on the one hand, foreign multinational corporations that lock us into low tax and royalty rates for 25 years — un-
[ Page 8963 ]
precedented. On the other hand, the Premier has required zero job or training guarantees for local British Columbians and also no requirements around local sourcing, which is an important component of supporting our local economy.

British Columbians value our resources and environment, and there’s the expectation that governments should protect the environment, negotiate a fair return for our resources and for future generations and fight for jobs for British Columbians. There’s also the expectation to see First Nations included as partners.

This deal does not appear to reach even a very basic benchmark or a very low standard for approaching expectations on those fronts. In terms of bringing forward Bill 30, it looks like it’s a good deal certainly for the corporation but not necessarily for British Columbians.

One of the disappointments of Bill 30 is that it locks in tax rates for 25 years. It’s being characterized as 25 years, but it’s actually longer than 25 years. The project development agreement, the PDA, provides tax protections that will compensate the proponent dollar-for-dollar for any changes, including the LNG income tax, the natural gas tax credit or the carbon tax, specifically on LNG.

These tax rates are locked in and protected from future increases for 25-plus years. It’s 25 years, but from the period after the company has reached its commercial operations date, which is after the first LNG cargo has been shipped. So the deal is actually longer than 25 years because it will most likely take another five years before the project is built and begins shipping LNG.

It’s certainly unprecedented in British Columbia and also unprecedented in terms of other agreements that were reached in the liquefied natural gas sector in other jurisdictions and in other countries.

We’ve heard that the Premier has quoted — and also the Natural Gas Minister said in the Legislature — that if you’re looking to do it right, you go and look at similar economies. Australia has a similar economy. They just developed an LNG industry. They used project development agreements to help that industry. But if we look at the LNG agreements in Australia as a comparison — if it’s being touted both by the Premier and the minister as a good example to follow — then we see that British Columbia loses out on four main areas.

The agreements in Australia, for example, guarantee local jobs. Our agreement in B.C. does not. Agreements like the Australian Gorgon LNG project contain clauses that guarantee jobs for Australians, saying the proponent must use labour available within Australia. Australia’s North West Shelf LNG agreement has the same provisions. We do not, in contrast, have a single reference to guaranteeing jobs for British Columbians.

[1515]

I’ve heard speeches from my colleagues across the way claiming that there’ll be jobs available for British Columbians. Certainly, jobs will be needed, and workers will be needed to do that work of construction. But the difference is that there’s no requirement for the company to hire local hires, and it has already been indicated that it could use up to 70 percent of workers from overseas.

We look at the record of the B.C. Liberals in terms of their open-door policy for temporary foreign workers coming into British Columbia with no legislative oversight — certainly, pretty much hands-off to having them come in and a lack of accountability and a lack of leadership for governing temporary foreign workers. I think British Columbians do not feel that they are encouraged by the promises from the government that these jobs will be filled by British Columbians. That has not been the record, and it is not set out in the agreement.

British Columbians have the expectation that the B.C. government signing agreements will ensure that British Columbians benefit. There’s been a promise by the Premier and by many colleagues across the way that jobs will be available for British Columbians. But the shortfall is that it has not been put into the agreement, and it has not been assured. And there are no mechanisms to enforce that. So when we look at….

What are we asking for? The government is asking us to take them at their word and to believe their promises that British Columbians are going to benefit and that there’ll be jobs for British Columbians. Well, that has not been the record of the government, and it is also a shortcoming of this bill that jobs for British Columbians are not ensured, that training opportunities are also not ensured and that it’s an open door — leave it to the proponent, up to 70 percent — to bring in cheaper workers from abroad.

That is one of the shortfalls and one of the very clear reasons why I’ll be voting against Bill 30. In addition, when we look at a comparison between the agreements that have been signed in Australia, for example, we see that B.C. loses out in terms of ensuring that local labour is hired. So we miss out there. British Columbia loses, thanks to the very weak negotiating of the Premier and of this government.

When we look at the use of local services….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. The member for Vancouver-Kensington has the floor, please.

M. Elmore: We look at what are some other opportunities that the government has and the expectations that British Columbians have for the government to advocate and to negotiate on behalf of British Columbians and really see benefits to British Columbians. For example, when we compare with Australia the use of local services, buying local, local procurement, that’s another area in project development agreements that can be written in and that can be required for foreign companies.
[ Page 8964 ]

Again, we see that British Columbia and British Columbians are missing out and sold out by this Bill 30. We are seeing British Columbians not seeing the benefits from Bill 30, of ensuring that British Columbians are assured that they have access to jobs. We’re seeing the lost opportunity for local procurement and the use of local services and buying local for our local businesses. And we’ve heard that the proponent may also negotiate and be bringing in offshore consulting and engineering firms for their project.

[1520]

So, certainly, many areas that…. Given that British Columbia has an internationally renowned consulting and engineering industry, that’s certainly an area that has not been represented in Bill 30 or advocated on behalf of.

In addition, we see that in Australia, for example, conservation was included and funded, that the agreements contained environmental benefits, and Bill 30 in British Columbia does not. In the Gorgon LNG deal in Australia, there’s a clause where the proponent must pay tens of millions of dollars for ongoing programs that provide net conservation benefits, and Bill 30 contains zero clauses that benefit or protect the environment.

It’s bad enough that we do not have any clauses that protect the environment. To make matters worse, it protects the company from increased costs if B.C. moves to improve environmental regulations on the LNG industry for 25 years. Not only have we not met a minimum bar in terms of protecting the environment, but we are actually dropping that standard that other jurisdictions have signed. Very disappointing.

We are seeing that on a number of fronts this deal does not only not meet minimum expectations, but it can also be argued that it drops the minimum standards. We don’t even meet minimum standards that have been reached in other jurisdictions in terms of project development agreements signed in other countries.

We’re seeing that we are tied in for 25-plus years in terms of tax rates. We are seeing that environmental regulations are also tied in for 25-plus years, and we have no job guarantees or apprenticeship quotas for British Columbians. And that’s a real shame.

When we look at previous governments, different governments, when there are significant investments in project development, that is one area where governments have the opportunity to ensure and support British Columbians — not only in terms of having jobs but gaining skills, important skills — and that is around ensuring that there’s a negotiation around apprenticeships that industry has to sponsor.

That’s a real opportunity that we’ve seen in previous project development agreements. It’s a real shame, and it is just a real…. I would characterize it as a disappointing lack of respect for British Columbians and a lack of opportunities.

When we talk about the opportunity of developing this natural resource, we should ensure that British Columbians are able to share in that and not only have jobs but really gain skills to develop their expertise, develop careers in the industry and also be able to transfer those. It’s just a real shame that the government — shortsighted, and because they’re so desperate to sign an agreement — did not assert that there should be apprenticeship positions included in the construction. That’s a real missed opportunity.

We have no environment protections. We have this agreement that ties the hands of future governments, so there’s no specific revisitation clause or opt-out clause for future governments on the one hand. However, we see that the proponent has an opt-out clause that merely requires them to give 90-days’ notice, so that’s a real….

[1525]

It’s just so lopsided, in terms of when we have this resource, liquefied natural gas — and it’s in the ground and belongs to British Columbians — and the opportunity to develop it, that we, at every mark….

When we look at, really, the standards, in terms of how other jurisdictions have developed their industry, and when we look at industrial development even in other sectors, it’s a real missed opportunity, in terms of ensuring that we see advantages and we see opportunities for British Columbians.

We have, as well, the me-too clause. The PDA includes a most-favoured-nation protection provision, which says that for a period of ten years after the deal is signed, if a different LNG proponent comes along and gets a better deal, then the proponent will retroactively get the same benefits and the PDA will be renegotiated to address the more favourable position. This means the deal could get even worse for British Columbians down the road, and this provision could have huge unforeseen costs in the future.

It wasn’t enough that this government had to negotiate this substandard deal, which is laid out in Bill 30, but they also had to include the me-too clause, the most-favoured-nation protection, that ensures that we may potentially be seeing worsening conditions and decreasing benefits from an already substandard agreement in the future.

We see, when we evaluate this bill on those many areas…. I outlined it in the beginning of my remarks in terms of, I think, what set the context. It’s the bargaining, negotiating framework really lending to this weakened position for British Columbia — to not benefit on many different areas really being laid out because of the promises by the Premier and the Premier’s political timelines being the driving force and driving factor, and not on behalf of benefiting British Columbians.

It’s a deal at any cost, and it’s a deal that just really, when you look at, makes you shake your head. It also doesn’t meet the expectation…. Certainly, we’re seeing not only the view that First Nations should be included as true partners but also that it’s a legal requirement with the recent decision in the Supreme Court.
[ Page 8965 ]

We see that the deal is signed between the province and Petronas, but First Nations are not included as true partners. They’re only mentioned in the appendix under “Other matters,” and that’s no small matter. It’s quite significant.

We have significant opposition from First Nations in the area, which is also a shame. That will be an area where I project the bill — and also the development of the project — will have difficulty, as not meeting that. We have a lack of respect, I would characterize, with the failure to include First Nations as true partners.

As well as outlining the many other shortfalls in the bill, we’re seeing — and it’s my view — that this bill currently does not meet expectations and it’s a bad deal for British Columbians. I would sum it up by saying that this is a deal that benefits foreign-owned corporations and not British Columbians. We’re seeing the province bend over backwards in terms of ensuring that rates and tax breaks are given to a foreign corporation on the one hand, contrasted to British Columbian families paying more with the recent budget.

[1530]

We also see that we have zero job or training guarantees, zero requirements for local sourcing. We see that the government has failed to protect the environment and failed to negotiate a fair return for our resources and our future generations. As well, First Nations have not been included as true partners.

For these reasons, I will be voting against Bill 30 and advocating for the government to take…. Hopefully my arguments will be persuasive with the government to take these seriously and to negotiate a deal for British Columbians.

Hon. P. Fassbender: I rise in support, as I’m sure everyone in this House is well aware, of Bill 30, the LNG project development agreement enabling act, 2015. I’ve sat in the House in the last couple of days and listened to the opposition waxing on, as they often do, without any real substance to their arguments. It’s obvious that they have no economic policy. They have no vision for the province of British Columbia. They’ve proven that time and again.

I’m delighted to see that in the last day and a bit they’ve developed four criteria that they would like to see. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition, when he first talked about this particular act, said that he was very, very well aware of their responsibility to vote against this particular piece of legislation, and he hadn’t even read it. What is obvious to me is that the members opposite, when they get up to speak to the bill, have not read the bill, are not aware of the implications, have not really seen what the potential of this is.

The bottom line to this is that the NDP proves time and time again to the people of British Columbia that their motto is: “No development, no progress, no opportunity for job growth.” That’s what they stand on. Again with this act, they are proving that same philosophy.

They talk about Australia and ironclad guarantees. Well, I’ll tell you, you could drive a whole mob of kangaroos through that particular language, because it is not specific. It does not offer any guarantees when they use language of “except in those cases where…it is not reasonable and economically practical to do so”; “using all reasonable endeavours”; “as far as it is reasonable and economically practical to do, use the services” of Australian professionals; base specifications, tenders and contracts on Australian standards and codes “except where it is impractical to do so.”

Interjections.

Hon. P. Fassbender: I appreciate that the members opposite don’t want to hear the facts. I appreciate that they don’t want to know the reality of what is going on in the rest of the world.

Let me say this. The members opposite speak of the last election and promises made. I can tell you that the Premier of this province and the members of this government cast a vision for the people of British Columbia for economic growth, for job growth, for educational advancement, for ensuring that we give the best opportunities to our citizens that we can by casting a clear and decisive vision for the future of British Columbia.

[1535]

Liquefied natural gas is an important and generational opportunity for the young people of this province for generations to come. To miss that opportunity would be a travesty.

In the last session of the House, when we were debating the tax act around liquefied natural gas, the members opposite suggested that we should just delay another six months and work out more of the details at that time. That is typical of not wanting to make a decision, about delay tactics which would destroy the opportunity that is clearly before us in British Columbia as a result of the liquefied natural gas proponents that are working with us.

I want to say this. I am proud to be a member of a government who has a Premier, a Minister of Natural Gas, a Minister of Jobs and a Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation who have worked very, very hard to lay the foundation for an agreement that is going to benefit every single British Columbian today, tomorrow and into the future.

The suggestion that we have not engaged the First Nations is so false that it drives me absolutely crazy. I have sat with the minister responsible, and I have watched how hard he has worked in meeting with First Nations — along with the Minister of Natural Gas, along with the Premier — sitting down and talking about the generational opportunity for First Nations and aboriginal youth as a result of what this opportunity provides.
[ Page 8966 ]

Have those discussions been easy? No, they haven’t. But we have had a number of agreements with First Nations along the pipelines, dozens of those agreements. Yes, there are still some that have more questions. But we’re committed to continuing to work with those First Nations and aboriginal communities to make sure we give them that future that we have promised them.

We talk about the benefits of this particular project. Pacific NorthWest LNG represents a total investment that has been said time and time again…. I believe the people of British Columbia need to understand this. When we talk about billions of dollars, that is a number that most people can’t relate to. But the reality is that the investment of $36 billion U.S., $45 billion Canadian, is the largest single investment in the province of British Columbia, if not Canada, and that benefits every single citizen, as I have said, now and into the future.

The other benefits in terms of direct jobs — 330 direct, operational, long-term jobs for one project. And this isn’t going to be the only project. This is the beginning of the future for British Columbia when it comes to liquefied natural gas. There are also 300 local spinoff jobs that come off of that. There are up to 4,500 jobs at peak construction period. People that are in apprenticeship programs today will be given the opportunity to have meaningful employment, put their skills to work and show that they can have a future for themselves and for their families.

Under the tax and royalty framework that we’ve talked about here, by 2030 on this project alone the province could see almost $8.6 billion in total royalty and tax revenues: royalty revenues of $3.64 billion; LNG income tax of over $697 million; corporate income tax of $1.2 billion; PST of $1.26 billion; motor fuel tax of $462 million; and property tax to local government of $253 million.

[1540]

Now, when the Minister of Finance got up and spoke to this bill, he said he was probably as excited as he’s ever been in his time in this House over this particular initiative and the legislation that is before us. It is a generational opportunity. This government has shown — not only with this, but with the Site C decision, with other decisions that we’ve had to build the economy, the hard work we’ve done with educational institutions to provide the educational outcomes that our young people need — we are on the road to success because of it.

But you know, again, the opposition, without really understanding economics — and they don’t…. The PDA does not provide the proponent any assurance on the laws of general application, such as changes to provincial sales tax, carbon taxes or corporate income tax. The government can alter these taxes generally but not specifically in the LNG sector. Why is that? That is to ensure the future of this industry in a very competitive and volatile world stage.

