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)

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 28, Number 1

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

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2015

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

Hon. S. Anton: We are all of us in this House served by our constituency assistants. They look after us every day. They keep track of our schedules. They make sure we go where we’re supposed to go, get there on time and get away on time. They take endless inquiries from the public. They look after members of the public. They look after them compassionately and well, and they serve them in all the inquiries that they bring to their door.

I am privileged today by having my two constituency assistants in this House, Tanya Tan and Yulin Shih, who serve the residents of Vancouver-Fraserview and serve them in a number of different languages.

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Yulin Shih, born in Taiwan, now my constituency assistant, has parlayed — as I said to him earlier, teasing him a bit — his job as a constituency assistant into an entry at law school at the University of Calgary in a month’s time or so.

Congratulations to Yulin. Thank you to Tanya for staying on. She is outstanding. We are joined by Dawn Escobedo, who was not able to be here today. But I think, on behalf of all of us, we thank our constituency assistants. I welcome mine to the House today.

M. Karagianis: I have a couple of guests today. One guest that I have here may not actually realize I’m going to introduce him. I got a message that he was here — Eric Burkel, who used to work in the building. So welcome to Eric today.

The second guest I have is Trudy Spiller. Now, Trudy lives in my constituency, and there is no more hard-working individual. She is involved in aboriginal issues from coast to coast — federally, provincially, locally. She’s an activist. She’s a grandmother raising grandchildren. She’s from the Gitxsan territory. She’s here today to witness our debates on the LNG PDA. So please give her and Eric very warm welcomes today.

Hon. P. Fassbender: I’m honoured to rise and introduce a couple of individuals. The first is Prof. Sadhu Singh, who is a Member of Parliament in India from the Faridkot district of the Punjab. He was first elected in 2014, and I understand he had a tight race. He only won by about 200,000-plus votes. Mr. Singh is indeed a retired professor who served as a lecturer in English from 1971 to 1999 at the Government Brijindra College in Faridkot in the Punjab region.

He’s joined by Rajinder Mann, Jaskirat Mann, Lakbhir Chahal, Gurpartap Singh Virk, Harjit Nagra, Tejinder Johal, Gursewak Singh, and Hardarshan Singh. I’d ask the House to make all of these guests feel welcome.

I have one other introduction, if I could be so bold. That is to introduce someone who I know serves the residents of her community very well since being elected mayor. I’d like the House to welcome Mayor Linda Hepner from the city of Surrey to the House as well.

D. Routley: I’d like the House to help me welcome three guests who have made the long trip from the little island to the big Island, from Gabriola to Vancouver Island and all the way down here to meet with Ministry of Mines staff about a concern they have around a quarry on Gabriola Island.

Mike Phillips joins us. He was born in London in the U.K. and assures me that he’s a Canadian. He was born to a Canadian serviceman in London. He was a venture capital mortgager agent as his career and a full-time resident of Gabriola, other than when he had to leave to make a living. He’s always been a Gabriolan these past 53 years.

Judith Graham joins us. Judith Graham is an artist, as so many Gabriola residents happen to be. She’s been a resident on Gabriola since 1995.

George Szanto is a novelist of 23 books, a PhD from Harvard University, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and professor emeritus of McGill University.

Can the House please help me make my guests welcome.

Hon. J. Rustad: It’s a great pleasure today to introduce one of my staff in the building. Rani Sketchley joined our team not long ago, but she has played a very important role as an administrative assistant. We have a very busy office, and there are a lot of tasks. She has really become an integral part of our team.

First of all, I’d like to say: thank you, Rani, for the work you’re doing. Would the House please make her welcome.

J. Darcy: I would also like to acknowledge a member of our caucus staff who’s with us in the Legislature today. Her name is Chelsea Williams.

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She began with the opposition caucus in February of 2015, a pretty intense time in the schedule, as office assistant and receptionist and quickly moved into the position of legislative assistant to myself, the member for Surrey–Green Timbers and the member for North Coast.

Her academic and professional training includes a BA in political science and women’s studies, so this is a wonderful place for her to be. Chelsea is smart. She is hard-working, and very, very importantly, she is extremely
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calm. So I’d like to thank Chelsea for the wonderful work that she does. Please welcome her to this place.

Hon. A. Virk: I have the pleasure of introducing two companies today, here, that are doing work right in Surrey, in my riding.

First of all, the representatives from a cutting-edge, clean-tech company in the biofuel sector, Orgaworld. Orgaworld does great work pushing the boundaries of organic waste management, in fact turning household waste into LNG, right in the Lower Mainland. They’re putting sustainable innovation into practice every single day. With us today is Paul Oostelbos and Ryan Lauzon. Would the House make them feel welcome.

Indeed, it’s my pleasure, also, to introduce representatives from the second-oldest construction company in Canada, Smith Bros. and Wilson — a humble beginning in British Columbia in 1897 and still going strong today. With me today in the gallery is the president, Tim Harrington; the vice-president, Jeff Musialek; the project manager, Gary Cheema; as well as Murray Saunders.

In fact, they were already working on an LNG project before this, and they, along with their entire construction industry, are extremely excited about the LNG opportunities for their company and for this province. Would the House please make them feel welcome.

C. James: I’d like to introduce a constituent of mine who’s in the gallery today, who has been working with our caucus as our able office assistant and our receptionist. She is the friendly voice and the friendly face you see at the door when you come into our caucus area and that you would get on the end of the phone. She’s also incredibly efficient at herding cats, otherwise known as the caucus. She is, unfortunately — fortunate for her — leaving us at the end of the summer to take a master’s program in international development studies at the University of Geneva.

We have been incredibly fortunate to have Aarin working with us. We are going to miss her. We hope that she will gain all those skills and come back to Victoria and come back to an opportunity. We wish her well. We look forward to hearing all about her studies and hope that she returns to us. Would the House please welcome Aarin Shapiro.

D. Bing: I would like to recognize the many British Columbian athletes competing in the Pan Am Games in Toronto. In particular, I’d like to congratulate two constituents of mine from Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows: Carmen Eggens and Monika Eggens. They were part of the women’s water polo team. They, unfortunately, met the defending champion, the United States, and they only gained silver, but silver is quite an accomplishment. I’d like to have the House give best wishes to all athletes from British Columbia.

B. Routley: It’s indeed a wonderful opportunity to welcome my dear friend Tom Harkins, who is also a retired steelworker. He’s a tireless volunteer on the executive of the NDP, both federally and in our provincial constituency, does amazing work for the people in the Cowichan Valley. Please help me in welcoming Tom to this House.

Hon. B. Bennett: Two people to introduce today. First of all, Phil Hochstein is in the gallery somewhere today. Phil is with the Independent Contractors and Business Association, a great friend of free enterprise here in this province and a grizzled veteran of the political wars of the last couple of decades in this province.

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The second person who I would like to introduce is not a grizzled veteran. She’s a 19-year-old intern who is working for us on this side of the House. She’s going to school, going into third year at Mount Royal in Calgary. She is the daughter of my former constituency assistant and campaign manager. I believe this is her first question period ever here today. She’s studying politics. I have warned her, so everybody should try to be smart and polite — you know, the usual stuff.

Please help me make these two fine people welcome.

J. Horgan: Well, it’s always delightful to follow the member for Kootenay East. “Physician, heal thyself,” I have to say on that one.

Joining us in the gallery today is Melanie Mark. Melanie Mark is a Vancouver resident who has been working since she was a young woman, improving the lives of not just First Nation youth but youth throughout the Downtown Eastside. Until recently she was a senior representative in the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth, continuing that good work, helping those who need help most desperately.

As luck would have it, we’ve had the good fortune of nominating Melanie Mark to be the next candidate for the B.C. NDP in the great, great constituency of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

I want all members of this House to know that although the member Jenny Kwan — which I can now say freely — has stepped down from that seat, we’re anxious for the government to recognize how it’s important and how we can elevate the debate, as the member for Kootenay East suggests, by calling an early by-election and getting Melanie Mark in this Legislature to represent the people of Mount Pleasant. Would the House please make her very, very welcome.

M. Mungall: I’d like to introduce the House to Jessica Thompson who is here today with baby Zoë. Jessica is a mother of four, but she’s also the director of the Yukon Human Rights Commission. I served a tour with her as an international election observer in Ukraine. My husband, Zak, and I have been able to boast a good friend-
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ship with Jessica and her husband, Trevor, for many, many years. Please, may the House make her very welcome.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

SUCCESS ORGANIZATION AND WALK
WITH THE DRAGON FUNDRAISER

R. Lee: This coming Sunday I will be attending the 30th annual SUCCESS Walk with the Dragon. Every year since Dan Chan started this event in 1986, thousands of British Columbians gather in Stanley Park to march along the seawall with a 30-metre-long dragon. In Chinese culture the dragon symbolizes strength and overcomes obstacles until success is his.

It’s very fitting, then, that SUCCESS helps new Canadians overcome the obstacles involved in relocation and offers a variety of services to help integrate new Canadians in our province. They assist immigrants and their families to settle in their new homes, access Canadian services and develop English language skills. They help introduce new Canadians to our labour market, developing professional and social networks, and provide career mentoring. The work that they do is essential in cultivating the multicultural communities of the Lower Mainland.

This year’s theme of the dragon walk is multiculturalism. Stage performances will be presented by different cultures, including Japanese, Philippine, Chinese, Slovak and Mexican. Over the 30 years of the Walk with the Dragon, more than $12 million has been raised to support SUCCESS’s social programs.

Some of the leaders of SUCCESS were recently recognized for their contributions. Congratulations to Sing Lim Yeo and Tung Chan, Order of B.C. recipients in 2015 and 2014 respectively, and to Dr. Maggie Ip, the founding chair of the board in 1973, who received a Simon Fraser University honorary degree last month.

I ask all members to join me to participate in the wonderful 30th annual SUCCESS Walk with the Dragon and to celebrate the tremendous work that this organization continues to do for our communities.

NEPAL EARTHQUAKE RELIEF WORK
FOR DALIT COMMUNITY

S. Hammell: A few months ago I stood in the House and made a statement on the catastrophic earthquakes in Nepal.

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It has been estimated that the earthquakes killed at least 8,000 people, injured over 16,000 and destroyed more than 300,000 homes. Shelter, water and immediate health care are all ongoing priorities of the relief effort.

However, today I stand here to speak of a compounding issue faced by a particularly marginalized community who are trying to sustain themselves as monsoon season continues. As in many countries, the caste system still has a presence in Nepal, and the Dalit community, otherwise known as the Untouchables, are at the lowest end of this archaic caste system.

When I visited Nepal in 2013, I saw how marginalized this group of people could be. They have little power, and without power, they don’t have a voice.

While in Nepal I met a young Nepalese man by the name of Arjun who was helping the Dalit community in his village by providing a voice for 25 families. They have lost their homes, their belongings, and are now living under tattered plastic huts. Monsoon season has begun, and they urgently need shelter. Arjun is raising money to build temporary shelters that will hold up against the violent downpours at a cost of $750 each. His goal is to shelter the 25 families.

My shout-out today is to commend the members of the Shriguru Ravidass Sabha Community Centre in Burnaby, who have donated funds to assist this small group of people living so far away but in so much need. Well done to them.

COUNTRY MUSIC FESTIVALS IN MERRITT

J. Tegart: For years the city of Merritt has been synonymous with country music in the great outdoors. The Merritt Mountain Music Festival put Merritt on the map by attracting some of the biggest names in country music over its run of almost two decades. Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Keith Urban and Brooks and Dunn have played there over the years, along with Reba McEntire, Kenny Chesney and Wynonna Judd.

In 2005 approximately 148,000 people attended the six-day festival along the beautiful Coldwater River. The festival was cancelled in 2011, but I’m happy to say that outdoor country music is returning to the Nicola Valley later this month. Merritt is the new home of the Rockin’ River Music Festival, which takes place from July 30 to August 2, with the likes of Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley and many more.

When Kenny Hess, the president of Rockin’ River Music Festival, decided to move the event from Mission after six years, his natural choice was Merritt, where he got his start in the music business years ago. Merritt is the home of the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and has a well-established festival site. Reviving an outdoor music festival is important to the people of Merritt and also to those of us who live in the region.

I urge all of you to come and spend the B.C. Day long weekend with us and spread the news that country music is back in Merritt, in the country music capital of Canada. Hope to see you there.
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HEROWORK RENOVATION OF GREATER
VICTORIA CITIZENS COUNSELLING CENTRE

R. Fleming: “How big is your cape?” That is the rallying cry that inspires hundreds of professionals and volunteers to participate in a local volunteer program, HeroWork. Through what are called radical community renovations, the HeroWork team brings together the construction industry and people in businesses in the community to revitalize the infrastructure of charitable organizations.

Their most recent project took place in my constituency at the Citizens Counselling Centre. The counselling centre has been operating for over four decades in Victoria, offering counselling services for individuals and families in need of counselling, addiction therapy and mental wellness who could otherwise not afford it. Last year the volunteer counsellors provided over 9,000 hours of counselling to 1,200 individuals.

The agency has worked out of their location in the Quadra village for 25 years and shares their office with the B.C. Schizophrenia Society’s Victoria branch. But funding and budget constraints have repeatedly deferred mounting repairs to the agency’s aging building.

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That all changed this past June, when the centre’s 50-year-old building saw more than $200,000 worth of upgrades. From structural repairs to new flooring, windows and bathrooms, 220 volunteers pitched in to give the Citizens Counselling Centre a much-needed space refresh and building repair.

I would like to thank, among others, Paul Latour, who is the founder and executive director of HeroWork, for his vision and his incredible contribution in our community; Kent McFadyen, the director of renovations at HeroWork; and to the hundreds of volunteers who took part in the centre’s radical renovation.

HeroWork is soon to be coming to a charitable organization in a community near you. Thank you to all of those who are involved in HeroWork.

CYCLING OPPORTUNITIES IN PENTICTON

D. Ashton: My hometown of Penticton is well known as a summer vacation destination, surrounded by seemingly endless orchards, vineyards, stunning vistas, the lakes and, of course, the mountains.

Those who visit our area will also learn another important fact about Penticton. It is a cycling mecca. When you come to Penticton in the spring, summer or fall, it is difficult not to miss the groups of riders heading out for long, scenic rides along the winding roads or along the lakeshores. Penticton’s climate, road conditions and amenities are world-class for both touring and training for road cyclists.

The annual highlight occurred last weekend, with the Granfondo Axel Merckx Okanagan, which every year attracts about 3,000 riders of all ages and abilities.

Cycling is part of the cultural fabric of Penticton. In addition to road biking, there are many mountain-biking routes, trails in the parks and on the railbeds, plus amenities and services to make your Penticton cycling experience second to none, whether you’re a beginner or a professional.

I’m also very proud that our government recently announced that the South Okanagan-Similkameen, specifically, is a pilot area for a provincewide cycling, tourism and marketing strategy. Known as the South Okanagan–Similkameen Cycling Network, this pilot project will lead the way for other cycling networks throughout the entire province.

Signage is being installed across the region and will identify routes to the cyclists that come and visit our area. We have routes in Penticton that will both inspire and challenge you.

None other than Canadian Olympic triathlon gold medallist Simon Whitfield was giving Penticton cycling one of the best compliments I can think of. After the Granfondo two years ago Simon Whitfield said: “I was thinking, during this ride, that this may be some of the best cycling in the world.”

I couldn’t agree more. I invite each and every one of you, if you are in Penticton or area during the summer, first of all, look me up. Second of all, bring your bike, your cycling shorts, and we’ll go out for a ride.

BULKLEY VALLEY
CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTRE

D. Donaldson: More than 200,000 square kilometres, about the size of several European countries combined — say Portugal, Scotland and Switzerland. Sprinkle that with about 25,000 people in 22 communities. That is the area the Bulkley Valley Child Development Centre serves with a small staff.

Last week I visited their new building in Smithers. It’s a former church they converted. They’re using it to amalgamate their programs and services from two locations and as an outreach base. The high ceilings and roomy areas provide really neat spaces for the range of activities they provide.

The first phase of the renovation cost about $170,000 and resulted in the grand opening on May 22. The purchase of the new building, plus completing all the renos, will cost about $1 million. That’s quite a huge vision and a brave step to take from this small non-profit and the board. I salute them and their executive director Kerri Bassett.

The amazing thing is that this non-profit is doing that all on their own, with no capital assistance from the province towards this new building. In fact, Project Pinwheel, the name for their fundraising initiative, is holding an-
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other fundraiser towards phase 2 renovations tonight.

The new-to-them building is great, but what really makes the Bulkley Valley Child Development Centre unique is the dispersed service model they provide. As I mentioned — 22 communities spread over 200,000 square kilometres.

In the building I saw child activity resource kits in blue plastic tubs stacked and ready for shipping, on loan to parents and communities as far away as Atlin, more than 1,250 away. Since there’s no bus service, they depend on local transportation companies to do the delivery.

The Bulkley Valley Child Development Centre has carried out the important work of investing in children at an early age for 34 years. Their work contributes immensely to more resilient children and healthier communities in Stikine. I congratulate them for their commitment and perseverance. Well done.

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Oral Questions

CHILDREN AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT
MINISTRY HANDLING OF CHILD PLACEMENT
CASE AND COURT ORDERS

J. Horgan: Repeatedly the official opposition has been raising concerns with the Minister of Children and Family Development about her ministry’s tendency to disregard court orders. As recently as March we raised the issue of the ministry defying a court order made by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

At the time, the minister refused to answer for the conduct of her ministry. But now we learn another Supreme Court ruling has been issued with respect to four children — four children who were not safe in the care of their father. The court ruled so, and that was disregarded by the ministry. As a result, those children were susceptible to sexual abuse despite the court ruling.

My question is to the Minister of Children and Families. This is a disturbing pattern. Will she be able to tell this House how many other children are at risk as a result of her ministry disregarding Supreme Court orders?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The interests of the child are paramount in the ministry, and the ministry works every day to protect vulnerable children in this province. But at the end of the day, let us remember that child protection is by its very nature difficult work, and it requires social workers to make very difficult decisions, gut-wrenching decisions that ultimately take children away from their parents.

The ministry receives about 37,000 calls a year relating to child protection. Each is investigated and dealt with. We are entrusted with the safety and well-being of nearly 8,300 children in care. In addition to legislation, as the member will know, staff make decisions for those children in consultation with supervisors, and any decision related to a child being removed from their home is, in fact, reviewed by a court.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: Well, I’m absolutely aware that the minister knows of the case I’m speaking of. The ruling came down yesterday. This is about a custody case and the involvement of the ministry in determining which parent was competent. One parent made allegations of sexual abuse; the other denied those allegations. It turned out that those allegations were well founded.

This is what the court had to say about the conduct of ministry staff: “Wanton and reckless and, at a minimum, grossly negligent.” “Recklessly indifferent.” “Intentional misconduct, bad faith, reckless disregard for their obligation to protect children.” Those are harsh words from a judge who had seen a previous ruling overruled by the ministry. The judge also found that the ministry had also neglected the standards of care set out by the Child, Family and Community Service Act.

My question to the minister is this: why is it that her government continues to disregard court orders and put children in jeopardy?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Any time there’s a finding that a child has been harmed, it is very concerning. It is especially concerning when that child or family has been in contact or had a relationship with the ministry. I want to assure members that we treat all of these situations very seriously.

While this case has been in progress for some time, the decision was only rendered yesterday. The court makes very serious findings, as the member notes, and it is a very lengthy decision that will be considered very seriously and thoroughly.

I am advised that not all legal matters have concluded in this regard. Further proceedings are anticipated. But once our counsel have completed their review of this very thorough, very lengthy decision, we will identify next steps. Until that time, I am not in a position to respond further.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a further supplemental.

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J. Horgan: The judge repeated a finding in the previous case that we raised in this House last March. The judge repeated the following: “Society breaks down when anyone, be it a branch of government or an individual, has the arrogance to believe that they are above the law and above an order of the court.” That’s exactly what happened in this tragic case. Children were put at risk. Bad decisions were made. Judgments were overruled and disregarded.
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That is not how the people of British Columbia expect their government to treat children at risk.

Again, my question to the minister responsible: will she today end the practice of ministry officials overruling and disregarding rulings by the Supreme Court of British Columbia? At a minimum, can we not learn from this tragedy? The child abuse that took place can never be taken away, but we must learn from this. The first step would be to stop doing the wrong thing.

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I said, the interests of the child are paramount. The issues in this case are concerning. It is an extremely lengthy decision. We will take time to carefully consider all of the information and all of that judgment, and then we will respond.

D. Donaldson: First and foremost, the innocence of a young girl was lost. There are people in this chamber, like me, who have family members impacted and living with the impacts of childhood sexual abuse. This child and these children will live with these impacts for the rest of their lives, and that has to be front and centre.

When the mother of these children reported concerns they were being sexually abused, the ministry opened an investigation — an investigation into the mother’s mental health. They never asked the children if they were being abused. They ignored evidence of abuse, including information from the children’s family doctor. They took the children away from their mother and spent more than 200 days in court with four ministry lawyers fighting for the children’s abuser to obtain sole custody over them.

Can the minister explain how her ministry could act in this way without doing a proper, independent investigation into whether the children were sexually abused?