I heard previously from members across the way: “Well, this is a pipe dream. It’s not going to happen. It’s never going to come to fruition. Look what Russia just did with China. The market is going to dry up.” If you look at the economists’ reports on the future of liquefied natural gas in the world, it is a growing sector. The demand far exceeds any of the supply that is in the pipeline now or projected in the future. That is why British Columbia needs to be at the forefront in North America in leading the charge on making this industry a reality.

From my perspective, I look at it, and I look at what we tried to do in my ministry alone, with education. There is a pivotal role for my ministry in the LNG as well. We’re at the start of a path that leads to lifelong careers in the LNG industry for young people. In the language of the industry, you can say we are the upstream of that industry. I know that the Minister of Jobs and the Premier and the Minister of Natural Gas, when they met with the proponents, made the commitment that we are re-engineering our education system in the K to 12 and the post-secondary to meet the needs of the future, but not just for that industry.

Those young people that will be involved in working on the construction of the LNG pipelines…. Once they are finished that, because our economy is going to continue to grow, those skills will be able to be used in other sectors of our economy, and they will benefit, as will their families.

We know that the spinoffs from this will not only affect just that industry. There will be more accounting jobs. There will be more nursing jobs. There will be more marketing jobs. There will be more office managers that are required. There will be more software and technology jobs. All of these are in part going to be fuelled by the LNG industry as one of the major pivotal industries of this province.

It has been made very clear by the Premier, by the Minister of Finance, by the Minister of Jobs, that we recognize we have other industries in this province, but they will all also benefit from growth in the LNG industry. That is why British Columbia is seen as a preferred destination for companies to come and invest their significant resources in the future of their companies and the people that they’re going to employ.

There is no doubt in my mind that the province is going to work with the proponent to develop the roads, the public services and the utilities infrastructure that are not only relevant to the project but will also benefit the communities around them.

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We have also initiated the northwest community readiness study to ensure that communities and provincial service providers are prepared to meet those needs, which will also mean additional jobs and growth and will ensure the safety and social service demands that are coming from the growth in our province. This bill is the beginning of another phase of a tremendous future in this province.
[ Page 8967 ]

Again, the members opposite…. I remember when the first balanced budget was being brought into the House for debate. They said it was not a balanced budget. It was not real. Well, we’ve had the third balanced budget in this province. Why is that? Because we have a vision for the province. We will go after that vision. We will encourage it. We will partner with those people who have the foresight to invest in this province.

The No Development Party across the way can continue to try and put fear into the hearts of British Columbians, but they know that we have a vision for the future, and that vision is for their prosperity and the prosperity of their families.

V. Huntington: We are called to session this summer to pass Bill 30, the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, on behalf of the Pacific NorthWest LNG project.

The government hope is that we’ll have some photo ops with shovels in the ground before the year is out or, perhaps, since the long stop date is two years from now, at least before the next election.

I supported the LNG Income Tax Act last year. I have indicated a number of times that I support an LNG industry that is built upon environmentally responsible extraction and transport with a more than fair return to British Columbia and its citizens.

When the LNG Income Tax Act was passed, it was already becoming clear that B.C. was not going to get what the Premier had originally declared, given the ultimate tax rate was half of what had been touted. But still, I supported that tax act, because the extraction infrastructure exists in B.C., because the revenues would benefit the province and because I do think there is the potential to assist with the worldwide transition to a cleaner fuel.

Of course, that transition comes with consequences, huge consequences, in terms of the emissions associated with the extraction and processing of natural gas. Our government has, as it develops this new industry, a moral responsibility to protect the people and the environment of this province to the greatest degree possible. Thus, I did not support the government’s LNG emissions legislation or the spring amendments that set the stage for long-term royalty agreements.

At the time, I said that British Columbians don’t want this industry at any cost. They don’t want to support LNG at an embarrassing loss. I still believe that’s true. They don’t want LNG at any environmental cost. They don’t want to support LNG without guarantees that the jobs really are for our own citizens — or wondering whether training can happen quickly enough at this point to ensure British Columbians can be expert enough to qualify for the latter stages of construction.

I’m forced to say that I believe the PDA before us and the future project agreements that are supported by this legislation represent a potential loss to the people of B.C. that will be unacceptable as time goes by.

The government mantra is certainty and fairness. Certainty for business I can understand. Stability for international investors I can understand. But a 25-year agreement that is limited solely to a financial guarantee for business and a much reduced financial benefit to British Columbia is difficult to swallow. That is nothing but a certain giveaway. That is not fairness for our province.

Is Bill 30 ensuring, guaranteeing any of the value-add we have a right to expect from such a massive project, a project that the government loves to say stands alone in its investment magnitude? I don’t think it does. In fact, I think it may be a future liability of crippling proportion.

The PDA is a 25-year agreement. This bill says these LNG development agreements can’t be longer than 25 years. I expect that’s going to be the standard our government has now set for the development of this new industry.

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If circumstances changed, just as they have changed in the world market for oil, if prices rise and Pacific NorthWest LNG sees profits beyond their wildest dreams, there is no meaningful chance that our government can ensure that British Columbians also reap those rewards.

This agreement prevents government from re-examining the fiscal environment, even in a windfall circumstance. How can that be “ensuring British Columbians get their fair share of the resources that belong to them”? That is a quote from the Premier herself, as she outlined one of her three expectations yesterday.

Another expectation the Premier has is: “Fairness. Ensuring business has certainty.” But where is the fairness to British Columbians? Lower returns than originally promised. No guarantees for a transition to domestic labour. No ability to react to fiscal environments. A loss of sovereignty in the very area that makes government, government: the ability to tax.

Yes, we will have a new tax that will contribute, over 25 years, a purported $9 billion to the provincial budget. Of course, the tax regime is so complicated that it needs a chart to understand the expected annual revenues, and it may be some time before we pass the period of capital cost allowance and actually see the revenues anticipated. Ten years perhaps?

Of course, B.C. could alter the LNG taxes at the cost of millions of dollars in compensation should the financial consequences to the companies exceed a certain threshold. It’s nice to see that the compensation thresholds, at least, aren’t set in stone in this bill, although they are in the Pacific NorthWest LNG agreement. Perhaps one could be led to believe the government might raise the threshold for future project agreements and give itself more flexibility. That, I suspect, would not be agreeable to any new proponent, who certainly won’t want less favourable terms than Pacific NorthWest LNG.

The PDA is an agreement that locks in our climate policy by limiting the ability of future governments to bring in additional specific controls on LNG GHG emis-
[ Page 8968 ]
sions. This is particularly troubling because it involves an industry that has the potential to make our climate targets effectively meaningless. To prevent a response to the demands of climate change over a 25-year period in an industry that will make our provincial targets meaningless is simply and utterly not in the public interest.

Government has to be able to respond to a specific industry. How can it tie its own hands behind its back in the face of pending global unrest? Does it really believe that extraordinary change in our environmental circumstance is a long way off? What if we need the Peace to grow our food, to feed the country or the continent? How do we stop the impact this industry has and will continue to have on our land? What if we need the water more than the power? How will we stop the impact this industry has and will continue to exact on our northern water supplies?

How can we turn our backs on a global demand for carbon emissions control? Yes, LNG is better than burning coal or burning oil. Yes, it is a cleaner fuel. That doesn’t mean the government should just lie back and think of England.

Our government has a sworn obligation to maintain its ability to govern in a sovereign manner, independently and always in the best interests of the province. That is its sworn duty. That is the expectation that people have when they go to the polls, yet Bill 30 also ensures that future agreements include protections from changes to the government’s own LNG environmental incentive program. That’s the program where proponents are subsidized to meet the government’s bare minimum emission standards. Why are we subsidizing proponents if they try to meet our minimum emissions requirements? Why are we protecting them in law from changes to those standards?

If the government wants to say it has the cleanest LNG in the world, then it should legislate tough standards, tough fines and tough enforcement — not set unrealistic, uncompetitive standards that we end up paying a proponent to meet. The standards set by the government do nothing more than let it say over and over that we “will have the cleanest industry in the world.”

It is a fraud. Petronas has obviously convinced the government that the industry couldn’t be competitive with the cleanest standards, so the pretence was created. British Columbia will pay industry to use new technology that will lead us to the promised land of cleanest. How utterly irresponsible is that?

Best practice should be standard practice — period. It should be the cost of doing business in an industry that has such significant impact on our environment. The subsidy is bass-ackwards. We should be subsidizing producers who want to drop below the minimum standard, not subsidizing them to reach the minimum standard.

[1555]

A lot of the government support for this bill is around the word “certainty.” Do the bill and the PDA provide certainty? I suppose so. Certainty for the proponent and certainty for the price it exacts from British Columbia — unless the proponent decides it wants out and gives the province 90 days’ notice.

This spring, while debating the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, I lamented the secrecy around these agreements. It is still unfortunate that according to this bill, the substance of the negotiations will not be known until after the project agreements are ratified. They’ll eventually be public via order-in-council, but if the government negotiates a bad deal for B.C., we won’t know about it until it’s too late — public after the fact.

That’s what’s so laughable about the statements from the Minister of Finance about openness and how responsive the government is being to accusations of secrecy. “Here, in this most public of places,” he said, “is the agreement for all to see and for all to comment, debate and criticize.” But we all know that the reality of Parliament in this province is an autocratic approach to decision-making. It doesn’t matter what we say. It’s all after the fact.

We are not influencing the form and content of this agreement. There is no committee examining this generational opportunity. We are called to session in order to watch government use its majority to undermine the sovereignty of this province. It isn’t democracy at work. It is arrogance at its worst.

This project comes with a significant amount of baggage. On that note, I would like to speak, as many of my colleagues have in this House, to the issue of the “Other Matters” contained in the project development agreement and the absence of anything addressing the other matters in this bill.

When I was briefed on the PDA last week by Ministry of Finance staff — and as most of us have said, I am grateful to those officials for taking such a significant amount of time to brief us on the bill — I had a number of questions about labour, the environment and aboriginal relations, all questions that existed outside the Finance Ministry’s responsibility. I continue to have a number of outstanding questions about how the other matters — big pieces like air quality and GHGs, First Nation interests and property tax regimes — will be addressed.

In the PDA link to this bill neither party has liability for these other matters. I think it an embarrassing abrogation of responsibility when we know it is absolutely possible to include firm requirements for jobs and the environment within a PDA. There is even an “other matters” clause in this bill. Section 2(4) allows the minister to include “any other terms, conditions or limitations that the minister considers necessary or advisable.”

He can even limit the indemnities under that clause if he sees fit. And, of course, if he wanted to, he could negotiate binding requirements for B.C. jobs and the environment — if he wanted to — but they would likely have been costs to the proponent and as compensation from the province.
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If the government does get around to including real job requirements in its future PDAs, wouldn’t it be nice if it could come back around to fix its earlier agreements? Unfortunately, it won’t be able to, since the revisitation clause only opens up when an early proponent wants in on a sweeter deal that a later proponent is able to squeeze out of government.

Future companies will look to this PDA and say: “Why should we have to guarantee jobs for British Columbians when Pacific NorthWest LNG didn’t?” And the government will say they’re right, of course, and we’ll be saddled with equally vague PDAs.

Actually, the Pacific NorthWest PDA does have a little to say about skills training — five paragraphs that talk about a working group and activities the province has been doing to update our labour force. My goodness, there’s even a reference, however vague, to jobs for British Columbians: “The province has signed the Canada-B.C. MOU on a strong resource economy, an agreement to work jointly on labour market information and programming to ensure British Columbians are first in line for jobs in resource industries.”

It’s a B.C.-Canada MOU, not an MOU with the proponent, for heaven’s sake, and the MOU is over a year old. It talks about a lot of monitoring and work that needs to be done. While it’s mostly generalities, it does get a little more specific than the PDA, even. For example, the MOU says: “Canadians and permanent residents should always have the first chance at available jobs. However, in cases where employers can clearly demonstrate that domestic workers are unavailable” — it sounds like Australia — “employers may seek to hire temporary foreign workers but will need to have a plan in place to transition to a domestic workforce.”

[1600]

Where is that transition plan? Why isn’t it part of the PDA, part of Bill 30? There hasn’t been any talk of trying to transition to a domestic workforce. In fact, they made it sound like their intention was the exact opposite when it came to hiring specialists in the latter stage of construction. They are already demonstrating that they believe domestic workers are unavailable, and certainly the president of Petronas made it quite clear that construction costs — read labour costs — are a problem. Those statements were released months after the Canada-B.C. MOU came out last year.

Pacific NorthWest LNG has said that Canadians would make up 70 percent of the construction workforce for the first three years before transitioning to only 30 percent of the construction workforce for the final two years of construction. That is some transition plan to a domestic workforce.

When our government refers back to the MOU and makes sweeping statements about jobs, why didn’t it ensure that the PDA contains a guarantee from the proponent for a plan to transition to a domestic workforce? I think the answer is that the government hasn’t done the early legwork and planning to ensure that the domestic workforce is there, which is too bad, because it’s what the MOU said was required. Proponents “will need to have a plan” to transition to a domestic workforce, but there’s nothing in the PDA, not a thing, and nothing in the bill. Another disappointment and another missed opportunity.

Other issues that have not been answered for me include the work and agreements being undertaken with First Nations groups, particularly the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation. I was so proud of that nation when it chose the environment over money. Now the ministers and the Premier are referring to work that has been done since the Lax Kw’alaams rejected the $1.15 billion agreement.

We have no idea what’s being discussed, no idea whether the discussions are independent of the environmental assessment office, as one would hope, no idea if the Lax continue to object. Obviously, government is confident it can overcome any objection of the Lax. And if it can’t, what then? Is Canada going to overrule the objection on the basis that consultation and accommodation were unsuccessful?

There are so many interesting provisions in this bill. For example, there can be no new LNG project agreements made ten years from the date Bill 30 comes into force. Now, why is that? Could it be that the government recognizes that the weak provisions in this bill, those that indemnify the proponents from future tax changes, will undoubtedly need to be rewritten? Is this the government fail-safe that can stop the bargain basement sale after ten years?

The bill before us undoubtedly represents a lot of hard work by this government and its officials to get to where we are today, and I suspect a lot of people within the system may not be terribly happy with this agreement. There are so many questions that the government has no intention of answering or admitting to.

While our first major LNG project is closer to reality, the windfall that was lauded a scant few years ago has dwindled significantly from its original promise. B.C. resources are finite. If the benefits are not real, perhaps we should go slow and protect that resource for our own use in future. Husband it with the respect it deserves instead of hauling it out of the ground as fast as we possibly can.

I hope the government is right and that we are on the cusp of a great economic revolution. LNG, after all, is a new industry, with new revenues and a risky economic environment that’s worldwide. But my problem is that I don’t think the long-term benefits to British Columbia are what they ought to be. I think the government has failed us in its haste to save face.

I would be more positive about this first agreement if we had our promised LNG tax rate of 7 percent. I would be more supportive if the emissions of LNG were taken seriously and our climate policy and climate leadership were not placed in jeopardy by these agreements and if these agreements weren’t for 25 years with no real exit clause.
[ Page 8970 ]

My position would have been different if there was binding language guaranteeing B.C. jobs and skills training and if the province had used this bill to give itself a meaningful way to renegotiate both its project agreements and LNG-specific legislation without having to compensate proponents.

The minister’s current mandate letter includes a requirement that he work with the Minister of Natural Gas to present options to cabinet on the creation of the prosperity fund by the 2017 spring legislative session.

[1605]

The minister will, no doubt, introduce that bill before the 2017 election with a smile on his face, and both he and the Premier will say: “Promise made, promise kept.” I wonder if, when he is interviewed in 25 years about the LNG legacy and the prosperity fund, he will be able to say the same about the decisions he and his colleagues have made with Bill 30 on behalf of British Columbians.

J. Thornthwaite: I am rising today to give support to Bill 30, the LNG project development agreement enabling act. This is a huge opportunity for British Columbians, and a major milestone on the path to realizing the largest capital investment in B.C.’s history.

The agreement between the province and Pacific NorthWest LNG is the first of its kind with an LNG proponent. It sets out the ratification process for the company and for government and identifies important milestones towards achieving project certainty and provides long-term certainty that the investments will be treated equitably and consistently over the term of the agreement.

As our Premier said yesterday, Bill 30 ensures B.C. gets our fair share of a resource that belongs to us. This will help us continue to build the fair society to which we all aspire by delivering services like health care and education that make a real difference in people’s lives.

It will give the government of B.C. more choices, more opportunities to invest in our people — the people of British Columbia — and allows us to invest more in the priorities that are important to us. In my case, that would be child and youth mental health.

It also does provide long-term certainty that makes sure investors and the business community, in this global competitive environment, know that B.C. is a place they can trust, that they can make their investment and create jobs and that they will be treated fairly.

What are the benefits? Pacific NorthWest LNG represents a total investment of $36 billion U.S. in the B.C.-Canadian economy, 330 direct operational long-term jobs, 300 local spinoff jobs and up to 4,500 jobs at peak construction.

Under the tax and royalty framework, by 2030 it is estimated that the province could see almost $8.6 billion in total royalty and tax revenues, $3.64 billion in royalty revenues, $697 million in LNG income tax, $1.16 billion in carbon tax, $1.2 billion in corporate income tax, $1.26 billion in PST, $462 million in motor fuel tax and $253 million in property tax. That is $8.6 billion in total royalties and tax revenues.

Yes, there is compensation for adverse changes, but only as it applies exclusively to the LNG business. A change in LNG tax, natural gas tax credit, carbon tax, or greenhouse gas — as long as they apply only to LNG, then there would be compensation. But all other taxes are allowed. It doesn’t prevent future governments from raising taxes in general. What this does to the community or to the LNG business is that long-term certainty supports long-term investments.

There’s been a lot of chatter in the last day on the job prospects with regards to LNG. I was provided yesterday with a statement from the president of Pacific NorthWest LNG, Michael Culbert. I’m just going to read a little bit of his statement.

“This LNG project is a great opportunity for British Columbia and Canada based on job creation and economic opportunities. Our facility alone is expected to generate up to 4,500 jobs during peak construction as well as…330 long-term careers in operations and another 300 spinoff jobs in the local communities.

[1610]

“Our commitment is to hire as many local British Columbians and Canadian workers as possible to support our facility in both construction and operations…. To fulfil this objective, we are working with a number of associations, educational providers and working groups to help prepare the B.C. workforce for upcoming job opportunities. This includes the Premier’s LNG Working Group, which is comprised of representatives from the province, other proponents, First Nations, labour organizations and key stakeholders.”

I have another quote, pertaining to the unions. This is from Joe Shayler, the business manager for the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters. “We have an opportunity to rejuvenate the north and provide long-term employment so families can stay together. This is good for the communities themselves, but also good for the entire province.” So here we have it — labour unions sitting down with government and industry to ensure British Columbians are first in line for these jobs.

I’d also like to expand on something that our Minister of Education said with regards to skills training.

“The province established the Premier’s LNG Working Group with representatives, as mentioned, with labour, industry, First Nations and the federal and provincial governments. The mandate of the working group is to address skills and training and workforce planning issues related to the LNG sector to support personnel demands, including those related to associated pipeline and upstream development.

“In addition, the province is recalibrating its apprentice system and re-engineering its education and training model to be more responsive to the labour market demand. The Skills for Jobs Blueprint: Re-engineering, Education and Training provides a plan for reorienting training resources to jobs in demand, including those in the LNG sector. To ensure the focus is on the right jobs, the province will work with industry and labour to update occupational forecasts for the LNG sector.”

Yesterday our Premier, the Minister of Jobs and Skills Training and the Industry Training Authority announced funding of over $75 million to B.C.’s trades-training pro-
[ Page 8971 ]
viders through to March 31, 2016. This is to meet industry needs and ensure quality training in high-priority trades.

In response to the objectives outlined in B.C.’s skills-for-jobs blueprint and the McDonald report, the ITA has worked in partnership with the B.C. government to begin building a demand-driven trades-training system with funding aligned to specific high-priority trades. What I understand is that the top 12 LNG trade jobs are: steam or pipefitters, welders, concrete finishers, carpenters, heavy-equipment operators, gas fitters, crane operators, electricians, ironworkers, sheet metal workers, heavy-duty equipment mechanics and insulators. Those are the direct jobs for LNG.

In North Vancouver we had an event on March 31 of this year. High school students in North Van got a head start in hands-on trades training at the Squamish Nation trade centre through the new ACE IT piping foundation program made possible through the B.C. skills-for-jobs blueprint partnership. This involved the Squamish Nation, the ITA, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, North Van school districts, specifically Mountainside Secondary, and the private sector.

It was really neat to see 15 students from North Vancouver’s Mountainside Secondary School from a diversity of backgrounds, including the Squamish First Nation, enrolled in the inaugural 23-week trades program. The accelerated credit for enrolment in industry training program — i.e., ACE IT — allows students to take their first level of technical training in certain trades, while at the same time giving them high school credits needed for graduation.

I wanted to read a quote from the principal of Mountainside Secondary School, Mr. Jeremy Church.

“The staff at Mountainside Secondary School have been incredibly impressed with the level of engagement this partnership program has brought for our students. Providing our students with an ability to earn graduation credits, post-secondary credits and real-world employability skills will be and has already been a life-changing opportunity. Access to skills training with direct links to a growing area of the jobs market is precisely what so many of our students need, and I’m so thankful to see this program becoming what I hoped it would.”

There are tons of jobs like that and programs in the British Columbia economy right now in the school systems, in the post-secondary, in the K-to-12 system, that are doing just that. This is designed to provide the skill set that we need to provide the hundreds and hundreds of jobs that are going to become available in LNG and the other resource jobs.

[1615]

The other thing that I’d like to mention, because there has been a bit of chatter about the First Nations…. I really appreciated what the Minister of Education said earlier with regards to the work that our Minister of Aboriginal Relations has worked on with regards to relationships with First Nations.

The province continues to work with the Tsimshian nations regarding the Pacific NorthWest LNG project. We’ve already reached agreements with 16 First Nations near the proposed facility, along with Prince Rupert gas transmission pipeline routes so far. We’re working hard with the Lax Kw’alaams to address their concerns to the best of our ability and based on the best science.

To date, nearly 90 percent of the 32 First Nations with proposed pipelines through their traditional territories have indicated their support through one or more pipeline benefits. That is more than 60 benefit-sharing agreements with 28 First Nations.

I was struck by an article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun on the weekend, which was “First Nations Communities Rising to the Challenge of Resource Projects.” They pinpointed Haisla Chief Councillor Ellis Ross, who is supportive of LNG — and specifically the one in Kitimat.

“For the first time in known memory, members of the community have jobs to pick from, and residents are building new homes with mortgages they have obtained by themselves….

“This is a positive development for First Nations and for First Nations people across British Columbia in many ways. First Nations have a deep and historic connection to the land, and it is important for our values to be reflected when decisions are being made about the major projects.”

The author, Lana Eagle, who was talking about Chief Ross, went on to say:

“As interim executive director of the Industry Council for Aboriginal Business, I see tremendous opportunity on the horizon. As B.C.’s go-to organization for connecting industry and the aboriginal business community, we work each day with organizations that recognize it is good business to build partnerships with aboriginal businesses, and that work proves to me what is possible.

“Take the opportunities presented by the development of a liquefied natural gas industry in B.C. The Haisla, for example, have developed a proactive relationship with LNG Canada, demonstrating the kinds of steps that can lead to a positive outcome. Throughout the process Haisla Chief Councillor Ellis Ross has been articulate and firm about setting the right conditions to ensure his community will benefit from the opportunities LNG can deliver.”

In summary, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the environment. This agreement is the only LNG agreement in the world, any jurisdiction, that actually attaches a carbon tax to it. The B.C. LNG industry will pay the carbon tax on its combustion emissions from fossil fuels, as do all other industries in the province. B.C. has shown we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to grow the economy and in June 2014 announced an interim greenhouse gas emissions target.

The greenhouse gas emissions cap we have placed on the LNG facilities will make B.C.’s cleanest in the world. A major aspect of the LNG strategy is to foster innovative approaches to managing natural gas sector emissions. And the emission benchmark flexible mechanisms are incentives to invest in emissions reduction projects in the natural gas and other sectors in B.C. This is yet another example of B.C.’s international leadership on climate action.

In summary, Bill 30 will ensure that B.C. gets our fair share, with huge economic benefits for British
[ Page 8972 ]
Columbians. It provides fairness and consistency to investors to encourage more investment. It’s a major job builder, both permanent and construction jobs, not only for the north but also provincewide.

It shows that both levels of government, unions, First Nations, communities and small business can come together and work together. It shows that our government has skills training as a priority, both in the K to 12 as well as post-secondary, and fits with the B.C. jobs plan so British Columbians are the first in line for those jobs. And it will ensure that the LNG business in British Columbia will be the cleanest in the world.

[1620]

R. Fleming: I’m pleased to take my place at this stage in debate on Bill 30 this afternoon. While I thank the previous speaker for her measured tone and her ability to try and persuade on the scant details of the bill and amplify them and make a case for the agreement, I think it’s worth commenting that there has been an incredulous, extremely sensitive tone in the House over the last couple of days about Bill 30.

We had the Premier come in here and talk about how this was going to be a historic day. We no sooner had that than this thin skin of the Liberal Party has appeared in speaker after speaker. I think that’s interesting. If you’re going to put yourself out there, if you’re going to make your entire government about LNG, if you’re going to campaign in the last election, as this government did, on an utter fiction around a $1 trillion industry and then bring in something worth less than 8 percent of the $100 billion of investment that they talked about, then you better be prepared for some scrutiny, both inside the House and outside.

I think that those paying attention to this debate can’t help but notice the dichotomy, at this stage of the debate, between the Premier in her very brief remarks — clocking in probably at about six minutes yesterday — using most Churchillian terms to talk about history-making right here in this place, in this chamber, and then outside the chamber, in conversations with journalists and in the media, her ministers say something a little bit different, a little bit more subdued.

Basically, what we get outside the House, from those that have to explain the details and are facing detailed questions on it, is: “This is the deal that we could get.” Basically, the sum total of the arguments to the public now is that any deal is a deal and should be taken. That’s quite a dichotomy — between the history-making and over-the-top promises that the Premier still makes, even knowing that they’ve been utterly exposed as baseless and empty, and what we get in the emerging analysis of this agreement.

Here we are in a summer sitting — a special sitting of the Legislature, just to emphasize the importance of it — which has more to do with political theatre than business deadlines or law, debating this bill. And we have a government that has shown, just in the last 48 hours, how actively and how much they dislike it when British Columbians dare to look, in the cold light of day, in any detail at this bill, at this deal.

Now, some of the British Columbians, as the government knows, who are speaking out against this agreement have a very good deal of inside knowledge about how government works. One of them was even the right-hand man of this government in recent years. He called the project development agreement with Pacific NorthWest LNG “an unprecedented boon to Big Oil” — Martyn Brown’s words.

He had this to say about the government that he once worked for. He said: “We should not be content to let the government sell out British Columbia’s long-term capacity to appropriately manage, tax and regulate our most valuable non-renewable resource or to properly price and minimize the massive greenhouse gas emissions that will result from LNG exports.” That’s Martyn Brown.

He goes on: “Nor should we accept that the price for attracting any LNG project is a deal that amounts to a wholesale sellout of our provincial sovereignty.” Again, Martyn Brown concludes by saying: “It begs to be expertly parsed and broadly exposed before it is imposed on our province.”

Thin-skinned party. Former insider of the government — they can’t stand to hear it.

What they should be in these circumstances as a government, as a party, is extremely forgiving. In fact, they should be begging British Columbians for their forgiveness when they look at this deal and compare it to the statements that the government has made over recent years.

[1625]

It was British Columbians who were told clearly and repeatedly, by this party, a series of promises from the Premier just two years ago. We were told emphatically that British Columbia was headed on some kind of road to LNG El Dorado. That was, basically, what was sold to British Columbians.

A debt-free province in 15 years. Remember that? Here’s what the Premier said: “Our goal is a debt-free B.C., and we intend to reach our goal 15 years from today.” Well, that was on April 15, 2013, actually during the window of the election writ. A debt-free province in 15 years. What we have is $20 billion of debt growth under this Premier’s brief years in office and no ability to repay debt from an LNG industry that was so overhyped and so oversold.

We were told there were going to be 100,000 new jobs, and no fewer, from five LNG plants. Now we’ve got speakers on the Liberal side chastising the opposition, saying: “You just don’t appreciate 330 operational jobs.” They’re not talking about 100,000 jobs anymore, although I do note that the Premier couldn’t help herself and repeat that fictitious figure the other day in her brief remarks.
[ Page 8973 ]

We were promised a prosperity fund in British Columbia, stuffed with over $100 billion in royalties and taxes. Now we have nothing of the sort here. The fund doesn’t exist. It’s phony and it’s not real and it’s not happening and it’s not in this bill that’s before the House.