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I stated, while this case has been ongoing for some time and a judgment was anticipated, Justice Walker has made some extremely serious findings. I want to assure this House and the public that the ministry staff take their duties and service to the public and service to children extremely seriously, given the trust and independence they are granted in law.

Any time that a child is harmed, it is extremely concerning, and certainly, I can tell you, that practice is reviewed and appropriate action taken. But that said, in this circumstance with this judgment, it is a very lengthy decision, it will take time, and we will take the time necessary to review it in detail, and at that point we will have more to say.

Madame Speaker: The member for Stikine on a supplemental.

D. Donaldson: What needs to be understood is the real human and lasting impacts this government’s decisions will have on these children. It was bad enough that the children were taken from their mother without evidence of harm. It’s horrific enough that the ministry fought for the children to be placed with their abuser. But to this day the ministry is refusing to provide full counselling support for the children who were hurt by this. The children have significant behavioural issues because of the abuse they suffered.

Will the minister commit to immediately giving this family the support they need?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The member knows that I can’t talk about specifics of individual cases or individual circumstances ongoing with the ministry in this House. However, that said, this is a very lengthy decision issued by the judge.

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With respect to the gravity of the findings of the report, it will take some time to review and determine next steps. When that has been done, we will certainly have a statement to make.

C. James: We’ve certainly heard the seriousness of this case. Sadly, it’s not the only case that has come forward where there have been errors made by the Minister of Children and Families.

The minister says she needs time to review the findings in this specific case. I would ask the minister at a minimum: would the minister ensure that counselling is provided for these children and do an immediate review of all court orders that have been issued and overruled by her ministry?

Hon. S. Cadieux: We are talking about people. We are talking about families. We are talking about children. We are talking about people, the social workers, who have to make very difficult decisions at any moment in time related to a family and to children’s well-being. They take that duty very seriously.

Most of the time, there is success, and children are protected. When things don’t go well, as unfortunate as that is, we review those situations as well to learn from them and make changes. In addition, the representative and her office have the opportunity to review situations related to child protection and the ministry and report and make recommendations for change.

Over the last number of years, based on numbers of recommendations by the representative, numbers of systemic changes have been made in the Ministry of Children and Families, including re-establishing the office of the director of child welfare to better strengthen oversight of the care of children and increasing the reporting of incidents to the director and the representative to improve monitoring.

Again, this particular case in question has a very lengthy and very serious judgment that will take time to review and to determine next steps.
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Madame Speaker: The member for Victoria–Beacon Hill on a supplemental.

C. James: I would agree with the minister that social work and particularly child protection work is incredibly difficult work. I think we all honour the people who go into this work and do the tough work that needs to be done in our communities every single day.

But that does not take away from the responsibility that the minister has and that the Ministry of Children and Families has, and, in fact, the government has when children come into their care. The government is, in effect, legally the parent for those children.

While I appreciate the minister’s comments around the changes that have been brought forward from the representative’s office, I have to say that we have also seen many changes and recommendations come forward from the representative’s office that have not been implemented and that have not been followed up on and that have not had the resources that social workers need to be able to do their jobs in the field.

I would ask the minister again. I understand the need to take time on this specific case, but surely the minister could let this House know that counselling supports will be in place for those children at a minimum, immediately, and that a review will be done of court orders that have been overturned for other children in the care of the ministry.

Hon. S. Cadieux: The member knows that I can’t talk about specific circumstances, but I will say that it is our sole purpose in the ministry to ensure that vulnerable children and families have the supports and services that they need. That does not change in this circumstance.

This is a very serious judgment. I am taking it and the ministry is taking it very seriously. But at this time we need time to review the decision before we can determine what further steps need to be taken.

OMBUDSPERSON REQUEST FOR
AMENDMENT TO STATUTORY POWERS

J. Darcy: The Finance Committee is currently considering whether to ask the Ombudsperson to conduct an investigation into the government’s firing of health researchers.

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A key consideration for the committee is whether the Ombudsperson feels that he has the legislative authority to do the job properly. The Ombudsperson has made it clear that he believes it requires a change to his act in order to get the job done, and he’s expressed that view to the committee and to the Attorney General.

The Attorney General and her deputy minister have written to the committee twice now in the past week. Why has she not told the committee whether she intends to amend the Ombudsperson Act as he has requested?

Hon. S. Anton: There is a legislative committee considering this issue. As I said yesterday, I have faith in the members of that committee. I certainly have faith in the members on this side. It sounds like the members opposite may not have faith in the members on their side, but I do.

They are deliberating. They have heard from the Ombudsperson. They have heard from my Deputy Attorney General. They will bring forward any requests that they think appropriate, they will make recommendations that they think appropriate, and they will make a referral as they see appropriate.

Let us let that committee do its work, and we will hear from the committee as to what they wish and what they need going forward.

Madame Speaker: The member for New Westminster on a supplemental.

J. Darcy: Surely, the Attorney General does not need reminding that it’s not up to the committee to decide to introduce legislation in this House. It’s the Attorney General’s responsibility to do that.

The Health Minister asked the Finance Committee to ask the Ombudsperson to conduct an investigation. The Ombudsperson has made it clear that without a change to his legislation, current or former government employees could withhold information under confidentiality provisions.

He’s also made it very clear that he believes this could well lead to litigation, to delays, to higher costs and, very, very importantly, that it could lead to a failure to get at the truth.

If the government is so sincere about getting to the bottom of this scandal, why is the Attorney General being so dismissive of the Ombudsperson’s request?

Hon. S. Anton: I fear it is the members opposite who are being dismissive of the deliberations of the committee. The committee is considering these issues.

We will be very interested, on this side of the House — I will be very interested — in hearing their deliberations. If they think that this is a problem, they will let us know. Let us let the committee do its work.

A. Dix: I think the Ombudsperson let the minister know pretty loud and clear. He said:

“In my view, it’s simply unwise and unworkable to proceed with a review of this magnitude and significance with one’s fingers crossed in the hope that this issue will never come up or will work itself out somehow through the expensive, time-consuming and uncertain litigation process, or that we should risk the release of a report that may, once again, lack important information and full disclosure.”

I’d remind the Attorney General that, in the last three years, the public, the people of British Columbia and the researchers have been repeatedly misled on key ques-
[ Page 8998 ]
tions with respect to this matter; that the McNeil report could not draw conclusions because people at the most senior levels of government collectively would not tell the truth about key matters; and that the McNeil report itself is not even on the government website, because the government won’t let it be on the website.

These issues of disclosure are critical questions, and the Ombudsperson has made a serious request to the minister. Will the minister, instead of dismissing it, respond to that request today?

[1420]

Hon. S. Anton: As I have said twice already, the matter is before the committee. The committee will make its recommendation. It will make a referral. It will make recommendations back to the House, if it wishes.

I think it is the members opposite who are being dismissive of the work of the committee. Let us let the committee do its work. We will wait to hear from them.

Madame Speaker: Vancouver-Kingsway on a supplemental.

A. Dix: Well, the Ombudsperson heard and read the minister’s contribution. His conclusion: “…I’m at a loss as to what the principal rationale is for declining to make this amendment.” And this matter is for the direct responsibility of the minister — for no one else — to introduce this government legislation in this House. It’s her responsibility. The Ombudsperson said: “…I reiterate my request that the committee not refer this matter to the office unless and until this issue is addressed.”

So what I am asking the minister to do, since it’s in her responsibility to address the issue raised by the Ombudsperson…. Will she respond to it in a serious way today?

Hon. S. Anton: The committee has heard from the Ombudsperson. The committee has heard from the Deputy Attorney General. The committee will be deliberating. The committee, I assume, will make recommendations. Let us let the committee do its work. It’s a good committee. It’s a well-constituted committee. They are perfectly capable of making good recommendations. Let us wait for them to do that.

HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION
FOR TRANSGENDER PERSONS

S. Chandra Herbert: Can the Minister of Justice tell us why her government refuses to extend explicit human rights protections to transgender British Columbians?

Hon. S. Anton: The issue of gender identity and the human rights code of British Columbia is crystal-clear. Our human rights code protects all persons, no matter what their gender identity is, which I think is the issue at question. It is crystal-clear. The law is crystal-clear. They are protected. We can be proud of that in British Columbia — that our courts have been so clear about that, that we are so clear about that. The protections are there in the human rights code.

Madame Speaker: Recognizing Vancouver–West End on a supplemental.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, if the minister happened to actually read the human rights code, she would see that gender identity and expression are not actually written in the B.C.’s human rights code. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland have all acted. They’ve all explicitly protected gender identity and expression in their human rights code because transgender people face hatred, discrimination and outrageous levels of violence.

This government almost stands alone in refusing to support transgender British Columbians. Why will this government not act when people across this nation are standing up against hatred, raising the rainbow flag of inclusion and standing up for their transgender citizens? Why do the B.C. Liberals refuse to do the same?

Hon. S. Anton: I do acknowledge what the member opposite is saying in terms of the difficulties some people face. That needs to be addressed in a number of ways, and our government is committed to addressing it in a number of ways. I know the Minister of Education frequently talks about anti-bullying initiatives in schools.

Our government is committed to recognizing and celebrating the diversity of British Columbians. There is no question that that absolutely encompasses transgender people. There is no question that the rights of transgender people are protected in our human rights code. It is crystal-clear. Our government fully supports that, fully endorses that.

[1425]

I recognize, as I said a moment ago, that transgender people do face difficulties, but one of them is not the human rights code of British Columbia.

M. Farnworth: What’s crystal-clear is that just about every other province in this country has gender identity in their human rights code except the province of British Columbia. That’s what’s crystal-clear. The minister herself just stated she recognizes that transgender people face challenges and discrimination here in the province of British Columbia.

If she wants to actually do something, then why does this government not recognize transgender and gender identity in the human rights code of British Columbia like every other province does?
[ Page 8999 ]

Hon. S. Anton: The issues referred to by the members opposite, the difficult issues facing transgender people, are not legal issues. The human rights code covers, absolutely unquestionably, the rights of transgender persons.

These issues need to be addressed in so many different ways — but through respect through our society. That’s why we have so many anti-violence initiatives in British Columbia, so many anti-bullying initiatives — things that our government is undertaking to ensure that people in British Columbia have respectful relationships and treat each other with respect.

As I said, the issue here is not a legal issue. It’s an issue of behaviour, and it’s one that we are determined in British Columbia to combat — that people recognize the diversity of people and celebrate that diversity and treat people accordingly.

SAFETY OF WOMEN ON HIGHWAY 16
AND BUS SERVICE IIMPLEMENTATION

M. Karagianis: The Premier is currently at the first ministers meeting with First Nations in Goose Bay, where Perry Bellegarde, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has called for action on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and the number of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls across the country.