Oversold, again, was a $1 trillion contribution to total GDP in British Columbia. Again, the Premier saying: “Development in natural gas can stimulate $1 trillion in new economic activity across the province” — again, during the election, 29th of April, 2013.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I think everybody on both sides of the House and the voters will remember that all of these promises that I have just gone over…. If anybody missed it, it was emblazoned on the side of the Premier’s campaign bus.

We’ve heard a lot from members on that side of the House about how they’re the only ones that get the private sector, that they’re in tune with private business. So I would like to make a suggestion to them at this time, as we get closer to 2017.

Would those members who say they get the private sector, support the private sector, do something consistent and sign on to a code in the private sector, the Canadian code of advertising standards’ set of principles? Because I think, in light of the 2013 election campaign, this is important.

It’s a 14-point set of principles. Maybe the Liberals don’t have to sign on to all 14 of them, but just sign on to point 1.

Interjection.

R. Fleming: Let me read it to the Minister of Advanced Education and Innovation. Here’s point 1. Just sign on to this one, B.C. Liberal party: “Advertisements must not contain inaccurate, deceptive or otherwise misleading claims, statements, illustrations or representations, either direct or implied.” Sign on to the Canadian code of advertising standards, B.C. Liberal party, in time for the 2017 election, because you’ve been found in utter violation of it during this debate and over the last couple of years.

Now, this year, another promise. In 2015 the first plant was going to be operational. Quote from the Premier: “The money is going to start coming in 2017, and we’re going to have three plants up and running by 2020, the first one by 2015.” That’s pretty close — so from pretty close to pretty far apart in terms of what we see in Bill 30. You couldn’t describe a bigger gap between what the public was told and what the public sees now. It’s a gigantic gap that this agreement shows.

Most British Columbians, this side included, support the development of a responsible LNG industry for B.C. The point is, not at any price and not in a deal that ties our hands as a jurisdiction, potentially for generations into the future.

[1630]

Again, former Liberal insider Mr. Martyn Brown puts it well when he wrote:

“More importantly, this is a bad deal for B.C. that should give us all pause to reflect on the devil that is everywhere in its details.

“The fine print of that deal will commit our province to a course that is environmentally reckless, fiscally foolhardy and socially irresponsible. I say that,” Mr. Brown continues, “as someone who is generally supportive of the merits of LNG development, to the extent that it is invited without giving up more than we collectively stand to gain.”

Those are wise words in this brief session and opportunity to look at this agreement and Bill 30.

Now, I know the B.C. Liberals are fond of their fictitious five conditions for heavy oil pipeline transportation, which proved utterly useless in having any standing on Stephen Harper ramming through his federal approval of Enbridge northern gateway.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Let me outline something different — four commonsense conditions that the Leader of the Opposition has offered that would form part of a stable social licence necessary for the development and maturation of an LNG industry in B.C.: (1) a fair return to British Columbians who own the resource; (2) jobs for every British Columbian ready to work or be trained; (3) protection for our air, land and water. And condition 4, true partnership with First Nations.

These are commonsense, practical, baseline conditions that should be satisfied to do business in the province of British Columbia, principles that the industry should know and respect, principles that they have codified into agreements in other jurisdictions but have given themselves so much wiggle room or even ironclad protections from British Columbia as a jurisdiction in this deal. This PDA falls far short on every one of those conditions and, for that reason, is unsupportable.

We know that British Columbians place a high premium on protecting the environment and a high value on our resources and our environment. They value our resources, and most people in B.C. who want to see an LNG industry developed don’t want it to compromise our air, water, fisheries and land from protection. They don’t.

The government knows this as well. They do opinion polling all the time. They know that British Columbians and northern British Columbians in particular don’t want to see a trade-off where the environment and viable industries like fisheries are put at risk for new industrial development. That has to be a condition that is satisfied, and at this point in time during debate of Bill 30 it is not satisfied.

The other concern that Mr. Brown but also all British Columbians, I believe, have a concern about is whether resources that belong to all British Columbians — Crown resources that are ours and future generations’ by birthright — are being given away for too little in return.
[ Page 8974 ]

Of course, people in the northwest, in the northeast, in every part of B.C. would welcome a new industry that will strengthen the economy of that region and the province as a whole. But they don’t want an industrial development, for example, that at this point in time could potentially put at risk a fishery that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and supports hundreds of small businesses and thousands of jobs in the northwest and has proven itself a sustainable industry that provides money into the community and work in the community for decades and decades and decades. That’s a real risk that is far from resolved.

Now, the fair return concern that British Columbians have is perhaps the crux of the social licence that is needed for development of an LNG industry in B.C. It’s the core of what was once called the Lougheed doctrine in Alberta, which was a set of principles that progressive governments of all political stripes in western Canada that are blessed to have natural resources under our feet, the way we do here in British Columbia as well…. It was a set of principles that everybody signed on to.

[1635]

It’s one that a newly elected NDP government in Alberta has pledged to get back to, that an outdated and unpopular government, which was of the party Mr. Lougheed once was, was thrown out for betraying over so many years.

That’s what we’re looking for here. That’s what the petrochemical industry will need to grow itself and get products to market in Alberta. That’s what an LNG industry that wants to grow and mature in British Columbia will need to do business here long term. If you want British Columbians, both current and future generations, to support an LNG industry, they deserve, in exchange, access to a fair return, and that is a bottom-line condition.

Now, what is clear and what others have spoken to very well…. And I will only go over it briefly. Others have talked about the utterly poor negotiating position that this government put itself in, that this Premier put it in, by basically saying they were desperate to fulfil in any form, scant or otherwise, the appearance that they were fulfilling some of their outlandish election promises. They were desperate for any LNG deal. That is clear, and that is not a good place to be negotiating with large industrial interests that are multinational players, as contained in Bill 30 here.

That brings us to our concern about one of the aspects that makes this deal suspect — the 25 years of inflexibility that locks down British Columbians at a time when natural gas prices are at historic lows, puts B.C. in the basement of what a deal might look like, a weaker deal than other jurisdictions elsewhere have signed on in different forms. We’ve talked about Australia, and we’ll get back to that example in a moment.

It also prevents us from doing, over 25 years or in the near term, what one remarkable Premier did just a few years ago in Newfoundland. Danny Williams tore up a bad deal, renegotiated it.

This man was not anti-oil. He was pro-offshore drilling. There was an industry in place, and there was a government that had signed a lazy and bad agreement that was not in the interests of Newfoundland and Labradoreans. He renegotiated that deal. He did not chase away the industry. He secured something long term that was better in the interests of the province. That’s something that will be locked down and prohibited in British Columbia.

Let’s go back. I’ve clipped an article from April 2006. “Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams walked away from the proposed Hebron development because the multinational oil companies were not offering sufficient benefits for his province.”

Fifteen months later Williams secured a new deal that gives his province — and I want to outline these three things that Mr. Williams got; they’re so different than what our Premier failed to get — (1) an equity stake in Hebron; (2) a super-royalty if oil prices stay above $50 per barrel; and (3) a commitment to construct structures, the infrastructure for the industry, using local suppliers in Newfoundland — also missing from British Columbia.

That’s now illegal if Bill 30 passes in British Columbia — any one of those things, putting it on the table. Or if you try, you’ll have to compensate, dollar for dollar, Petronas. So why would you do it? It’s illegal. It’s a constraint that governments for 25 years will have to live under.

Now, that deserves scrutiny and debate inside this chamber and all across British Columbia, because it certainly contrasts with what we were told by the government in 2013 and even in the months leading up to us coming back here in July.

Let me just finish quoting that article about Mr. Williams, because I think it’s interesting.

“Williams’ victory contradicts the view that oil is a ‘globally competitive’ business in which governments need to give away substantial resource rents to get investment…. Even the Premier of a small, poor province successfully stood up to big oil companies. This outcome begs the broader question of why larger, richer provinces collect such unimpressive royalties on the depletion of their finite oil and gas reserves.”

Indeed it does, Mr. Speaker. Indeed it does.

Another problem that my colleagues have spoken to and that people are looking at closely in British Columbia too. I know that a couple of members of the Liberal caucus and cabinet have talked about how labour is a key partner in support for the PDA.

[1640]

Well, isn’t it interesting that the head of the B.C. Building Trades, just in the last couple of days…. He said yesterday: “There’s very little in the way of language for training opportunities for British Columbians, and I fear that we could have more temporary foreign workers on the project than what are required.” Mr. Tom Sigurdson, executive director of B.C. Building Trades — yesterday.

Today Mr. Sigurdson said on CKNW: “When I take a look at the enabling legislation and the project development agreement that the province has entered into with
[ Page 8975 ]
Petronas, I don’t see sufficient enough support for British Columbian workers in the legislation or in the agreement.”

Now, that’s quite a different reality than the impression that the government has given us. They made it sound like the trade union movement was standing with the government against the province. Why would they, when there are zero job guarantees for British Columbians?

I heard the Education Minister here in the last hour criticize the Australian agreement, saying: “Oh, those job guarantees didn’t really work, and the text was so weak that you could probably drive a carload of kangaroos” — or whatever analogy he used — “through it.”

Now, it was an absurd comment, but the absurd part of it was his argument that it’s better to have absolutely no job guarantees in a PDA here in the province of British Columbia than it is to have specific requirements in the jurisdiction of Australia around jobs for Australians. What an absurd argument. I don’t think a single British Columbian would buy it.

Now, let’s look at the inequities of this deal that, undoubtedly, other sectors of corporate British Columbia are looking at very closely. Foreign-owned corporations get a special lower tax rate through the natural gas tax credit. It’s guaranteed for 25 years. This is better than anyone else who is doing business in B.C. gets, whether it’s manufacturing, whether it’s mining, forestry, high-tech, tourism and accommodation — you name it. All of the leading sectors in British Columbia don’t get a special corporate tax rate. They don’t get that.

In contrast, B.C. households, in the last budget, have been asked…. While Petronas and the LNG sector, such that it is, have been told they can do even less every few months for their investment here, British Columbians have been hit with MSP increases, B.C. Hydro rates, ICBC premium increases.

We had a $54 million cut to the Education Ministry budget in the last budget that we debated here in the spring, and we have the government and the minister, just in the last hour, talking about how we’re gearing up for training opportunities. We cut $54 million out of the Ministry of Education budget.

We have a problem on the ground in communities right now attracting people to the ACE IT program and to dual-credit programs for apprenticeship in our schools. Those have been cut, and they’re selling the benefits of this LNG investment.

They won’t ask and demand and secure an agreement to hire British Columbians. It adds up to a bad deal. It adds up to a betrayal of the Premier’s words that over and over again she has repeated. “British Columbians will be the first in line for jobs.” Well, if they’re going to be first in line for jobs, put it in the agreement. That’s where it should be. Make the companies that seek to invest here understand that. Demand that they support it. Support your education and training organizations in your province to enable it to happen.

None of that is happening. And we’re being asked to support this government and this Bill 30?

Now, on the environment side, the LNG industry is going to have an environmental impact. There’s no question about it — greenhouse gases, CO₂. We’re talking about an agreement here in British Columbia at a time when just this year total CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere are over 400 parts per million.

[1645]

International jurisdictions through the IPCC, the United Nations, are going to be gathering in Paris later this year. I understand that the Premier plans to travel there and make an appearance as the head of a subnational government. I don’t know what she’s going to say, but she’ll surely have to explain how she goaded her party, deceived the voters and put through an agreement for 25 years that prohibits British Columbia from specifically addressing large emitters like the LNG industry to do more.

We have a law in this province that requires us to reduce GHGs by 33 percent by 2020. This one plant, this one LNG plant, is going to add 10 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere of British Columbia. We’re supposed to be going from, I believe, 78 million tonnes — that’s the 2005 baseline — to 48 million tonnes by 2020. This one deal adds 10 million tonnes.

There are no specific requirements of the company over the lifetime of this agreement to continually minimize the CO₂ impact that they have. So that means if we’re going to obey the law and try and get to a 33 percent reduction by 2020, every other sector of the economy is going to have to pick up the slack. They’re going to have to make steeper emission cuts to accommodate for a ten-million-tonne impact to the atmosphere here in B.C.

That means there are going to be greater costs by industries that I’ve mentioned, potentially. If mining and transportation and manufacturing are going to have to reduce their GHG emissions in their sectors because the province has signed a 25-year agreement that doesn’t require LNG to do that, that costs money. That’s a heavier carrying cost for those industries, and they will look at the LNG deal again and say: “You got an 8 percent corporate tax rate. Everybody else is paying 11 percent.”

This deal gives them lower corporate taxes, exemptions around their responsibility environmentally for GHGs, which offloads it to every other economic sector in the province, and this government has no idea how any of that is going to work, unless they actually have a plan. It would be good if the Premier, when she flies to Paris, could announce this in the clearest language possible — unless this government has a plan to flagrantly break the law that they passed around achieving those emission reductions. That’s fine. Be honest about it, because none of this adds up.

Now, we have seen quite a contrast between just the Australian example that we’ve been canvassing, where
[ Page 8976 ]
Australian leaders negotiated guarantees for local labour, guarantees and obligations to hire local professional services, a requirement for local procurement — all of the things that we would want here in British Columbia to maximize the value-added impact of a new industry. But none of that is in this agreement — not labour deals, not professional services, not local procurement. In fact, they’re exempted from any of those requirements. So Australia and British Columbia, quite a contrast.

People are looking at Bill 30 and saying: “What have the Aussies got that this Premier couldn’t get for British Columbia?” We’re very similar economies, we have a similar resource, we seek similar markets, and we have an inferior agreement to that jurisdiction. I think it’s proof once again that, as we have seen so many times, this Premier is really, really good at looking out for the wealthy and powerful; she is really, really bad at standing up for the interests of everyday British Columbians.

I can think that just in a few short years in her time in government she’s doubled the cost of post-secondary education. She’s shut the door on opportunities for so many thousands of British Columbians. She’s put new, punishing fees just on adult basic education in the last few months. They’re now the most expensive courses at Camosun College, in my backyard here in Victoria. The story is the same in every other region around B.C.

Reducing opportunity for young people, preventing them from getting ahead, and when there is an opportunity to have industrial development, like in this project, she excludes it from the deal. Those are the reasons why Bill 30 is a bad deal for British Columbians.

[1650]

Moira Stilwell: As always, it’s a pleasure and an honour to stand in this House, and it’s also an honour and pleasure to talk about this province’s future. As many in this House already know, that’s not always easy for politicians. You see, too often our vanity stands in the way of being able to see the future. Too often we focus on the here and now, or as they say nowadays, real time.

There’s no question that today’s issues require immediate attention and that the day to day of everyday governing needs that same active interest from government, regardless of political party. But when you look at the history of this province and you look at its most productive governments and most impressive and remembered leaders, the here and now always took a back seat to the future.

After all, when everything is said and done, the future is the only thing we can change, and in reality, isn’t that why we’re all here? Didn’t every one of us sitting here today get a mandate from our fellow British Columbians to make B.C. better by shaping its future? That was certainly true for leaders in governments who have been shaping this province for generations.

For W.A.C. Bennett, it was giving British Columbians the pride to build a province out of the wilderness. It was the foresight built into the Columbia River Treaty. It was B.C. Ferries and B.C. Hydro. And it was a yearning for a strong economy and building the roads, bridges, highways and dams to make it happen.

For Dave Barrett, it was ICBC and the agricultural land reserve, decisions that with time we have all come to appreciate and understand. For Bill Bennett, it was the possibilities that came with the world’s fair long after it would be over. It was the Coquihalla Highway and faster connections to our incredible Interior. It was the SkyTrain and Alex Fraser Bridge to keep us moving for generations.

Pick a Premier, and I guarantee that if they had a vision for the future and thought about tomorrow with any sense of potential and accomplishment, the members of this House would know their names. I’ll say it again. Regardless of our party, our best governments, our best Premiers, our best times have always been about making this province better by making its future better. All governments make mistakes, big mistakes, but what the best governments have in common is that they get the big things right, and that is what this debate is about.

You could say that this legislation is “The future is not what it used to be.” Indeed, the extravagance of our hopes of getting rich fast, getting out of debt, no sales tax have turned into the rubber hitting the road. But we also all know that it’s not about the price of LNG today. It’s not about a windfall today. It’s not about a payback that comes in 24 hours or 24 months. And it’s not about us. It’s about giving this province’s economy one more egg for its economic development basket.

Yes, it’s big. Yes, the private sector investment is unparalleled. Yes, the spinoffs in revenue and jobs are tremendous. But it’s not about today. Today on Twitter, the dispenser of all great wisdom, I read the following that I really appreciated: “A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.”

The challenge and opportunity is in the fact that many in this House will long be retired from public service when the full benefits are realized over time, and that’s not too surprising. W.A.C. Bennett, Dave Barrett and Bill Bennett were long retired from politics when the full potential of their far-thinking and far-reaching public policies were fully realized and delivered for the benefit of British Columbians. That’s called leadership, and frankly, it comes at a price.

We’re here to talk about and understand the price that our children may reap or have to pay for our bringing the LNG industry to B.C. LNG is not a new industry; it’s only new to us, and that brings with it some inherent challenges. Every industry has its own playing field, and this one is big and growing.

The United States will be the largest gas exporter and has fundamentally changed and will continue to change trade patterns in global energy markets. This is just a part of a massive shift in energy economics that we are seeing with Americans increasing oil production, for example,
[ Page 8977 ]
and decreasing oil consumption — this from our closest and largest energy trading partner. This is just one big change in the world of natural gas. Although LNG is new to us, we are entering a business that is now about finding the floor for prices, not the ceiling.

[1655]

In the past, natural gas prices were affected by governments’ policies and regulations and the complexities and cost of finding conventional gas. Those issues have shrunk to the extent that the extraction of gas is a reliable manufacturing process today and not a crapshoot. That means that the price of natural gas will be determined not, as previously, by the size of the find but by the manufacturing cost of extraction. This will probably stabilize prices for the duration of this agreement.

Surprisingly, even before the deal is done, our challenge will be to remain competitive by improving productivity at the wellhead and needing to innovate downstream in things like transportation. Importantly, we need to increase our own domestic consumption and strengthen our economy by using our massive supplies. We need to take advantage of the fact that we have cheap energy and the positive effects that that can have on our economy.

Let’s not make the price of this deal negativity, as it can often be at the beginning of big changes. And it’s understandable, especially when the future, as it tends to be, is uncertain. There are challenges and huge opportunities for us now and beyond the length of this potential agreement. Leadership always comes with critics who say no. It comes with naysayers who will say not now. It always comes with any number of doom and gloomers who sit on the sidelines.

There are valid concerns being expressed about the prospect of ceding our control to manage, tax and regulate our most valuable non-renewable resource or to properly price and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. I care about these issues. They are valid concerns to all British Columbians, and they should be. But no is always the simplest answer. It’s easy because it means you don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to present another option, and you don’t have to think about tomorrow.

Yes is always going to be the harder, more difficult and more demanding of the two answers. Yes means stepping up. Yes means having to roll up your sleeves and get it done. Yes means finding solutions to each and every issue and problem, just as W.A.C. Bennett, Dave Barrett or Bill Bennett did. Yes is and always will be the language of leadership. Yes is the only answer to the future. It is the only answer that makes sense. It is the only answer that works. It’s the only answer that opens us up to the possibilities and potential of great ideas, regardless of where they come from.

We’ve been talking about LNG for years now. Some say we’re moving too slow, while others say we’re moving too fast. But here we are. With this debate and this vote, we’re about to make a commitment to the future. In the same way that other governments made a leap into the future, we’re taking everything into consideration, weighing the options, combing through the fine print and deciding if we want to add one more major industry to our province’s economy. We do it knowing that this particular industry is not about today or tomorrow. It’s about the day after tomorrow.

LNG is that kind of business. It requires billions of dollars in investment. Every project takes years to approve and just as many years to build. This is a vote about the future. Frankly, that always comes with some risk, because the future doesn’t look like today. And frankly, that scares some people, particularly some of my colleagues on this side of the House — which normally would be that side of the House, but I sit on this side of the House, for people who are watching TV.

Let me give you…. This is a smaller example, much smaller in scope and price but still…. Many people in this House can remember Expo 86. More than a world’s fair, it put Vancouver and our province centre stage. It was a brilliant piece of marketing and an incredible commitment about the future. People like Bill Bennett, Grace McCarthy and Jimmy Pattison deserve our thanks. Why? Because like real leaders they saw beyond the 185 days of the fair. It has been 29 years since Expo, and what a time it has been for Vancouver and British Columbia. Imagine what the next 29 years will look like.

Now, you know and I know that our colleagues in opposition — on this side of the House but should be on that side of the House — did not support Expo 86. They even boycotted it. They and their leaders at the time demonstrated a lack of faith in the future and a lack of collective ability to shape it. They were proven wrong, and eventually Mike Harcourt saw the error of his ways and recognized what Expo 86 did for his city and province.

[1700]

The real point is none of us know the full measure or value of the future. No one here can predict in detail what it will look like, but there are some hard truths that cannot be ignored.

The future is going to be about diversity, and a diverse economy can survive economic storms and the challenges of changing times. We must have faith that we can shape the good and manage the bad. The future is about education, not about the kind of traditional education we have today but the kind of education our children and grandchildren will need to compete and lead fulfilling lives and careers.

I’d like to read a quote — a little more about education. “We must understand that education is no longer a magic wand. One reason is that we do not know the skills that will be in demand decades hence. Many low- and middle-skilled jobs are at risk, and it may already be too late for anybody over 18 and for many children.”

The future is about jobs. Not just creating jobs, which is important — this will go a long way to help us continue to
[ Page 8978 ]
create good-paying jobs in British Columbia — but realizing that the days of having one job for life are all gone and the days of having three or four or five different careers over your lifetime will be commonplace.

In fact, today we don’t even know which jobs are going to become obsolete over the next 20 years, but here’s a tip from businessinsider.com: mail carriers, meter readers, newspaper reporters and travel agents are all on that list, along with drill press operators, printers and tax examiners.

In the future, which is now, people with so-called lousy jobs in manufacturing, retail, delivery or routine office work will face low pay, short contracts, precarious employment and outright job loss. Our world is not getting less technical; it’s just the reverse. And that will mean that young workers today will have to reinvent themselves again and again in the years ahead.

All the workers in B.C. of the future will face challenges, whether they are in traditional or cyclical types of industries or not. We need to rethink how our workers will get the benefits they need in health, housing, education and, importantly, training. That is a big part of what the LNG efforts in British Columbia are about.

If those benefits were guaranteed, people would not be afraid of losing or changing their jobs. The fear of deregulated labour markets would dissipate, and the result, I think, would be better for employees and employers. I believe, importantly, it would lessen the need for skilled temporary foreign workers.

Our social policies, with the help of a steady, more diversified revenue stream, will not have to be reactive, compensating for market failures as we have had to do in past, but can work better alongside markets to sustain a B.C.-born-and-raised, flexible, well-trained, highly productive workforce.

We have accepted some not insignificant risk with this agreement, and now, today, is the time to mitigate those risks. Twenty-five years seems like a very long time for an agreement, yet I know it will pass very quickly. On one hand, there are reasonable fears of tying the hands of our children; on the other hand, we need to be planning already for the next iteration of LNG agreements.

We need to move when there is a positive, hard, final investment decision to make sure we have the real and credible tools to evaluate the investments that we are making. When the world of energy is so rapidly changing, we are too narrow in our focus and we’re too focused on the world today, which, in fact, is already over.

Since the shale boom began, the U.S. has drilled more than 150,000 horizontal wells, costing about $1 trillion — the rest of the world, including Canada, has drilled in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 wells — with no end in sight — and again, from our largest and most long-standing trading partner.

Other places, such as China and Europe, have substantial shale resources. While at the moment China does not have the entrepreneurial ecosystems to get these on stream quickly, 25 years is definitely doable. So now, even as we enter into an agreement that may be less than what we hoped for, we face the reality that we cannot rely on those conditions in the future. Europe has energy policies that will hurt them and will have to be changed and will change over the term of this current framework.

We will need to take a deeper, broader and more sophisticated look at whether we are using these investments to give British Columbians new skills — not just new to them but new to the world — and whether we are investing in the creation of new technologies, sectors and markets.

[1705]

On one hand, before we’ve shipped a single molecule, we have created a framework that needs to encourage investment in this province in research and development of more green energy and more pollution- and emission-mitigating technology. There has never been a more important time.

We have made commitments to a large industry about their responsibilities for emissions. This is a creative way to create new industries, new skills and new markets for things that we don’t even know we need.

Let me be clear. LNG is not B.C.’s economic engine, but it is going to help grow and rev up that engine. LNG is not a panacea for every ill that faces us as a province. But it does mean private sector investment, the likes of which we have not seen in this province, and with it, jobs — thousands of jobs. LNG is not going to make or break B.C., but it will go a long way to further diversifying our economy, giving us the strength we need to weather economic storms and challenging times.

LNG is coming to B.C., and that is a good thing, plain and simple. It comes with private sector investment, private sector jobs, and it comes with long-term commitment to this province by both government and the private sector.

Chances are, one day long after we are all gone from this House, energy needs and energy resources will change. Nothing stays the same. But today it is a unique opportunity in front of us, and we should say yes.

Like so many, I hope that the financial benefits, whether they are in income taxes from the thousands who will work in the industry or the royalties from the gas itself, will give us the millions and, hopefully, billions we need to move faster and go further when it comes to revamping and changing our education system so that we are leading into the future and not chasing it.

Frankly, from my perspective, whether it’s LNG, forestry, movies, tourism, biotech, fishing, farming or making video games, every industry today exists in part to fund and fuel our future. The investments, the taxes, the royalties and the fees to government from these and 100 other sectors give us the funds we need to, as a province, educate, train and invest in our future and our children.
[ Page 8979 ]

No one in this House has a crystal ball. No one can say with 100 percent certainty what things will look like in ten or 20 or 30 years from now. But we do know that those decades are just around the corner. Our job — our only real job this week and next — is to focus on the future.

When I do that, when I look at the potential, even with its odds, I say yes — yes to private sector investment, yes to thousands of new jobs, yes to the revenues that will come to government, yes to making the future a fundamental part of our social systems and yes to tomorrow.

Tomorrow will definitely not be the same as today. In fact, I’m counting on it. But it is the one thing we can change, and I plan to do that with my vote.

M. Mungall: Just listening to the comments from the speaker before me, the commentary was not unlike what we normally hear from the Liberals about “get to yes” and “say yes” over and over again. Well, I just want to be clear that on this side of the House we do say yes to good deals for British Columbians, and we say no to selling out this province.

Now, they wouldn’t understand what it means to say no to selling out this province. They put themselves in such a desperate position when it comes to negotiating for LNG that they had to say yes to any single thing that walked through the door. That’s exactly what they have done. This is the big sellout of British Columbia.

British Columbians are going to be on the hook. Should they raise taxes for LNG, we have to indemnify Petronas. We have to indemnify the nine other corporations that are involved with this deal. Taxpayers are footing that bill.

If we want to target this industry for any future environmental changes that would improve environmental sustainability, we’re going to have to pay them for that. We have to pay that. The taxpayers have to foot that bill. It’s just utterly ridiculous and irresponsible and reprehensible to sell out British Columbians for the next 25 years, not just for this industry but potentially others as well.

[1710]

This is definitely, as members opposite have been saying, a precedent-setting agreement. It sure is. A precedent-setting agreement, precedent-setting legislation with Bill 30, and it ain’t good for anybody in this province.

Let’s take a look at exactly what this bill is going to be doing. It authorizes the Minister of Finance to sign agreements that indemnify persons or companies from costs incurred as a result of specified legislative or program changes within a project development agreement. It gives government the authority to enter into project development agreements, to negotiate those agreements, to not have to bring them back to the Legislature and not even share any of the details with the public until it’s been passed by an order-in-council by cabinet.

All those discussions and everything will happen behind closed doors with absolutely no input, no view, no review from the public. That’s a concern. Is that the right way to head down a path of developing any industry or in terms of developing new potential industries that we don’t even know of right now?

When I talk about how it indemnifies companies for costs incurred as a result of specified legislation, it’s not just taxes. That’s one of them. PDAs may provide indemnities and compensation to proponents respecting (1) the amount of additional tax paid in the event of a tax law change and (2) costs of complying with greenhouse gas regulatory change.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re looking at not only tax issues; we’re looking at environmental sustainability issues. If we learn of new technologies that could reduce the emissions associated with liquefied natural gas and we want to impose that onto the producers of LNG, as we have done — as this House and as other Houses all over the world have done — on other industries in the past…. As we move forward and create greater environmental sustainability, particularly with resource development and resource extraction, no longer are we in a position to say, “You need to come up to contemporary standards with contemporary technology, and you need to foot the bill” for, ultimately, the benefits that we all receive but also the reduced energy costs, perhaps, that would be realized by said company.

No longer can we impose that based on public interest and do the public will, as we are supposed to do here. Instead, the company will be indemnified by the taxpayers for any costs incurred to meet the new standard. That’s ridiculous. That is a sellout. That is a sellout of this province. That is the sellout of this future, and that’s not okay.