RCMP reports have shown that B.C. has the largest number of unsolved cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women, more than any other province, and yet today along that highway women are still in danger because they have to hitchhike to go get groceries, go to see their social worker, go to work and get back from work. Why is that? Well, because there is no transit system in their communities.

Again to this government, it makes no sense whatsoever, but why is this government still refusing to put shuttle bus services in the communities along the Highway of Tears?

Hon. T. Stone: Hon. Speaker, I would like to say, through you to the member opposite: if you ask the same question over and over again, you’re going to get the same answer. This subject has been canvassed here in the chamber on numerous occasions. It was canvassed in estimates as well.

Obviously, our government remains committed to fulfilling the recommendation, which was to provide safer transportation options for those who live along Highway 16. To that end, last summer we had staff from our ministry spend several weeks meeting with First Nations leaders, local governments and other organizations. There was a very good exchange of ideas.

As I have said to the member opposite….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. T. Stone: The information that the members requested on this was duly provided to them. At the end of the day, we have acted on a number of fronts. There is a new web portal which has pulled together all of the transportation resources which are available through the region. We provided $75,000 to the Carrier-Sekani for driver education and licensing and so forth. And the dialogue continues. We will continue to do everything we can to make that corridor even safer.

[1430]

Madame Speaker: Esquimalt–Royal Roads on a supplemental.

M. Karagianis: Well, the minister is right. We do continue to get the same answer, and the same answer says that women are not safe on this highway. They will not be safe until this government changes their position on this issue.

Perry Bellegarde has said that the issue of missing and murdered women will be front and centre in their conference, and it has been. They have today passed all 94 recommendations on that. He also said that the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission report released this month will not gather dust.

Very ironically, in 2012, in response to the Wally Oppal report, the Premier of this province agreed with that sentiment and spoke about the vulnerability of people up and down Highway 16 and said we must make sure that we have a champion for the report so that it doesn’t just sit and be forgotten. Well, it has been forgotten. It continues to be forgotten and ignored by this government.

The most urgent recommendation was to put a transit system along that corridor. Will this government live up to the lofty words of the Premier in 2012 and put a shuttle bus service into the communities along the Highway of Tears so we do not see further tragedies? Will it take another death before they take action?

Hon. T. Stone: This highway corridor is significantly safer today than it was 15 years ago. That’s as a result of a tremendous number of initiatives of this government as well as communities and First Nations up and down Highway 16.

There is transit service connecting a number of communities like Smithers and Telkwa, the Hazeltons and Smithers, Terrace and Kitimat, Prince Rupert and Port Edward. There’s a Northern Health bus service. Cellular coverage has been dramatically improved. As I mentioned previously, we have implemented a web portal, and we are continuing to discuss further ideas that folks along this corridor have.

I will end on this note. If the hon. member would like to share details with us as to how she thinks it would be
[ Page 9000 ]
practical to provide a shuttle service along a 718-kilometre stretch of highway that requires about eight hours from one end to the other, how that would be practical, I am all ears.

[End of question period.]

Tabling Documents

Hon. M. de Jong: I respectfully present the public accounts for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015, in accordance with the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act subsection 9(3).

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Continued second reading debate on Bill 30.

[1435]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 30 — LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS
PROJECT AGREEMENTS ACT

(continued)

Hon. M. Polak: I’m very pleased to rise today in support of this legislation. I begin, though, by countering a suggestion that I’ve heard on the other side numerous times. It goes something like this. Somehow they have construed government’s position to be that this represents a poor deal for British Columbia but that it’s better than no deal. Well, let me be clear. Our position on this side of the House is that this is an excellent deal for the future of British Columbia, and we are proud to be here bringing this legislation forward.

It is clear, though, in spite of opposition protestations to the contrary, that, in fact, they are supportive of LNG in British Columbia. Listening to their description and their idea of what a deal would look like in an NDP world certainly doesn’t leave one with much faith that they would ever have been able to achieve that, especially when….

I made notes, listening to the other speakers. Here is what I’ve managed to glean from their descriptions of what they think would be a good deal. It would be more money and more job guarantees in return for less certainty and, essentially, no kind of agreement that any company would be willing to risk a billion-dollar investment on. You’re not going to get more and, at the same time, believe that there isn’t an agreement to be reached on that. It isn’t a one-way street. You have to negotiate. You have to work hard.

It’s one of the things that I am so proud of about what our government has accomplished here. I think it’s important to begin by paying tribute to the teams of people in multiple ministries who have worked for months and months to get us to the place where here we are in this Legislature seeing the promise of LNG come to fruition in the form of this agreement that is before this House right now. It’s not surprising, though, to find that the opposition can’t possibly see their way to imagining that this might become a success.

There was something I was reminded of in listening to the debate in this House, and that was the debate on the budget before we went to the election. It’s the same story and the same narrative, which is: “Well, you’re presenting all this. But you know what? We don’t think it can actually come true. There’s no way you can possibly do it. You can’t balance the budget.” Well, we learned today that not only have we presented consecutive balanced budgets; we learned today that we achieved an incredible improvement in our surplus to $1.6 billion.

I say to those who doubt on the other side, who say they’ll believe it when they see it and don’t think that this is ever going to come to anything, that they should probably remember the same exact things they said about the budget before we went into the election. They were wrong then, and they’re going to be wrong now.

Let’s talk a bit about what forms up this agreement. First, it begins with how we got there. This involved, as I said, many different ministries, many different agencies of government.

It began with work on an environmental assessment, which meant that the environmental assessment office virtually had to reconstitute themselves in a different way if they were going to manage to accomplish the timelines that were needed and if they were going to manage to be as rigorous as they needed to be on the wide variety of areas that are considered within an analysis of an LNG facility. Not only did they manage to do that, but they delivered an environmental assessment certificate that presents with it significant requirements on the part of the project to ensure the safety, both environmentally and also for human health, of the project.

It also played a significant role in seeing the company adjust their project design in order to respond to the concerns that we were hearing from First Nations. And why do I raise this? I raise this because there’s this erroneous suggestion on the part of those on the other side of the House that somehow in this agreement we have given up any and all control over what type of environmental footprint this project is going to leave.

[1440]

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we have an environmental assessment certificate with significant conditions that is legally binding and enforceable. That is something we take very seriously in this province, and the proponents are aware that they must take it very seriously.
[ Page 9001 ]

In addition to that, the federal government has yet to render its decision on a federal environmental assessment of this project. We certainly are hopeful that that will be a positive response. But again, environmental conditions that will be placed onto the project are legally binding. It is absolutely wrong to suggest that somehow this agreement cuts away all the environmental protections that would be placed on a project of this nature. It’s absolutely false.

Once again, I want to commend the folks in the environmental assessment office for not just passively reviewing a file but for being actively engaged with the company, actively engaged with First Nations and ensuring that significant changes could be made to the design of the project in order to address the very real concerns that those communities had.

Then there’s been much discussion about the fact that we have produced here in British Columbia a set of regulations that will have us in British Columbia the cleanest facilities in the world. Now, there are lists of reasons why the opposition suggests that this should not be considered the cleanest. But let me point out a few things.

First and foremost, if you want to look at the intensity benchmark that was set at 0.16, I would put this to you. It is completely fair to argue that you think more should have been done. That’s totally fair. It is not fair and it is not correct to argue that it is not the cleanest standard in the world for a facility that produces liquefied natural gas. That is just wrong.

When you look at the other areas of the project, those connected to it — pipelines, the upstream — here’s another fact that the opposition and those on the other side seem to have ignored. When you compare to other countries around the world, our facilities — in fact, the entire supply chain, up and down the line — will be paying a carbon tax, at $30 a tonne.

In fact, while it has been rumoured to the contrary on the other side, this deal does not in any way restrict our ability to make a decision when the freeze is over, if we wished, to see that carbon tax continue to rise again and indeed apply, not just to the LNG facility, but to all the aspects of the project that service it up and down the line.

Now, no one is going to argue — and you haven’t heard anybody on our side of the House argue — that this isn’t a significant challenge to us meeting our 2020, and ultimately, 2050 greenhouse gas emissions targets. That doesn’t mean that because something is hard, we shouldn’t attempt to do it.

When we put forward the greenhouse gas legislation here in this House to deal with liquefied natural gas, I made it absolutely clear the government’s view on this matter. You have a choice to make. You can decide that it’s too difficult, and therefore you’re not going to do it.

The easiest answer is no. The easiest way to cut your greenhouse gas emissions is to decide that you are going to virtually shut down everything that you do. It’s not hard to figure out how to cut emissions. The challenge is trying to cut emissions at the same time that you are growing your economy. There is what is in front of us.

I will tell you that when I talk to constituents of mine, they want us to do that hard work. They want us to make those difficult decisions of balance to ensure that not only are we addressing our greenhouse gas emissions but we are doing it while we are growing our economy in a profound way here in British Columbia through the initiation of a new industry in liquefied natural gas.

[1445]

It’s not new. As with some of the things I commented on earlier, it’s not a new theme from the opposition. In fact, sadly, it’s a recurring theme. Back in the days when the climate action plan came out, when we presented a plan to British Columbia that said, “You know what? We believe we can significantly grow our economy and significantly reduce our emissions,” what was the response we got? “Nah, you can’t do it. Can’t be done. You guys can’t possibly do it.”

Well, the fact of the matter is that we have done it. We have done it, and as a result, we are receiving interest and praise internationally. We are receiving questions from jurisdictions around the world who want to better understand tools like our revenue-neutral carbon tax, our climate action charter, our carbon-neutral government plan. They want to understand those things because they’re watching British Columbia, and they see that we have done what few jurisdictions on the planet have done. And that is we have seen our economy grow. Our GDP is up. And at the same time, our emissions are down.

If you want to take a look at fossil fuel use in British Columbia per capita, our fossil fuel use is down 16 percent at the same time that it grew by 3 percent across the rest of Canada. By any measure, that is success, and it’s a success that the opposition did not believe that we can achieve.

I’m here today to just completely dispel the notion that anything in this project development agreement is going to hinder our ability to take action on the recommendations of our climate leadership team. It is not going to hinder us in the difficult work we have ahead of us in bringing those recommendations forward, having a new climate leadership plan and achieving the same kind of success that we have in the past.

We know that British Columbians want us to do that. We are committed to it, and as we’ve seen from our past actions, we are fully capable of accomplishing that goal. There’s nothing in this agreement that would give credence to the idea that we have given up our ability to take those controls.