I know that this name will not be new to anybody on the other side of the House. I’m going to bring him up because he recently wrote a very good article that was featured in the Georgia Straight about this LNG deal. Martyn Brown, of course, was the former chief of staff to the former Premier, Gordon Campbell. Other MLAs here today have brought up his article, and I think it’s worth repeating. There are a lot of very good points in it that really bring this down home for British Columbians.

Let’s look at what he says about the environment on this one. He points out: “If such a sweetheart deal had been in place years ago in the forest industry, would we have been able to put in place the tougher industry-specific emissions regulations that shut down beehive burners, reduced pulp mill emissions or clamped down on effluents?” No, we wouldn’t have been able to. Now we take all of this for granted. We recognize that all of this is the right step, the progressive step, that people in our past needed to take and did take. Well, the same principles apply today.

[1715]

Unfortunately, we’ve put British Columbia in a position where we do not have the power…. Let me say this more
[ Page 8980 ]
accurately. There is now a disincentive in terms of creating emissions standards, making changes and imposing them, putting them onto an industry that might be reluctant to move forward with contemporary environmental standards as they change in the future. By putting the responsibility to pay for changes onto the taxpayer, that is a disincentive to government to make those changes, to enforce those changes, to work in the public interest when it comes to long-term environmental sustainability.

I know from my constituents that that is a huge concern — a huge concern — and one of the top reasons that they would not support this bill, and they do not support this bill. People in my part of the world view the environment and long-term environmental sustainable planning as one of the top priorities that any government should be considering, and that is not reflected in Bill 30. What is reflected, rather, is a desperate, desperate grasp at any deal put in front of them, because promises were made in an election. They were overpromised, oversold, on what the potential would be for this province. Now they have no other option but to take a deal, even if it’s the worst deal that could possibly be made.

The other issue, of course, is around taxation. Now, why on earth…? Let’s look a little bit at the history of this. First off, we hear the promises from the Liberals that the taxation rate is going to be about 7 percent. We hear 7 percent, and then, come last fall, we see legislation put forward before us at 3.5 percent, and companies won’t be paying even that income tax rate until after they have done all of their capital buildout. When will that be? Will the companies ever even pay income tax as a result of this poor negotiation from this government? Now, if a future government decides to increase the income tax rate or make any changes whatsoever, we have to pay them. So it’s irrelevant. You would never actually increase the income tax rate.

There’s a revenue-generation opportunity that has been sold out by this government. It’s been sold out by this government. And we’re hearing from the opposite side that some deal is better than no deal, that this is a good start, that we’re getting to yes and so on and so forth. I think what’s interesting is that Alberta never gave the same type of sweetheart deal to its oil and gas sector.

Again, I go back to Martyn Brown, somebody who I clearly do not agree with most of the time. He’s the former chief of staff to Premier Gordon Campbell. Obviously, he and I sit on very opposite sides of things on many occasions. That’s why I think it’s so interesting to note his perspective on this particular bill and on this particular project development agreement. He says: “Alberta never gave its oil and gas industry such a tax advantage in developing its resources. On the contrary, Premier Rachel Notley just got elected, in part, on a promise to review Alberta’s oil industry royalty rates, just like Premiers Ed Stelmach and Peter Lougheed did in previous years.”

[1720]

Here we have an example of other Premiers in this country who are working for the benefit of their citizens, who are working to generate revenue for their provinces at the best possible rate for their citizens — not selling out their provinces. What they’re doing is recognizing that they have a valuable resource and they have a duty to the people that they represent, and future generations, to get the best value for that resource. Unfortunately, we do not see that same type of commitment coming from the Liberal government.

Of course, the one thing you hear very frequently from the other side, and I’ve heard it in several of their contributions to this debate, is jobs — jobs, jobs, jobs. What they like to say about us here in the NDP caucus is that we’re against jobs. We don’t agree with them, so clearly we’re against jobs. That is ridiculous. What a ludicrous statement to make. Out of seven billion people in the world, I can’t imagine that anybody is against jobs.

Of course we’re for jobs and job creation in this province. It’s the Premier who’s had one of the worst rates of job creation in Canada time and time again. How can she say she’s for jobs when she has got the worst rate of job creation in this country? For goodness’ sake. No surprise that we’re questioning their job forecast. We’re questioning all their talk on jobs because the history of what their actions are and what they’ve been doing just don’t lend them any credibility on this topic.

Oh, but they say: “Trust us. Trust us. Don’t worry. We’ll do it.” Never mind the fact that hard job numbers or any job commitments for British Columbians are totally void in the project development agreement. Never mind that. They’ve completely ignored any mention of skills training, any mention of hard numbers for jobs except in “Other matters,” and even there it’s quite weak.

They say we should trust them. Why would we do that? As I said, they have a terrible rate of job creation. Why on earth would we trust them?

I think what’s very interesting is that when they promise all kinds of jobs will be the result, these are the numbers that we’re hearing: 23,800 permanent and indirect jobs. But I think, again, Martyn Brown points out…. It’s a lot. I don’t want to begrudge the fact that that is a lot of jobs — if it even is going to materialize. I mean, it’s not like this would be the first promise they ever broke over there.

Martyn Brown does point out that “there were 50 percent more jobs ostensibly created in B.C. last month alone than the total number of permanent jobs that might be directly and indirectly attributed to LNG if the miracle boom scenario ever materializes.” So it’s an important point, he goes on, “to balance our perspective.”

The point that he’s trying to make there is that while not the best in Canada, job creation is happening in B.C. by virtue of the very many other industries that are operating in this province. And to….
[ Page 8981 ]

Interjections.

M. Mungall: Oh, I see they woke up on the other side.

Deputy Speaker: Continue, Member.

M. Mungall: As I was saying, although we have one of the lowest job creation records in the country, Martyn Brown’s point is that other industries are creating jobs and that those jobs outnumber what could be created with LNG. So when we hear big promises of jobs, we should question them, because there are too many broken promises from this government. Their record is not a good record, secondly. And third, we need to keep in mind exactly where it fits in the broader perspective, in the broader picture.

[1725]

If we look at other jurisdictions, as has been recommended by other members of this House…. Particularly, the minister responsible for LNG has pointed out: “If you’re looking to do it right, you go and look at similar economies. Australia has a similar economy. They just developed an LNG industry, and they used project development agreements to help develop that industry.”

Okay, let’s look at some of those project development agreements. What we see in Australia is that Australia, in their project development agreement, guarantees to hire local labour, to use local services, to buy local and to fund conservation.

In B.C.’s project development agreement with Petronas, where are we on hiring local labour? No. Do we have a commitment to use local services? No. Do we have a commitment to buy local? No again. And what about funding conservation? Do we have a strong commitment to respect the conservation plans of local communities, of local First Nations, of this province and to help to fund those plans? No again.

It seems like the opposite side is actually saying no to a lot of things that British Columbians actually value. When they say, “Get to yes,” why can’t they get to yes on hiring local labour, on using local services, on buying local, on funding conservation? To me and to my constituents, the people that I represent, those are their priorities, and why can’t we get to yes on that? Why is this government saying no to the things that matter to British Columbians every single day?

What is concerning, when they say, “Trust us; trust us. We’re going to create so many jobs, and those jobs will be for British Columbians. Don’t worry. Just trust us….” What’s interesting is that Petronas has already indicated that they could use up to 70 percent of workers from overseas. So 70 percent of their labour force for this project could be temporary foreign workers instead of British Columbians. That’s what happens when you don’t ensure in writing and ensure commitments for local hire. That’s what happens.

Australia also requires a buy-local policy. The Australian Gorgon LNG agreement says that the proponent must give “preference to Western Australian suppliers, manufacturers and contractors when letting contracts or placing orders for works, materials, plant, equipment and supplies.” Further, the agreement goes on to say that proponents must “use the services of engineers, surveyors, architects and other professional consultant experts and specialists, project managers, manufacturers, suppliers and contractors resident and available within Western Australia.” Australia’s North West Shelf LNG agreement has similar provisions.

Do any such provisions exist in B.C.’s deal with Petronas? It does not. In fact, Petronas has already said that they will be bringing in engineering services from overseas and not using, again, local people with the talent and the skills right here in British Columbia.

Another point is that the deal signed by this Premier and this Liberal government is giving away revenue. Of course, big surprise, Australia’s doesn’t. Here is the fact. The Australian Gorgon LNG agreement doesn’t give tax breaks and protection from future tax increases to the proponent for any length of time. Now, I’ve already discussed how that is not the case here in British Columbia. In fact, it’s not the case for 25 years.

For 25 years we are beholden to the existing tax rate. We are beholden to keeping things as they are in this project development agreement despite what we don’t even know and what could be a better deal for British Columbians in the future.

[1730]

Of course, the Australia agreement does contain environmental benefits that go directly back to citizens of Australia. Here’s the fact. The Gorgon LNG deal includes a clause where the proponent must pay tens of millions of dollars for “ongoing programs that will provide Net Conservation Benefits.”

Here that’s not the case, and as I’ve mentioned, if we want to institute any laws that would improve emission standards or improve the environmental impact that LNG has here in British Columbia, we would have to indemnify them for that for 25 years — 25 years after they have their first shipment of LNG. So this agreement, technically, in truth, is longer than just the 25 years that it has been signed for.

I’ve pointed out how this agreement differs from other agreements in the world where other jurisdictions have done their due diligence and been responsible to their taxpayers, to their citizens, and have gotten the best deal for the people that they represent. That is not the case here in British Columbia.

What we hear from this government is a big yes to selling out British Columbians, selling out British Columbians’ futures, selling out our future potential at reducing our impact on global warming and selling out future revenue sources. That’s what I hear from this
[ Page 8982 ]
government, and I don’t think that’s right for British Columbians.

How do you get into a position where you negotiate such a terrible deal for British Columbians, where you negotiate a deal that doesn’t even put in provisions for local hire? Of course, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear, hon. Speaker — any member of this House shouldn’t be surprised to hear this either — that the labour movement is very disappointed in that fact.

The labour movement has come out against this bill and against this project development agreement because it’s not guaranteeing jobs for British Columbians. The old trust-us model that we hear from the Liberals has proven to burn British Columbians over and over and over again.

That being said, how do you get into a position where you sell out your province? A deal like this could have future impacts on other deals with LNG. What about the forestry industry? What about any other industry? Those are the concerns that I’m hearing from people that I represent — that this is not just a sellout for this particular deal, but that this could have ramifications down the road that are just, simply put, not good for B.C.

It’s a bad deal for this province. So how do you get into this position? Well, I could offer my two cents, but, again, Martyn Brown — a guy who I don’t agree with most of the time — actually summed it up very well in his article in the Georgia Straight.

He starts off his article with:

“Babes in the wood, sitting ducks, easy prey, fish in a barrel — all idioms that apply to those who dare to outbluff big oil, convinced that they are too shrewd to get burned and too gifted to get taken. The industry lives for such hapless victims.

“Often they are big shots in government. Premiers, ministers and senior bureaucrats — the easy marks who are flattered just to be players in the industry’s high-stakes game and who fancy themselves as experts in all fields of high finance. Rarely do they stand or quit when they should, ever happy to gamble with taxpayers’ money. Their exalted status, overweening ambition and fawning minions all tell them they just can’t lose.

[1735]

“So they just keep saying, ‘hit me,’ and the ones they hope to master are quick to oblige. It is the conceit of power that makes losers of those who hold it as their supreme leverage, especially in playing with sharks whose stock and trade is getting governments to fold without even knowing that they have been had.

“Dupes are dime a dozen, as the oil and gas industry knows so well. But the best ones are those who are so utterly compromised before they even sit down to negotiate that the thing they fear the most is their dealer walking away from the table. No one feared that more than this Premier.

“Which explains how her government got so badly outfoxed in arriving at the Pacific NorthWest LNG project development agreement that is the subject of this column.”

The point that Martyn Brown is making — the point that people all across British Columbia are making and the point that is so obviously evident — is that this government put themselves in a bad negotiating position by overpromising things that they could not deliver on to British Columbians and being desperate to meet something even close to that promise by the time the next election rolls around. That’s exactly what we have on the table today with Bill 30 and this project development agreement. We have a big sellout of British Columbia so somebody can stand up for a photo op around the next election.

British Columbians deserve better than what they got with this development agreement and with this bill. They should be demanding better, and they are demanding better. Hopefully, this Liberal government will live up to the expectations of British Columbians.

M. Hunt: It’s my absolute pleasure to be able to rise and speak to Bill 30, the LNG project development agreement enabling act. I really thank the two speakers that have spoken before me. The member for Vancouver-Langara spoke of other men and women of this chamber in previous times who were visionary and built this province and built fantastic projects in this province that we’re all very pleased and proud of, whichever side of the House they were from or whatever political party they were from. Then we’ve just had this most interesting presentation, where the Georgia Straight is the new authority for all things of this House. Such an amazing contrast. I find it amazing.

This project development agreement is in fact a major milestone on the path to realizing not just one but possibly multiple largest capital investments in B.C.’s history. It sets a playing field for all of the proponents who are to come. Contrary, again, to the previous speaker, it isn’t one proponent only that this government is dealing with. There are a host of them that are working their way through the projects.

Yes, the Pacific NorthWest LNG is the first one that has reached its conditional final investment decision. Now the province is fulfilling our part. The feds have their part to do on the environmental study and certificate. All of this is working together. The province, of course, is continuing to work with First Nations and the proponents to ensure the highest environmental standards and the protection and enhancement of fish habitat.

You know, sitting in this Legislature the last two days, you would think that this was the first pipeline that ever crossed salmon habitat. You’d think that this is the first pipeline or LNG or any kind of industrial facility that was ever built in this province, that we’ve never done this before.

As a matter of fact, I had the interesting privilege — because my family is originally from Edmonton — of going through Jasper National Park over the last number of years. Over the last number of years there has in fact been a twinning of a pipeline through Jasper National Park. It has been really interesting watching as they have been working so carefully on the various habitats throughout Jasper National Park and in fact protecting that environment and keeping it safe. Again, it’s almost like there’s no such thing as an environmental assessment process.

[1740]

We’re dealing here, yes, with a generational opportunity — $36 billion U.S. to be spent, which will be a key driver for job development here within the province. Now, we hear about the benefits of it. We hear, obviously, about the 300 potential direct jobs, another 300 local spinoff jobs and, of course, the possibility of up to 4,500 jobs during peak construction.

Well, it’s interesting that my wife’s uncle happens to be a boilermaker. Boilermakers and millwrights, as you know, work from various industrial facilities. There are specific times that they do repairs on these facilities. He often found himself at pulp mills and working on them.