There are other things, though, that I think are important to note. One of them is the role of natural gas internationally. Now, there is a hotly contested debate about the role of natural gas in the world as a fossil fuel. I totally acknowledge that. But there is also a very important ne-
[ Page 9002 ]
gotiation taking place. The next iteration of it is in Paris in December.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that when I was at the last council of the parties in Lima, one of the very challenging aspects of the international negotiations around setting targets to reduce GHG emissions, one of the very challenging aspects of those negotiations, are the many countries around the world who are either entirely reliant or heavily reliant on coal and diesel to produce their electric power. Many of these jurisdictions are a decade or two — maybe more years — away from having viable renewables as energy.

Now, how do you deal with that in an international negotiation? I’ll tell you one of the ways that is being discussed. I’m not saying it’s not without controversy, but it is something that as leaders in this province we have to consider and we have to wrestle with.

One of the things that is being proposed is that these countries, these jurisdictions, would utilize natural gas as a transition fuel, because the alternative is to see these countries continue for the next ten, 20, maybe more years to exist generating their electricity by coal and by diesel while they await the viability of renewables in their area.

It’s not true everywhere. There are some places where they can make the shift from traditional fossil fuels like coal and diesel directly to renewables. But I will tell you that there are very, very many countries, very many jurisdictions around the world where that is just not possible. Is it better to let them continue to burn coal and diesel, or is it better to make sure that there’s a provision of liquefied natural gas — by the way, the cleanest-burning fossil fuel?

[1450]

The switch to natural gas in the United States is probably the single most significant reason why the U.S. emissions have dropped so dramatically. The same is true in countries around the world where they are struggling to find a way to make that shift.

I’m going to use China as an example just because in all the discussions around emissions — the political discussion, the discussion on CNN, whatever channel you want to turn on — you often get pundits discussing the fact that they feel it’s somehow unfair that China is producing all these emissions, and gosh, we’d better get China under control.

Here’s something that a lot of people don’t know, though, if they’re not a part of some of these discussions that are taking place internationally. China is actually making significant progress. They have a long way to go because they’re starting with such a huge, huge challenge, but they are making faster progress than most jurisdictions around the planet.

One of the reasons they are is because they are taking seriously not only an investment into clean tech and renewables but also making a very rapid transition away from fossil fuels like coal to the use of — guess what — natural gas. It is not the complete answer, and natural gas is not the final answer in any way, shape or form to eliminating GHG emissions — reducing them significantly at least. But it is very difficult to present a solid case that liquefied natural gas doesn’t have a role in that transition.

Here’s a bit of an example just to give people a sense of the scale of this. If China were — and we expect they will; they tend to meet their five-year plans — to achieve the goals they have in terms of doubling the role of natural gas in their energy portfolio by displacing coal use to meet their goals by 2020, what would that mean? That would mean avoiding up to 133 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each and every year in China. What does that compare to? Well, I’ll tell you. That’s twice the entire province of British Columbia. That’s twice our GHG emissions annually.

Now, everyone — all the commentators around the world, all the people who are expert in this field — fully expects that China is going to accomplish that. That is one jurisdiction, albeit a large one, but it tells you the important role that, internationally, liquefied natural gas can make.

Why is that important? Well, here we are. We’re a small jurisdiction. There are some, in fact, who look at our efforts with respect to climate action, and they say: “Well, come on. You’re British Columbia. Canada is only 2 percent of global emissions, and you’re only 6 percent of Canada’s emissions. Why are you even bothering? It doesn’t make any difference.”

Well, first of all, I would say it does make a difference. Our leadership has made a difference. I heard that when I was back at the Climate Summit of the Americas just a week ago in Toronto. I heard that spoken from the podium by Al Gore, spoken from the podium by Felipe Calderón, spoken from the podium by Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne. We have that leadership role. It’s a very valuable one. That alone is important.

There’s another way in which we can punch above our weight. There’s another way that we can contribute globally to seeing the level of emissions drop and drop faster than if we simply leave some of these countries and jurisdictions to languish on coal and diesel. That is to provide natural gas and to provide it in a place where we are going to produce it under the cleanest conditions in the world.

Again I’ll restate that you can argue that we should do more, and people will. We’ve heard it already. We will hear it again. You can’t argue that it’s not the cleanest, because when you measure it up against other facilities around the world, it is. The numbers bear it out. It’s the cleanest in the world.

We’re going to have to continue to do more. The upstream is a really good example of that. There are incredible opportunities. Last night we heard presentations. Some of our members heard presentations from Pembina Institute, from Clean Energy Canada talking to us about
[ Page 9003 ]
some of the opportunities there are in particular in the upstream.

[1455]

It would amaze members to know just the size, the scale, of emissions that could be reduced if companies did one simple thing, which would be simply to maintain their equipment according to manufacturer specifications. Unbelievable that a simple change could have dramatic impacts on the emissions that are coming from the upstream. That’s just one example. There are a host of different initiatives that can be undertaken.

One of the realities of that, though, is that it costs money. We have currently a natural gas industry in British Columbia. With the drop in the prices, we know what that means for the industry. We know that without revitalizing it, without creating opportunities for other markets, the potential is for that industry to stagnate and potentially not perform in our economy the way that we need it to and the way that we have depended on it for so many years.

When you have companies that are able to reinvest and when you create the incentives for that reinvestment, which we have done in British Columbia, that is when you see the innovation take hold. That is when you see companies exploring things like carbon capture and storage. That is when you see people exploring in their companies things like the electrification of the upstream.

Again, opportunities abound with this industry. You always have to look at the other side of what you are challenged by. Challenges present opportunities, and this is no different. When it comes to the production of natural gas in British Columbia, not only is there a huge opportunity for our children, for our grandchildren, to benefit from the jobs, from the uplift in our economy, but there’s an opportunity for our environment to benefit significantly.

You are going to take a traditional industry that is going to be reinvigorated in the northeast where there’s going to be investment flowing from those companies, because we’ve created the incentive to do so, and that’s going to result in significant improvements in the technology and in the innovation that is taking place in the upstream. I would argue that without this kind of revitalization in the natural gas industry, I think you’d be hard pressed to predict that there would be significant investment in innovation in the upstream. I would say to anyone who thinks that we need to do something about upstream emissions, then here is an opportunity and a way to do it.

It is an illustration that I borrow from the carbon tax. When the carbon tax was first brought in, the reaction from people — who were, understandably, trying to wrap their heads around an entirely new tool and device — initially was: “Well, my goodness. This is a tax. It’s going to kill our economy. Everything is going to go wrong.” But there was an opportunity with it, and the opportunity was to reduce taxes, because it was revenue-neutral.

While you were able to put a price on something we didn’t want, which was carbon, you were at the same time able to reduce taxes, reduce the price on things that we want: income and investment. Now, we thought that was going to happen. That was something we predicted, but on the face of it, looking at the idea of bringing in a new tax, that wasn’t apparent. It wasn’t something that people naturally and immediately caught on to, but it certainly happened.

I look at this in the same way. You don’t get companies to invest into innovation, to put their money into expensive changes to their industry, to their technology, in a situation where they’re not seeing the profits that enable them to do that. We’ve created the incentive for them to make that investment. It is an opportunity to take something that’s a challenge — no question it’s a challenge to deal with our emissions from LNG — and turn it into something that can benefit not only the whole industry but perhaps even the industry and technology worldwide.

It’s another example of where, if we are able to move ahead in this manner, British Columbia can continue that leadership, not just in terms of the climate actions that we have taken but in terms of our contribution globally to assisting the world, assisting other jurisdictions, in getting away from even dirtier forms of fossil fuel.

I’ll repeat: no one is arguing that liquefied natural gas is the final answer to emissions. It isn’t. No fossil fuel is. But in the absence of the cleanest-burning fossil fuel in the world, in natural gas, the alternative for these jurisdictions, for these countries, is to remain on coal and diesel. That’s the alternative, so let’s be honest about it.

[1500]

None of this is going to be easy, but in this project development agreement we have set the stage for us to not only see a successful liquefied natural gas industry but to ensure that we have the tools in place to grow together with the industry to see the investments in the upstream, to see the investments in innovation. That should make us all very proud.

I don’t expect that the opposition are going to turn around and, in response, lavish their praise on the agreement. I’m quite sure they won’t. I’m quite sure they’ll continue to mischaracterize it. I’m quite sure they’ll continue with their narrative around what it looks like.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of this is that it seems the best quote machine they can find is from Martyn Brown. I find that humorous, on this side of the House, because personally, if you really do have a case, I would think you’re probably better putting it on a fact basis. You’re probably better talking about what’s actually going on and saying what aspects of it you specifically disagree with, not inventing things that aren’t actually in the agreement.

A really good example is a blog that was put out by
[ Page 9004 ]
Matt Horne from Pembina. There are things in this agreement that they don’t like, that they disagree with. But when you read that report, it’s basically factual. It doesn’t rant and rave. It doesn’t use hyperbole. It lays out the things that they’re concerned about. It lays out some things — some things — that they think are okay. But it’s a rational argument.

I really hope that, instead of just quote after quote from Martyn Brown and some distorted narrative around what’s in the agreement, what we’ll hear from the opposition is actually a reasoned discussion about why they think it’s not a good idea to enter into an agreement that is going to see billions of dollars of investment in this province, that is going to see billions of dollars in new revenues for our children and our grandchildren, and that is going to help us to revitalize an industry in British Columbia that in the northeast of B.C. can be for us a shining example of the way to create investment in new technologies.

This is truly an opportunity of a lifetime, not just in terms of the financial benefit to British Columbians but certainly in terms of what we can do, if we work hard at it and if we continue the right policies, to achieve in improving the environmental performance of our upstream natural gas industry.

Clearly, we know that what this agreement does not do is tie our hands on the environment. Far from it. What it does do is give us a tremendous opportunity that I am proud that on this side of the House we intend not to pass up.

G. Heyman: It gives me pleasure to rise to try and put some perspective in this debate, from my view, on both the opposition’s position on resource development — my concerns about some aspects of both the project development agreement and the bill that would enable it — as well as some of the comments I’ve listened to from the government side of the House.

Let me say that the last time I followed the Minister of Environment, I was in a position to congratulate her for some actions, but I don’t think I’m going to be doing that today, although she did raise a number of important issues in her speech.

However, I think it’s important to note that at the beginning of her speech she appeared to characterize the opposition’s position as one in which we would essentially be saying no to this development and no to all kinds of development. Our position is quite different. Our position is that we support responsible development of British Columbians’ resources, with a number of conditions.

Those conditions are that British Columbians get a fair return from the resource, because, in fact, we own the resource collectively, and simply selling it short isn’t good public policy.

[1505]

Another condition is that we want to find jobs for every British Columbian who’s ready to work and ready to be trained. Part of that scenario is a whole suite of policies that actually go back 14 years or so to indicate why we perhaps are now in a position of having to seek assistance from temporary foreign workers, because we don’t have and haven’t had a training system in British Columbia that would provide job-ready British Columbians for this industry.

We also believe that there need to be true partnerships with First Nations. This particular project and the project development agreement fall short in this area. Clearly, when you have challenges from the Lax Kw’alaams, challenges from the Gitga’at to the location of the terminal and the proposal itself, based on their traditional fishing rights, their history and the potential impact on salmon from the positioning of the terminal, that is a very, very critically important issue that has to be resolved. It’s not something that should be left to the end of an agreement. It’s not something that should be taken for granted. It’s a critical piece.

Finally, very importantly — and I’m going to spend much of my time talking about this — is protection for our air, land and water, which of course, includes climate. I’ll digress for just a minute. We have seen, for the last number of years, incredible droughts in California. This year we saw droughts in Washington state, as well as water shortages in British Columbia itself.

It’s not going to get better. Nobody who’s acquainted with climate science believes that things are going to get better. They’re going to get worse. We’re going to have to do everything we can to mitigate and everything we can to adapt, while we’re seeking to provide food security for British Columbians.

Food security is challenged, on the one hand, by the failure of other jurisdictions to provide the quantity of food that they’ve been able to provide us in the past and, on the other hand, by the fact that the population in B.C. is going to grow considerably, as members on the other side have pointed out, in the next two decades. We need to be able to increasingly provide food ourselves, to grow our own food, and that will be constrained by changes that are brought on to both climate and water supply by a continually changing climate.

We say on this side of the House…. Notwithstanding the Environment Minister’s and others’ claims — and I’ll get to those in a minute — that natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, that therefore, we should be willing to provide it to others who are currently burning coal and diesel and that they will have the cleanest facilities — it’s important to listen to the word “facility” — we say our responsibilities go further.

Our responsibilities should cover the entire production chain, the transportation chain, as well as the compression chain itself — the facility itself. And as we do that, if we do that, we also need to have an overall cli-
[ Page 9005 ]
mate action plan in British Columbia that has within it a clearly stated goal that’s achievable in terms of meeting our legislated greenhouse gas reduction targets, which means that we have to have policies in a whole bunch of other areas that target industry, transportation and development around the province to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible to account for any place where they’re going to increase.

Listening to the comments from members opposite, I feel like I’m operating in this chamber in a cloud of the Premier’s pixie dust, where she thinks she can say that we’re going to have the greenest LNG in the world while conveniently ignoring the greenhouse gas emissions of methane and carbon, both at the wellhead and in the transportation pipeline section, and can simply focus on the compression itself, even though that is questionable when we’re powering the compression with gas.

You can’t simply pick and choose where the emissions are coming from. They’re all going into the atmosphere. And if it’s part of a project, it’s part of the emissions, and it’s part of the impacts on climate change. It’s part of the greenhouse gas emissions that British Columbians expect us in this chamber — and particularly government, as agreements are signed with proponents on liquid natural gas — to address. British Columbians are tired of hearing that we have to choose between the environment and the economy.

[1510]

British Columbians increasingly are aware that an economy that isn’t built on sound environmental protections that include a solid plan to control, limit and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions isn’t in the economy’s interest, isn’t in their interest, isn’t in the interest of future generations. It instead leaves a very, very expensive legacy that will have to be carried by children, by grandchildren and by great-grandchildren.

It’s not just a legacy of livability. It’s a legacy of cost, whether it’s the cost of fighting fires that have ramped up in both intensity and in terms of hectares being burned every year, as well, of course, as in costs.

The Minister of Environment thought it odd that we would quote Premier Campbell’s former chief of staff, Martyn Brown, because his opinions were somehow not factual. But his comments were, in fact, about the whole nature of bargaining agreements.

If I might paraphrase the statements of the Minister of Environment early in her speech, she seemed to be saying that this development is so important to British Columbia that it can only proceed if we get a deal at whatever terms we can get, that that’s the best deal we can get, and the opposition is simply illogical and unreasonable in expecting that better deals could be had.

Let me, notwithstanding the objections of the Minister of Environment, read from some of the statements of the former chief of staff to the Premier, because they have to do with negotiations. They ring true to me, as somebody who spent 30 years of my life involved in negotiations.

Mr. Brown says: “The Clark government hopes to rush that binding contract into law within the next several days, in the dead of summer, although it is not obliged to do so.” And: “The enabling legislation need not be passed or put into force before ‘the end of the session of the Legislative Assembly in fall 2015 or such later date as may be agreed between the parties.’”

Here we are in this chamber, in an unprecedented summer sitting, rushing through an agreement so that the Premier can put another notch on her belt as she talks about her ability to develop deals that will create, she continues to say, 100,000 jobs. She continues to say it will generate billions of dollars and continues to imply it will pay down the British Columbia debt — none of which, clearly, are true.

This government isn’t even willing to give us the time to consider properly all the aspects of the project development agreement, as well as this bill.

Mr. Brown goes on to say:

“That is important to know, for it would allow all legislators until at least the end of November, or even later if need be, to properly assess that deal. It begs to be expertly parsed and broadly exposed before it is imposed on our province.”

He then says:

“It 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….

“We should not accept this deal that would enshrine an unprecedented 25-year tax giveaway to state oil companies…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….

“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.”

Let’s look at what the benefits are to British Columbia. What we are seeing in this agreement is a particularly favourable tax regime for this proponent, one that will be replicated for other proponents in the future.

[1515]

It allows the proponent to write off capital costs against profits until they’re paid off. It also allows a particular reduction in the corporate tax, and it has a lower special natural gas LNG tax than was originally proposed by the government. But critically, it locks that in for a period of 25 years.

I listened to the Minister of Finance on CBC, about a week ago, say: “Oh no, no. We’re not binding the hands of future governments. We’re simply saying that if a future government changes the tax regime, the proponent will be reimbursed dollar for dollar by the people of British Columbia.” It’s sophistry. That’s tying the hands of future governments. It’s tying the hands of British Columbians.

We have a deal that could have up to 70 percent temporary foreign workers at its late stages and 40 percent over-
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all during most of construction. We have a quote from an interview of Michael Culbert of Pacific NorthWest LNG, in which he says: “We will hire Canadians if Canadians are available to do the job…. It comes down to the ability to source Canadian labour.”

It’s unfortunate that the Jobs Minister — who has repeatedly stated how important it is for us to employ British Columbians, to create opportunities for British Columbians, to create training opportunities for British Columbians — is not in this House, because when she was Advanced Education Minister in 2002, she oversaw the dismantling of the apprenticeship requirements that conform to Canada’s Red Seal requirements in British Columbia.

That is why so many young British Columbians don’t have the certifications that are needed and will be necessary to accept these jobs and many other jobs. The government need look no further than themselves for any shortages that foreign corporations may find when they come in here looking for skilled workers. We are now reaping the reward of Liberal government policies from their first term in office.

I am going to close my remarks shortly, because others on this side of the House — particularly the member for Surrey-Newton, whose responsibility it is, particularly, to speak to this issue — have a number of remarks to make. But it is important.

The Minister of Environment referred to the statements of Matt Horne, of the Pembina Institute. Matt Horne, in a recent blog, has pointed out that this agreement ties the hand of government with respect to future environmental regulations in a number of very significant ways.

If a future government wanted to address greenhouse gas policy or rising emissions in British Columbia and the impacts of those emissions — for instance, by requiring the proponent to use more renewable energy rather than burning natural gas — it would be the people of British Columbia who would have to be paying, effectively, for the industry’s environmental impact in British Columbia, not the person, the people, who are profiting from it.

It is not keeping our environmental options open for government and the people of B.C. It is not leaving room for a future government to deal with environmental policies or to deal with measures that have costs that are important, that we may deem to be important, in the future.

That is why so many people on this side of the House disagree with the government’s approach, disagree with the 25-year deals and disagree with the guaranteeing to Pacific NorthWest LNG and Petronas that they will not have any additional costs if things change, as we know they will, over the next 25 years.

With that, I will take my seat.

Hon. S. Anton: It’s with great pleasure that I rise today to offer my support for Bill 30.

[1520]

Over the past few weeks I have had the great pleasure of attending graduation ceremonies at two of British Columbia’s largest high schools, both in my riding of Vancouver-Fraserview: Killarney high school and David Thompson Secondary School. In each school there were about 350 grads crossing the stage to receive their Dogwood diplomas. The students looked terrific. Prepared for the next stage of their lives by our excellent public school system, they had a smile on their faces, a spring in their step, an optimism in their faces.

Now, my riding of Vancouver-Fraserview is a very multicultural riding, and it has a very strong presence of many new immigrants. Many of those grads were not born in Canada. Others were born here, but their parents were not. In either case, their families, and most of the families whose young people crossed the stage, had immigrated not too long ago to Canada, to give their children opportunity.

Whether they came here recently or they came here many years ago, they came for opportunity. They came here for the economic and cultural prosperity that they believe Canada offers, and they were right. This country offers prosperity and opportunity, and there is nowhere in Canada where the opportunity for prosperity is greater than in British Columbia.

How do we achieve opportunity and prosperity? In the resource industries by focusing on building our resource industries and, in particular, by building respectful partnerships with First Nations. By establishing skills-training programs that match training with anticipating jobs.

By creating security through excellence in policing and rule of law. By having a justice system that is universally admired and recognized for its fairness and its independence.

By having a health care system that achieves the best health outcomes in the nation. That’s what we have in British Columbia.

We have an education system in which our students have outcomes amongst the top three in the world.

By building an economy that is vibrant and strong — that is what we are doing in British Columbia. We are — members may possibly have heard and know — in the third year of balanced budgets in British Columbia. Few economies in the world have achieved that. And today, just a short while ago, the Finance Minister released the public accounts showing a $1.6 billion surplus for the last fiscal year, which will go immediately to paying down our operating debt. That is a remarkable achievement.

British Columbia leads the country in economic growth. We have a triple-A credit rating as a result. Our trade from British Columbia is the most diversified in the nation. This is the direct result of concerted efforts of this government, made to expand trade outside of traditional markets, attract the attention of international investors and build and promote our British Columbia brand overseas. Since those efforts began in earnest a decade
[ Page 9007 ]
ago, we have managed to grow our total exports to prosperous economies like China by more than 600 percent.

No wonder those students and their parents looked so optimistic. Whether their families have been here forever, whether they’ve been here for many years, or whether they have arrived quite recently, they want the same thing for their children: opportunity.

But opportunity doesn’t come to those who stand still and wait. It doesn’t come to those who just say: “No, no, no, it’s all a mistake. Don’t do it.” Opportunity comes to those who seek it, to those who work for it. That is what our government is doing today, seeking the massive opportunity presented by investment in liquid natural gas.

This legislation is the seizing of opportunity. The project development agreement between the province and Pacific LNG marks a significant milestone on the path to realizing the single largest capital investment in our province’s history. We are saying yes to that on this side of the House.