The interesting thing was…. He’s from British Columbia. He’s from right here, but he would find himself with jobs sometimes in Alberta, sometimes in the United States, because most of the large construction unions have reciprocal agreements across Canada with the various provinces, between Canada and the United States. As there is a need for workers, they simply move them around and make them available so that the skilled trades move around the country. They actually move around North America.

I don’t think he’s ever been called a temporary foreign worker before. But somehow now all of a sudden those good union members are becoming temporary foreign workers.

As a matter of fact, we heard earlier today, as the Minister of Forests was speaking concerning the current forest fire situation in our province, that we have firefighters that are from all over Canada that are fighting forest fires here in British Columbia. In fact, we have some firefighters who are from other countries, but I’ve never heard the minister or anyone else speak of them as temporary foreign workers when they’re fighting our forest fires. But I find it amazing that all of a sudden we have this whole situation of temporary foreign workers coming up, and this is a horrible, wretched, terrible thing.

I find it interesting, as has already been said, but it’s worth repeating, since the opposition like to talk about the Georgia Straight. But let’s again have a statement from Pacific NorthWest LNG, from their president, Michael Culbert, who says: “Our commitment is to hire as many local British Columbian and Canadian workers as possible to support our facility in both construction and operation.”

He goes on, and he says:

“To fulfil this objective, we are working with a number of associations, educational providers, working groups to help prepare the B.C. workforce for upcoming job opportunities. This includes the Premier’s working group on LNG, which is comprised of representatives from the province, other proponents, First Nations, labour organizations and key stakeholders.”

Then he goes on to talk about another portion of their company, which is called Progress Energy, which last year drilled more than 200 wells, completed ten compressor stations and a gas processing plant, 900 kilometres of pipeline and employed approximately — get this number — 4,000 workers in northeast B.C. directly and indirectly through the regional service companies.

Now, are those 4,000 workers…? Oh, if we listen to what the opposition is saying, obviously, at least half of those, or 75 percent of those, are temporary foreign workers. Well, head up to northwest B.C. and you’ll find out that, yeah, there might be a few in there from Alberta, but they’re supporting local jobs and local people working up in Fort St. John, Fort Nelson and the rest of them up there.

Then he also goes on, and he says: “Upstream activity levels will remain consistent through 2015, with an annual investment of $2 billion.” That’s what they’re going to spend again this year up in northern B.C. Again, these are workers that are all part of this LNG industry. In fact, in Surrey both Simon Fraser University and Kwantlen Polytechnic University are both full and overflowing with students that are seeking those opportunities and those jobs as they come available and as they can work on them.

You see, we have heard again…. You would think, listening in this House, that somehow there is no tax going to be collected from these, that there’s a tax holiday that is being given to these LNG companies.

[1745]

Well, it’s interesting to note that over the next — what is it? — ten, 15 years that $8.6 billion will be coming in total revenues, in royalties as well as tax revenues. Again, we’ve heard these numbers before, but somehow it seems like there is a tax holiday going on here, when we have $3.6 billion in royalties, just under $700 million in LNG income tax, the carbon tax, corporate income taxes, PST, fuels, property taxes — and that doesn’t even include the amount of money that they’re going to be paying to local government in local taxes as well.

It’s amazing that this agreement is all part of seeing the revenues and the resources come to this government, to the good taxpayers of the province of British Columbia. However, there are four specific taxes that are named in this legislation. We’re saying: “Hold it a second. These are the ones we are not going to be tampering with through the course of this agreement.”

These are industry-specific taxes that they are paying: the LNG income tax, the natural gas tax credit, the carbon tax increase on LNG exclusively. If we want to raise all of the carbon tax, it can be done — that’s not a problem — as well as the greenhouse gas industrial reporting. But this is only dealing with them as targeted tax increases.

The agreement does not provide the proponents with the assurance of anything that is a general application of the law — for example, changes to PST, changes to the carbon tax, changes to corporate income tax. As long as it affects all of the industries, it’s perfectly fine and perfectly legitimate to do, so that the government can alter taxes generally. It’s just not specifically on this one industry and targeted.
[ Page 8984 ]

Then, of course, we come to the environmental assessments and the whole environmental assessment. Actually, yes, the First Nations have raised legitimate concerns. In fact, we have seen the proponents respond to that with a new bridge, a new terminal design along the Skeena River in order to address that. And of course we have the federal assessment that is continuing to go on at this time. That will be another piece of oversight on the whole environmental side of things.

I think it’s very important for us to look at the skills and the training that need to be done in the midst of this whole process. That is that we’ve had the Premier’s LNG Working Group, where we’re working with the proponents and working with the different areas to be able to create jobs.

You know, I find it amazing that the opposition keeps going to Australia as an example, which is good and interesting, in some senses, because in fact what they had in Australia was a massive labour shortage. As a result, they had escalating costs on the labour side of things because they simply didn’t have the skilled trades available. That’s a problem that we don’t want to repeat, which is why the province is recalibrating the apprenticeship program.

We’re re-engineering our education and training models. We had an announcement about that yesterday concerning the whole apprenticeship program. We’ve got the skills-for-jobs blueprint, where we’re working with industry and labour to update the occupational forecast for the LNG industry. We’re all working together with the proponents through the construction phase in order to deal with the issue of labour.

I find it so interesting that we have this tremendous desire by the opposition to have guaranteed jobs in the industry. That’s interesting, because this is nothing new. As a matter of fact, there is a former Premier — I think his name was Glen Clark, and that was in about 1996 — and he ordered the forest industry to create 21,000 new jobs over five years or they would lose their timber-cutting rights. Well, the plan was axed a few years later by Ujjal Dosanjh — another NDP Premier, by the way — in 2000 because it was revealed that in fact there was no plan.

The 1997 jobs and timber accord had the NDP government promising $1.48 billion from the Forest Renewal B.C. funds in exchange for the creation of 22,000 jobs directly, 17,000 jobs indirectly. Guess what happened as a result. Twelve thousand jobs disappeared. Well, hold a second. There were a few jobs in advertising, because they spent $3 million on advertising their accord. And yes, the hired consultant they had, to be the advocate for it, did get two years of severance.

[1750]

These are the same old tired policies that didn’t work in the real world before, and they continue to not work in the real world. Again, that’s why we are working at the skills training. Over the last two years we’ve been trying to develop it.

Then we get these wonderful quotes from Australia — how they’re getting local procurement and they’re getting local jobs.

Well, let me read for you. This is from the government of Western Australia, the Barrow Island Act of 2003, schedule 1, which is the Gorgon gas processing and infrastructure project agreement, clause 15(1). I will just start at the beginning, and we’ll read through the different clauses.

“Except as otherwise agreed…for the purposes of this Agreement” — note — “(a) except in those cases where the Joint Venturers can demonstrate it is not reasonable and economically practicable so to do, use labour available within Western Australia (using all reasonable endeavours to ensure that as many as possible of the workforce be recruited from the Pilbara) or if such labour is not available then, except as aforesaid, use labour otherwise available within Australia; (b) as far as it is reasonable and economically practicable so to do, use the services of engineers, surveyors, architects” — you heard this from the previous speaker; she forgot the reasonable, economically practical part — “and other professional consultants, experts and specialists, project managers, manufacturers, suppliers and contractors resident and available within Western Australia or if such…are not available within Western Australia then, as far as practicable as aforesaid, use the services of” those elsewhere in Australia.

Then (c) goes on:

“during design and…preparing specifications, calling for tenders and letting contracts for works and materials, plant equipment and supplies (which shall at all times, except where it is impracticable so to do, use or be based upon Australian Standards and…ensure that suitably qualified Western Australian…manufacturers and contractors are given fair and reasonable opportunity to…quote.”

It doesn’t say anything about guaranteeing local procurement. It simply says: “Well, give it a good shot, and if it doesn’t work, that’s fine too.” But these are ironclad guarantees. It goes on, and it goes on. And (d) and (c) do the same thing: “where possible,” “where price delivery and service are equal or better.”

This is just a pile of fluff. The fact is that the NDP is calling for guaranteed stuff that just doesn’t work in the real world, and it ended up, in Australia, with massive labour shortages. The best guarantee for local labour is to grow that local labour through apprenticeships, through skills training, which is exactly what we are doing.

Of course, when we start talking about local procurements and all the rest of that, I’m really wondering whether the members of the opposition are trying to reargue NAFTA, all the other free trade agreements. It just seems to me absolute grasping at straws over there.

Anyways, let’s go on to the implications of First Nations. The province continues to work with First Nations. As a matter of fact, we’ve reached agreement with 16 of the First Nations who are near proposed facilities and along the Prince Rupert gas transmission line so far.

We’re working hard with the rest of them to address the concerns so that, to date, nearly 90 percent of the 32 First Nations with proposed pipelines through their traditional territories have indicated their support through one or more pipeline benefit agreements. We, in fact, have 60
[ Page 8985 ]
benefit-sharing agreements with these 28 First Nations.

The interesting thing is that many of these agreements are, in fact, job-related and contract-related, so that their First Nations people are first in line for those jobs, and that’s absolutely great. I think that’s great, because we’re helping. We’re working with and we’re helping our First Nations.

Now, we also hear the members opposite say that this agreement is far too long. I mean, 25 years — this is terrible. How could we do such a thing?

Again, if I go back to the hon. member for Vancouver-Langara, as she was talking about visionaries for this province….

[1755]

There’s this thing that is called — what is it now? — the Columbia River treaty. That was signed in 1964. How long was the agreement? It was a 60-year agreement along the Columbia River.

In fact, if you want to make any amendments, you have to give ten years’ notice that you want to do such a thing. Now, I’m sorry, but I have got to say I haven’t been hearing too many people over those 60 years — well, okay, we have from time to time — say that it should have been this, it should have been that, it should have been the other thing. But you know, it’s produced an awful lot of tremendous benefits for the citizens of British Columbia, for the taxpayers, the farmers of British Columbia. We’re all very proud of that agreement and the benefits that have accrued to this province.

Years ago I subdivided a piece of property. I sold the lots. You know, I sold those lots in two days. You know, it was amazing the number of people that told me that I must have sold them too cheap because I sold them in two days. Well, the reality is I sold them at the going price that day.

Now, today we’ve got the members of the opposition saying that this is a giveaway, it’s a sellout, all the rest of this. Well, the interesting thing was that back in the 1980s there was a provincial government that put all of its eggs into one basket on LNG and lost. Well, today what this government is doing through this agreement is setting a level playing field for all of the LNG proponents. It’s not a deal to any one of them. They have the opportunity to work a deal with this provincial government at a fair price for the benefit of all citizens of British Columbia. I am proud to support it.

N. Macdonald: Well, we’ve heard a lot of Liberals speak, but let’s hear some more from a more prominent Liberal, actually, somebody who ran the government for a good ten years as the right-hand man to Mr. Gordon Campbell. Martyn Brown is a great guy to quote. He’s given us lots to quote here, and let’s begin with a dandy here that sums it up, because this is a bad deal. This is a deal that was made in desperation, and it was made in desperation because of the fiction that the B.C. Liberals ran on in 2013, a fiction from beginning to end. None of it is true. None of it will be true. And it was purposeful.

Let’s just see what Martyn Brown has. This is a great quote: “Dupes are a dime a dozen.” This is Martyn Brown, chief of staff to Gordon Campbell for a good ten years, as B.C. Liberal as you can get. “Dupes are a dime a dozen.” I wonder who he’s talking about here.

“Dupes are a dime a dozen, as the oil and gas industry knows so well. But the best ones are those who are so utterly compromised before they even sit down to negotiate, that the thing they fear the most is that the dealer is going to walk away from the table. No one feared that more” than this Premier.

Now, that’s what I think, but that’s not just me saying it. That’s the one who used to write speeches for you guys over there. The five great goals, all of that stuff, came from the boss — Martyn Brown, sent by Premier Campbell to lay down the law to one member after another all those years ago. And this is what he’s saying now. Collectively, as you stand up and you make your speeches, understand that Martyn Brown describes you as “dupes.” I don’t know if that’s parliamentary language, but it seems to capture the moment pretty nicely.

You know, the Minister of Energy, in his speech on this bill, described a caucus meeting prior to the last election where the Premier came in to the B.C. Liberal caucus and laid out the B.C. LNG plan. I just want to be clear. This was a political plan. It was not and is not an economic plan, and that is a pretty central problem for all British Columbians. The initiative is all about political posturing. It always has been.

As I said, the LNG plan always was political, never economic, and this agreement is similar in that it is a politically driven exercise, an act of a desperate government, or as Martyn Brown, the B.C. Liberal chief of staff, would say, something for dupes to enter into. Dupes.

[1800]

So much of this debate and the previous LNG debate is wrapped up in fiction. Every single promise that was made by members on the B.C. Liberal side as you ran for government has proven itself to be pure fiction. The member for Vancouver-Langara acknowledged that. She said, basically: “Okay, when the rubber hits the road, it’s a little different.” No kidding. It’s a little different. It is massively different. That fiction is what has driven us to a place where, in desperation, this government signs on to a lousy deal for 25 years. That’s the reality of what’s going on here.

Now, when you listen to B.C. Liberal ministers and backbenchers in this debate, it’s important for the public to remember the things that they have said before. It helps you contextualize what they’re saying now. So when they talk about the jobs and they talk about the money and the investment, remember the numbers they threw around before that had nothing to do with reality at any point.
[ Page 8986 ]

Let’s start with one, a really clear promise — the 100,000 jobs specifically, again and again, promised by each and every minister on that side, by each and every member on that side and by the Premier at every opportunity. So where did that number come from? It sort of sounds like it’s made up. Hey, it turns out it is. It’s a made-up number.

Members should read the Grant Thornton report. This was done pre-election. They got paid quite a bit of money. The B.C. Liberals said to Grant Thornton: “You have to use these assumptions in your report. You have to use this assumption — that there are going to be five LNG plants and that those LNG plants are going to have 2,400 jobs over the five LNG plants and the pipelines that supply them.” They said to Grant Thornton: “You have to use that figure.”

The five LNG plants is an arbitrary number. It is not based on any fact. There are a number of proposals, obviously, but five is completely arbitrary. Let’s just be clear on that. The 2,400 jobs is a number, again, which is made up. It’s not based on fact.

When Grant Thornton was then going to use a multiplier…. With any jobs, there are jobs that are direct jobs, and then you have a multiplier that would cover off indirect jobs that are created as well. Well, Grant Thornton was told they had to use the figure 30. So where does that come from? Thirty seems a pretty high multiplier. We don’t use it in any other places. The B.C. Liberals told them they had to use the number 30, okay?

It’s interesting that the U.S. House of Representatives used the number 3.5 as a multiplier. Now, the House of Representatives is not exactly a left-wing think tank. I guess they just wanted to be slightly accurate and used a multiplier that is one-eighth of what the B.C. Liberals stuck into the Grant Thornton report.