[1525]

It will provide Pacific NorthWest LNG with the certainty it needs to make long-term plans to do business in British Columbia and will help us set the stage for a brand-new industry that has the potential to employ thousands of British Columbians and be a key economic driver in our province for years to come.

We have been preparing for this opportunity for nearly a decade, with progressive royalty programs, infrastructure upgrades, clean energy policies, comprehensive environmental assessments and direct engagement with First Nations, industry and communities. This is an investment in our future. It doesn’t just mean more jobs and increased revenue for government. It means more funding for services like health care and education and more funding for infrastructure in British Columbia.

The industry estimates that more than 240 million tonnes of LNG were traded around the world last year. In fact, global trade in LNG doubled between the years 2000 and 2010 and is expected to grow by another 50 percent in the next five years. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for our province to strengthen our economy by entering into the market of a commodity that has global significance.

The economic prospects are substantial. Under the current tax and royalty framework, our province could see more than $8.5 billion in total royalties and tax revenues by the year 2030, with the Pacific NorthWest LNG project alone generating 4,500 jobs at peak construction and creating an additional 630 direct and indirect positions. This is a massive investment with a massive potential payoff.

Michael Culbert, president of Pacific NorthWest LNG, has already stated that the company is committed to hiring as many local British Columbian and Canadian workers as possible to support the construction and operation of the facility. Now, I know the members opposite don’t like to hear that, but that is the commitment.

To follow through on this objective, Pacific NorthWest LNG is working closely with a number of educational providers and associations to ensure our workforce is prepared for these great opportunities. The House will know that the Minister of Jobs has been working in a most determined way in the last two years, as has government over the last many years, to make sure that our youth and our workers are positioned to go into the jobs that are ready for them.

This is also our chance to forge new partnerships with First Nations and to work together with the private sector and First Nations to create LNG-related benefits for aboriginal communities throughout British Columbia. We know, as do First Nations, that there are great benefits that can flow from the growth of British Columbia’s natural gas sector with jobs and economic opportunities.

Nearly 90 percent of the 32 First Nations with LNG proposals in their traditional territories have indicated their support for one or more pipeline benefits agreements. We’ve also reached agreements with 14 bands near the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG facility in Prince Rupert and are working hard to address any outstanding concerns.

On the environmental side, as the Minister of Environment has said, we are continuing to work together with First Nations and the private sector to ensure that the highest environmental standards are achieved. We are committed to making B.C.’s LNG facilities the cleanest in the world. Natural gas is the world’s cleanest-burning fossil fuel, and converting just one heavy-duty truck from diesel to natural gas has the same effect as taking more than 300 cars off the road. By exporting LNG, we can help other jurisdictions reduce their dependence on higher greenhouse gas–producing fuels such as coal.

We have high expectations for LNG projects in this province. They must be responsibly developed and safely operated, and First Nations will be engaged and involved with their advancement.

Pacific NorthWest LNG is looking to produce large, stable volumes of natural gas in British Columbia for many years to come to supply its export needs, and it’s not the only company looking to do so. There are 20 proposed LNG projects in various stages of development around British Columbia from Delta to Campbell River to Prince Rupert. There are also three facilities that intend to focus on providing fuel for the domestic transportation and heavy equipment industries. Eleven of these proposals have already received export approval from Canada’s National Energy Board, while provincial environmental assessment certificates have been issued for seven.

[1530]

To date, more than $7 billion has been invested by industry to acquire natural gas assets that will support the development of the industry, while more than $2 billion
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has been spent preparing for the construction of LNG infrastructure.

I am guessing that every single person in this House knows directly somebody who has already been working in preparation for the industry being developed in British Columbia. I know I certainly know several people in my acquaintance who have been working on projects, whether they be engineers, whether they be biologists, whether they be working in forestry. They are all working with companies who are aiming to develop the LNG infrastructure and industry in British Columbia.

The Pacific NorthWest LNG facility alone represents a total investment of nearly $36 billion in our economy. That’s a very big number. These investments have proven that there is strong confidence in and commitments to B.C.’s natural gas future from major global companies. That is what we have today — a massive opportunity for British Columbia, a generational opportunity that leverages our geographical advantage and our abundant natural resources to create a brand-new industry. This agreement with Pacific NorthWest LNG is the first of its kind and brings together government and major global players to set a path toward ratification.

Bill 30 provides long-term certainty that investments will be treated equitably and consistently and will enable future agreements with other proponents. People want security, and British Columbia offers security in every sense of that word. This work lays the framework for establishing a thriving, competitive LNG industry while allowing us to set a standard for environmental and social responsibility.

LNG provides an amazing opportunity to improve access to skills training, to increase economic growth and to enhance our environmental stewardship, all the while ensuring that First Nations communities are an integral part of this emerging sector. For too long First Nations have been left out of economic development in British Columbia, and this allows us to right that wrong. Our environment is just as important as economic growth. By working together with First Nations and industry, we can ensure greater economic prosperity for all British Columbians while providing companies with the certainty needed to make final investment decisions.

Mr. Speaker, you will know and the House will know that our Premier has been working extraordinarily hard. Her vision has been clear, strong and determined and has driven this process forward. She has been supported by members of her government team and, indeed, by many, many people in the province to make this happen. We now have the opportunity to attract massive investment to British Columbia with the building of a new LNG industry.

I am proud to be a member of that team. I am very happy to be on a team on the optimistic side of the House, a team that believes that you can make things happen and a team that believes you can build the economy of British Columbia and build prosperity for all our citizens in British Columbia. I am so happy to be in the House on the side of optimism, hope and promotion of success in British Columbia. I think it must be very tough to be on the other side of the House and to be gloomy about the opportunities that LNG offers.

Going back to those grads from David Thompson high and Killarney high, those young men and women…. They may be pipefitters. They may be engineers. They may be artists. They may be any number of thousands of professions. They may work in the medical field. They may be police officers. But no matter their career path, it is enriched by the possibilities of this new industry in British Columbia.

This is the type of opportunity that all families in British Columbia, whether they immigrated recently or have lived here forever, are thinking about for their students. Certainly, for the more recent immigrants in Vancouver-Fraserview, of whom there are many, this is what they were thinking about when they chose to come to Canada to provide brighter futures for their children.

This is an opportunity to secure prosperity for future generations of British Columbians, to open new jobs for our graduates, to create new revenues for our province, to build our province. Now is the time to seize this opportunity.

I hope the members on the other side of the House will realize that that is the case and decide to vote for this bill. I, of course, offer it my wholehearted and complete support and wish the industry and all the people working so hard in this field success as they move forward.

[1535]

M. Dalton: I’m happy to support Bill 30. Development of the LNG industry was discussed extensively in the 2013 election. We all remember the negative polling numbers going into the election for the B.C. Liberals, and it’s a good example that elections do make a difference. One of the key elements for the victory was vision — economic vision, employment vision — and LNG was an important part of the vision.

It was criticized by the NDP at that time as pie in the sky, a fantasy. I can understand why they’re against it or won’t be supporting this bill, partly because I don’t think they believed that it would happen. But the Petronas and Pacific NorthWest LNG decision is a big deal. It’s not a final investment decision, but it’s very close. This summer session is to keep the ball rolling to provide assurance of taxation for the industry.

The energy sector has taken some very hard knocks lately, in the past year. The price of LNG relates to the price of oil, and that has gone down about 50 percent. Many projects have been shelved in Canada and elsewhere. Nevertheless, Pacific NorthWest LNG is moving forward towards its final investment decision of $36 billion U.S., which is $46.6 billion today, according to the
[ Page 9009 ]
Bank of Canada’s exchange rate. So it’s the largest private project in British Columbia’s history. Government policies and taxation measures make a difference.

We can contrast that with Alberta, with a newly minted NDP government under Rachel Notley. Last week a $20 billion oil sands expansion was postponed by at least five years by Teck, and that’s the entire duration of the NDP government in Alberta. In light of oil prices, industry was not willing to commit billions of dollars in a jurisdiction run by a government that has promised to raise taxes and has shown itself already to be quite anti–free enterprise in the short time that it has been in. This is quite similar to NDP governments throughout the nation.

That’s too bad for workers there. It’s too bad for Alberta. It’s too bad for Canada, because oil sands are currently still the biggest economic driver in all of Canada, and we all benefit.

NDP governments make industry very nervous. That’s why the LNG industry wants a long-term tax regime. They want to be secure and know what they’re getting into to make the numbers work. If the numbers don’t work, they will look elsewhere. That’s fair, but that doesn’t help British Columbians. Industry knows that the NDP has historically railed against big business, whether it’s big corporations, big banks, big oil, big pharmaceuticals. Big is bad, unless it’s big tax increases or big government.

The Premier and the government do not want to lose this opportunity for all British Columbians, hence the summer session. There are 300 to 400 long-term jobs once it’s established, once it’s built, and double that in indirect jobs, let alone the impact it will have in the retail sector, in construction, in banking, more teacher positions, because many of them will have families that will be moving in the area. This is very important for Prince Rupert and for Port Edward and the entire northwest.

I was reading an article from February 8, 2012, from Northern View from Prince Rupert. It talked about the decline in population in that area. The Prince Rupert agglomeration count, which includes the surrounding areas, fell by 2.5 percent, from 13,392 to 13,052. That decline was the fifth highest in the country and the highest drop in all of B.C. Port Edward also saw the population decline, falling 5.7 percent to 577 people. If you look at the historical high of that region of Prince Rupert, it’s a 28 percent decline in the population.

The first time I went to Prince Rupert was on a cruise ship on the way to Alaska and visited — beautiful country. There were some positive things happening — this was in 2010 — with the expansion of the port and even with the tourism industry. But you could tell that the community, the city, had seen better days. And better days they will see with the LNG expansion right here.

[1540]

This is really important for the northwest, for these communities and for all of British Columbia. Better days will be in store for these two communities if we see this major clean industry established. I want to see our communities and our cities rise up and thrive, not dry up and die.

What happens in the northwest or in the northeast or in the southeast benefits all British Columbians. My neighbour across the street has a young family, and he flies to the northwest for work and then flies back on breaks. And this is happening all over. There are 4,500 jobs during the peak construction time that will be happening.

Those construction workers go from one site or one project to another. I was touring the Ruskin dam recently with the MLA for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows. That’s a $750 million project over several years with about 250 to 300 workers. I was talking to one fellow there, and he said he had been working on the Port Mann Bridge before working Ruskin. And other workers had been working previously on the Pitt River Bridge. They go from site to site. So that’s keeping these construction workers, these skilled workers, employed. It’s important.