It’s pretty quiet over there. It’s interesting reading. You should have a look.

That is how you ended up with the number 100,000. It is a made-up number. Just as members on the B.C. Liberal side are standing up and asserting things, in the election you asserted 100,000 jobs. If you misrepresent in the election, why would anyone trust anything you say here? That’s just one promise — the 100,000 jobs. Completely bogus.

Let’s look at…. I mean, how do you have a report…? Rubbish in, rubbish out. That’s the best way to describe that report.

What are we talking about here? An average LNG plant is about 120 people. Now, the government claims this one is going to be 330. I don’t believe that. Frankly, I don’t believe your numbers at all. But who cares if it was? What if it was 330? How do you then stand up and say that this is going to change everything in British Columbia, that this is going to change the world? The 330 jobs are important to the people that have them and to the community that has them.

In Golden we have an LVL plant, about 200-some people. There’s a proposal for just south of Golden, a proposal for a business that will bring in 220 permanent jobs. Well, that’s great. Is it generational? Is it going to change the world? Do they get a 25-year deal? No, it’s 220 jobs. It’s great, but it’s not changing the world.

[1805]

Skookumchuck. There are 290 employees there. Downie in Revelstoke, 220. There’s school district 6. There are 496 people. A school district. That’s generational change — to have a school district in British Columbia.

These numbers do not make sense when you actually look at them. They certainly don’t add up to 100,000, which was the promise. It’s what was on the pamphlets. There wasn’t room on the bus. Otherwise, it would have been stuck there. You know what was on the side of the bus, which is kind of interesting? It was the promise of debt-free B.C. Let’s go there for a second.

Before that, since it’s 2015, maybe the next speaker for the B.C. Liberals can show me where the LNG plant is that was supposed to be operating in 2015. That’s another promise. So let’s be clear. The 100,000 jobs that members campaigned on — that’s not true. The first LNG plant up by 2015 — hey, that’s not true.

Let’s move to the financial part. Maybe it’s more fun to start with the prosperity fund. The prosperity fund is a real interesting piece. The Minister of Finance sort of forgot about talking about it. The Premier still had it in her talking notes. The prosperity fund. It was going to be $100 billion, or as Pamela Martin tweeted, $1 trillion. I guess, after a point, if you are going to be $100 billion, you may as well be $1 trillion. You might as well go for it.

Whether it’s $100 billion or $1 trillion, it doesn’t really matter, because there is no prosperity fund. If there was, it would have zero dollars in it — zero. That’s a long way from Pamela Martin’s $1 trillion or even the Premier’s $100 billion. That’s a long way away.

The revenue projections from the Minister of Finance’s own documents don’t even get close to that sort of revenue. That’s the truth of it. Even if I accepted what some of the speakers on the other side were saying, even if I thought it was accurate — which I do not — then you don’t come close to $100 billion.

Let’s say we took all of the money that is generated in the Minister of Finance’s projections. So $900 million a year — at some point in the distant, distant future, $900 million a year. Do the math on that. Over a 30-year period, even if all of the money went into this so-called prosperity fund — let’s forget about the $1 trillion and just look at the $100 billion — you don’t come close. You don’t come close, right?

But you promised it. You went out, and you went to the electorate and said this prosperity fund is on the way. It doesn’t come close. But even with the minister’s numbers, there’s something about it that is completely fictional. It is a fiction.
[ Page 8987 ]

I would invite members on the opposite side to go and do this. The chart that is entitled “Estimated provincial taxes and royalties, PNW LNG project” was used in the minister’s briefing, and it is based on an LNG price of Henry Hub plus $7. It’s supposed to be Henry Hub plus $7 that gives you that revenue. The question is, is that reality now? Is it Henry Hub plus $7? It’s not.

Your Minister of Finance is using figures based on something that is not true. There’s something wrong with that. It’s not just all the stuff from the election which is not true. Even in this debate you are parroting numbers that are not true. If you want, go and have a look at it. See if you’re proud about participating in the debate in that way.

The people you are trusting with the information…. That used to be Martyn Brown. You don’t like Martyn Brown now. You’ve got the same people loading you up with this stuff now. You know, the same thing, the same people.

The price in Japan, according to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, for April 2015 is $7.60 per million Btu. That’s the price in Asia. The Henry Hub price, according to the United States Energy Information Administration website in June — you can go and check it if you like — is $2.79 per million Btu. The point is that the price point the minister is using in his speech, that the Premier uses, is not real.

[1810]

It is a difference of less than $5. So it’s Henry Hub plus $5. That is a significant difference. That changes that graph completely. When you talk about this $8.6 billion or whatever number you’re making up, it’s not right. It’s a fiction. It is not accurate, which is what is going on with every single part of this debate. It’s not true.

In other words, the numbers are being used to sell the agreement, and the B.C. Liberals are parroting that number — you all are — and misleading in the same way. Perhaps you can be excused for that, but if you think for yourself, you wouldn’t be. You would go and check some of these numbers.

This was always deceit, to me. From beginning to end, this has been deceitful. If the B.C. Liberals promised untold billions and we end up with a reality that gives us a relative pittance, well….

Now what does the government say — that it’s better than nothing? In what way? You’re not getting something for free. The previous speaker made it sound like somebody was just coming and dumping billions of dollars. They are buying a finite resource that we should be selling to the best of our advantage — not, as Martyn Brown says, acting like a bunch of dupes giving it away. That is no way to get anywhere.

This is dishonest from the beginning. What was not known about the problems that we’re in…? What was not known five years ago? I would just invite members to go and google old articles, world articles about the LNG industry. Where we are today was predicted. It’s not a surprise. It was always known that this is where we would get to.

If you look back, the $400 billion pipeline deal between China and Russia…. It was regularly predicted, it was regularly talked about, and now it’s here. The central Asian natural gas plays, the pipelines from other parts of Asia to China, always predicted…. The biggest supplier to China is Turkmenistan. Their intention is to double their exports to China. You have reserves in China itself. You have Australia, Qatar, East Africa, the United States. I mean, this is all known. It was known then.

Natural gas prices have fallen dramatically not only here in North America because of technology, but predictably, in Asia they are coming down as well. Interestingly, even though in the mid-2000s we got used to some higher prices, the price level now in North America is about the same as it was in the ’90s, right? So there is fluctuation. It was $2.70. It is $2.70 now. It got as high as $10 to $15 per million Btu here in North America. But it’s important.

Maybe let’s talk about some of the terminology we’ve used here. Henry Hub is the North American pricing tool. Asia used the Japanese crude cocktail tool. It was oil-based, and therefore there was a pricing difference between North America and Asia which you could take advantage of, if we could get the natural gas to Asia. It’s an idea that, to a certain degree, makes sense.

To transport across the ocean, as members know, you put it on ships. You reduce the temperature to minus 161, and you can ship it across to other markets, where it’s put back into a gaseous form again. To build the liquefication plants there is a need to invest billions, and it takes a fairly long time to get them up and going. There are the pipelines as well.

The key to this is the price differential between North America and Asia. That’s the key. Without that, it doesn’t work. The reality is that if you do not have a price in Asia of $13 — some say as low as $10, but most agree it’s $13 — per million Btu, you cannot take gas from here at the price it is and sell it at a profit in Asia. You can’t do it. That’s the reality.

It’s one thing to stand up here and talk about the politics of this and how great it’s going to be, but you cannot get past that reality. Each member here should know that that’s the fact. You do not get past the reality that to make money, it has to be a price difference that pretty well has to be up at $13 per million Btu.

[1815]

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Do you know what the price is now? This is according to the Japanese ministry responsible: $7.60. That is a long way — a long way — from profitable. That is a long way from anything real happening.

There are reports. I asked the library to send me some of these figures. They talked about a price point in China
[ Page 8988 ]
of $5 per million Btu, and why wouldn’t there be? China has reserves as vast as here. China has access to Asian reserves. Why is it such a surprise that we would get to a price point like that?

When I hear people talking about generational change and that this is so incredible…. Well, if wishing could make it true, that’s great, but that’s not the way it works. Instead, we get to a place where members will stand up and tell the public, and use the resources of government to say this — to say that we’re going to have a $100 billion prosperity fund. That’s rubbish. That we are going to have 100,000 jobs — made up, purposely misleading. What else was promised? Because there was more.

We were going to get rid of the sales tax. I think each year it takes $6 billion or $7 billion a year that it collects, out of the $44 billion that we have to spend. I don’t think we’ve gotten rid of it. I don’t think we’re going to get rid of it. I don’t think there is that opportunity with anything that goes on here to get rid of it. So that’s not true either. That’s simply not true.

What about the side of the bus? Let’s talk about the side of the bus for a while. We had a pretty big swing and a miss there. We had debt-free B.C. Now, the reality, of course, is that for this Premier…. There has never been a Premier that has piled on more debt in the history of this province than this Premier. But if you’re going to swing wildly, you might as well, eh? You might as well make it a whopper.

When the B.C. Liberals took over, what was the debt — $33 billion? Now, with contractual obligations, it is $169 billion. That’s the debt in contractual obligations. The promise from each and every B.C. Liberal over there was that you were going to get rid of it with this LNG. Do the math. Show me how it is possible to do that with what has been laid out, in any real form. You do not come close.

But it wasn’t just getting rid of the debt. It was also the $100 billion or $1 trillion or whatever you want. After a while, just make up numbers. Oh, that’s what you’re doing. You’re just making up numbers constantly on this stuff. Now in your speeches it’s the same thing. It’s just a made-up number. Is it based on anything? Did anybody check it out? Before you parroted it, did you go and look? Did you see if it’s possible? There’s nothing about that that really seems credible, especially when the revenues are locked in for 25 years.

The B.C. Liberals then said that we’d get rid of the debt. That’s not true. It said that there would be a prosperity fund. That’s not true. They said it would be the end of the PST. That’s not true. I think that as people listen to this debate and judge, on a fairly complex piece of legislation, who is telling the truth, you simply have to look at the record.

There is nothing on this file that has been anything other than deceitful. It has been inaccurate, and purposely so.

You need to remember that when you listen to more of the same fabrication from the Premier’s vast communication network about a deal that is a sweetheart deal for foreign companies for the next 25 years — that restricts any government improvements on environmental standards for 25 years, that has no job guarantees, has no apprenticeship requirements, has no protection for First Nations. Who would sign that? According to Martyn Brown, dupes would. He describes it fairly well.

I guess somebody would say: “Okay, it doesn’t matter. What does it matter? You know, maybe we end up with 300 jobs.” Well, it matters because you’re giving away a finite resource, you’re giving it away for 25 years, and then you’re setting up a whole slate of other deals like this. It’s brutal, and it’s sheer incompetence.

[1820]

The IPP fiasco is not fully understood by the general public. If it was, they’d be appalled. It’s an example of a misstep. It is going to cost British Columbians, the IPP fiasco, $55 billion over the next 30 years — $55 billion — because this government decided to do something that was politically driven in an energy market they did not understand. It was a venue for cronies of this government to prosper, but it was and continues to be a financial disaster — all of it, as well, surrounded with a web of B.C. Liberal deceit.

You can remember the commercials that were about all the energy needs we had. It was all rubbish, but some people walked away doing very, very well. This is another reckless effort driven by hubris, driven by political calculation. In the end, if one sets the politics aside, this deal has to stand on its own, and it doesn’t. It is a lousy deal.

I think what members would appreciate on the Liberal side is to give a chance now for a Liberal voice on this deal. Let’s hear what the boss of not that long ago thinks now of the deal that his former colleagues have entered into. It’s an interesting quote. This is from Martyn Brown, who was Gordon Campbell’s chief of staff for many years and the architect of the five great deals. What was it? The ten years…. I forget. I did hear it quite a bit. I think there was one period of time where we had to listen to the five great goals ad nauseam. I mean, it was like a Chinese water torture. We would hear it again and again. Martyn Brown wrote that. We all had to listen. In the end, I think I could have repeated it myself.

But here he is, looking at this deal, and here’s what he has got to say: “The fine print of the deal will commit our province to a course that is environmentally reckless.” Environmentally reckless does not sound good to me. Doesn’t sound good. “Fiscally foolhardy.” I think that means extraordinarily incompetent with the finances of the province. He goes on to say “and socially irresponsible.” So environmentally reckless, fiscally foolhardy, socially irresponsible. I say that, and this is Martyn Brown I’m quoting. Martyn Brown says that “as someone who is generally supportive of the merits of the LNG development, to the extent that it is invited without giving up more than we collectively stand to gain.”
[ Page 8989 ]

Well, if that’s somebody who is a Liberal who says that, and that’s someone who is supportive of LNG, you’ve got…. What would somebody who wasn’t a Liberal, who wasn’t supportive of LNG describe this deal as? I don’t know that you could get worse than that. This is your guy. This is the guy who used to give you your marching orders. This is where he ends up.

I’ve got another quote that I’m sure all of you would appreciate. Give the Liberal voice an opportunity to be heard.

Interjection.

N. Macdonald: Was that a Conservative voice or Liberal voice? I didn’t quite catch that. Are you a Conservative or a Liberal these days? It’s hard to keep track. Anyway, you’ve said a lot worse about the Liberals than Martyn Brown has.

This is a direct quote from Martyn Brown:

“We should not accept this deal that effectively obliges all B.C. taxpayers to underwrite those companies’ risks, as it also pads their profits. We should not be content to let the government sell out” — I’m going to underline that, sell out, because I think it’s something to remember — “British Columbia’s long-term capacity to appropriately manage, tax and regulate our most valuable non-renewable resource or to properly price and minimize the massive greenhouse gas emissions that will result from LNG exports.”

Well, I had to sit through years and years of things that Martyn Brown had written about the five great goals. I didn’t really enjoy it. But you know, I think he’s spot on with his comments here. This is an indictment from one of your own. It is consistent with what many British Columbians are thinking: given the opportunity to use a finite resource properly, this government squandered that opportunity — and squandered it because of the corner that you put yourself in with outrageous promises that were nowhere near true.

Let’s be clear about this. There’s just a need for the Premier to have something that she can contort and try to convince people that she has accomplished anything close to what was promised. Let’s go through those promises again.

There was going to be 100,000 jobs. No, there’s not. There was going to be $100 billion prosperity fund. Not true. There was going to be a debt-free B.C. Not true. There was going to be no PST. Now, that’s not true either. You have every single thing that was promised — not true. In this debate, everything said — not true.

I thank, as always, members for the opportunity to speak. With that, I take my place, and I will, after ten years in this place, adjourn debate.

N. Macdonald moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Polak moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.

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