Pacific NorthWest LNG will have about 18 times the construction workers that the Ruskin dam currently has. There are hefty financial benefits for the province. In a little over ten years of production, by 2030, it’s an estimated $8.6 billion in revenues, which are a royalty revenue of $3.64 billion; LNG income tax, about $700 million; carbon tax of $1.6 billion; corporate income tax of $1.2 billion; PST of $1.26 billion; motor fuel tax of $462 million; and property tax of $253 million.

It works out to be roughly $700 million a year. Put that into perspective. That would almost have paid for the Golden Ears Bridge between Langley and Maple Ridge or, for that matter, paid off the entire Ruskin dam. Or it would have covered the costs, in one year, for the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre twice over.

Put another way, it would cover in a year the combined budgets of these following ministries, according to the 2015-16 budget estimates. It would include the budget for Agriculture, at $80 million; Environment, $150 million; Community, Sport and Culture, $228 million; Energy and Mines, $28 million; Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, $199 million; the Office of the Premier — I’ll throw that in — $9 million; and there would still be more left over. It would cover all that in the revenues received each year, or about 8,500 teachers’ salaries. I’ve estimated that at about $85,000 per year.

This is really important, and by the way, this is important for the economy. The Premier understands the handling of the economy. It just was announced today — the $1.6 billion surplus that we saw in the 2014-2015 fiscal year, which is $1.5 billion over the projection.

If this was the only LNG plant facility to be built in British Columbia, it still would be a very big deal. It’s worth the attention and the effort. But we have a bigger vision, and we’re working on it. The taxation regime is to
[ Page 9010 ]
pave the way for other players to come to a final investment decision.

I know that the member for Vancouver-Fairview mentioned about tying the hands of future governments. Well, actually, I believe that it opens the opportunity, opens the hands, for these LNG companies to be able to come and to invest in British Columbia because there is certainty. That wouldn’t be the case if they knew the…. They know the history of the NDP, and they’re concerned about that.

There are currently 20 LNG proposals at one stage or another; 11 LNG proposals have received export approval from Canada’s National Energy Board. There are seven others that have LNG projects. Three facilities and four pipelines are under review, numerous projects with Kitimat LNG, LNG Canada, the Coastal GasLink pipeline, Pacific Trail Pipelines, the Prince Rupert gas transmission pipeline, the Westcoast connector gas and transmission pipeline. This is great news. This is a very important first step. But to tell you the truth, as we mentioned, if this was the only one, this is a big deal for British Columbia.

[1545]

The benefits are immeasurable. Furthermore, it’s a clean industry. Liquid natural gas is colourless — hence, no smog. It’s odourless. It’s non-toxic. It’s non-corrosive. And it evaporates immediately. It’s boiling point is minus 163 degrees Celsius. I said “negative.” I guess in the past couple of days the probe has been going past Pluto, and on the sunny side of Pluto that’s about the temperature facing the sun — about minus 170 degrees Celsius. So it’s a boiling point.

What’s the importance of that? Well, it means that LNG boils and evaporates even in the coldest regions of the earth, which is important. Why? Because you’re not going to see any LNG slicks or sheens, as is the case with oil. Once the gas is liquefied and purified, it is shipped in special LNG carriers. There are over 400 LNG carriers operating globally. They have delivered 80,000 cargos and covered 240 million kilometres in the global shipping routes over the years, and there have been zero cargo losses through cargo tank failures. British Columbians can be confident that an LNG industry won’t come at the cost of maritime risk.

In the light of the overall benefits to the people of our province, I believe that it’s incumbent upon us as members of the Legislature to support this legislation and see this industry established as expeditiously as possible.

R. Lee: I’m pleased to rise in the House today to speak on Bill 30. It’s an honour to take part in this discussion as we work towards developing a diversified resource economy in British Columbia.

Liquefied natural gas will play a large role in building a strong economy for our province, and we have the opportunity to develop an LNG industry that is right for British Columbians. We gather here in the Legislature today on both sides of the House as leaders of our respective communities dedicated to ensuring that their rights and interests are protected. That’s why our government is committed to delivering a fair deal to British Columbians.

The member for Burnaby–Deer Lake voiced a need for conditions to be met in order to qualify this agreement as a good deal for British Columbians. The conditions they raised were as follows: a fair return for British Columbians, jobs for British Columbians, environmental protection and partnership with First Nations. I appreciate the members raising these concerns in the House, and I’m sure they will be thrilled to hear that these conditions are actually all addressed as part of the project development agreement with Pacific NorthWest LNG.

Of course, meeting these conditions will take a lot of hard work. Luckily, we know that British Columbians value hard work. We will work hard to obtain a positive outcome from the federal environmental assessment process, and we will work hard to continue to build progressive partnerships with First Nations. These are the two areas that we are looking forward to developing.

We do not see this as an obstacle but instead as an opportunity to develop the world’s cleanest LNG industry and to work hand in hand with British Columbia’s First Nations, as we continue to develop relationships based on trust and respect. British Columbia First Nations have been stewards of the environment since time immemorial. Their engagement will play an integral role in the development of this project.

We have the opportunity today to come together to create a greener, more prosperous future for all British Columbians. When it comes to job creation, our government has a proven track record of training people for the workforce. B.C.’s skills-for-jobs blueprint helps those seeking a career in our province to find their fit through vocational training, apprenticeship programs and grants. Today there are over 2.3 million people working in British Columbia. Tomorrow we can add another 4,500 people to the workforce.

[1550]

Michael Culbert, the president of Pacific NorthWest LNG, has made a commitment to hire as many local and B.C. workers as possible to support the building and operations of the proposed facility. We will ensure that occupational trades training will be made available in Prince Rupert and surrounding First Nations communities for those British Columbians who want to invest in their careers by developing their skills. I’m sure many Burnaby students from secondary schools; the British Columbia Institute of Technology, BCIT; and Simon Fraser University will be part of this additional workforce.

One of the most exciting initiatives we have embarked on is the LNG–Buy B.C. program. In November 2014 the LNG–Buy B.C. program was launched so that B.C. companies can get involved in the LNG industry and profile their goods and services to proponents and their con-
[ Page 9011 ]
tractors. This will allow B.C. business owners to grow their networks, develop new partnerships and secure new business opportunities in northern B.C.

The response to this initiative has been overwhelmingly positive. British Columbia’s business owners want to be part of this new market. Over 300 companies have preregistered with this program. They offer a range of services from accommodation, catering, construction, finance and insurance to recycling. This goes to demonstrate the broad range of skills and capabilities that B.C. businesses have to offer to the LNG sector.

It’s significant to note that 25 of these preregistered companies are aboriginal-owned. First Nation business owners are willing and eager to take part in this initiative.

The opposition continues to cite environmental concerns in their response to the Pacific NorthWest LNG agreement. I understand these concerns. In the past years we have seen some of the events happening in the global environment. There are challenges, particularly in the growing rate of fossil fuel consumption.

China is the world’s heaviest user of fossil fuels. They are also the world’s fastest-growing economy. As they continue to expand and develop, they will increase their demand for fossil fuels. I have spent a good deal of time in China, and I have seen firsthand the effect of coal and petroleum use in that part of the world. It’s not sustainable. Natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and presents us with an opportunity to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Over ten years ago I had the opportunity to visit Tianjin, which is a city very close to Beijing. I have seen the demand for natural gas in that area. When I came back, I attended the Natural Resource Forum in Prince George. This was over ten years ago. At the end of the session about energy I actually asked an expert at that time the feasibility of exporting LNG to Asia. The answer was that it was not practical because the price of natural gas at that time in North America was higher than the price in Asia.

When Chevron, as mentioned by one of the members opposite, eight years ago was thinking to develop an LNG facility in North America…. It was for import; it’s not for export of our natural gas to Asia.

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Over the years we now actually, as British Columbians, can offer Asian proponents the opportunity to make a change in their fossil fuel consumption and to make a commitment to our shared future by converting to LNG.

The Minister of Environment introduced legislation in the fall of 2014 to ensure that British Columbia will have the cleanest liquefied natural gas facility in the world. We have committed to setting a greenhouse gas emission benchmark that’s lower than any other facility in operation in the world.

The environmental assessment office has introduced a single team that is dedicated to reviewing LNG projects in order to provide consistent and detailed review. They will work in tandem with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency on projects that face both federal as well as provincial requirements.

The Pacific NorthWest project development agreement is designed to provide LNG proponents with a long-term agreement regarding provincial taxation and regulations. This is an important part of securing trust and building global relationships across the Pacific. We are committed to ensuring that our economic interests in Asia will benefit people in our province.

Today we have the opportunity to make a change. Opposition to a B.C. LNG industry is an opposition to change. It’s an opposition to a responsible industry of fossil fuel production. This is also an opposition to a future with a reduced rate of global carbon dioxide emissions. It’s an opposition to economic security and prosperity for First Nations.

Unlike the member for Burnaby–Deer Lake, who refuses to support a bill that will benefit all British Columbians, I stand here today in support of Bill 30, in support of a B.C. LNG industry and in support of my constituents of Burnaby North.

Deputy Speaker: Member for Burnaby-Lougheed.

J. Shin: Good to see you in the chair.

For those tuning in, the members of this Legislative Assembly were called back for a brief summer session in Victoria to debate Bill 30, the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, tabled by the government on Monday.

I do want to preface my remarks with thanks to the member for Surrey-Whalley, our lead spokesperson for the file on Natural Gas Development, as well as our researchers in the precinct and the business and economic stakeholders beyond the walls of this House who contributed by lending their expertise, spending numerous hours deciphering the 140-some pages of this bill, which is quite complex and technical. They distilled key areas of concern for us to deliberate on.

I also want to acknowledge my constituents and, surprisingly, many Liberal voters actually both in and out of Burnaby-Lougheed, who expressed their disapproval of what’s considered to be of very weak business merit in this government’s LNG project development agreement. I do want to mention that it’s a pity that many interested British Columbians are on holidays. The weather has been great. They will be missing out on this unprecedented — and I mean that in a bad way — deal that the government is making. That might explain the rather ill-advised timing of this debate, insisted on by the government to take place in the summer instead of the fall.

As we know, the Malaysian energy giant Petronas has yet to make its final investment decision on the Pacific NorthWest LNG project on Lelu Island near Prince
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Rupert, and it still requires federal environmental approval to proceed. So Bill 30 before us this week is, essentially, the government’s attempt to provide the LNG proponent with incentivizing measures. Such are specified in this project development agreement in the form of long-term cost certainty around the provincial taxation and environmental regulations.

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Indeed, the government seems to have delivered for the corporations in this PDA. But for British Columbians, all signs point to this government coming back from the bargaining table with the short end of the stick, far less than what could be and should be had for our finite asset.

Yes, a project development agreement would be used by the government to attract, as it should, significant private investors like the LNG proponent to land a deal. But the question here is: a deal for who and at what cost?

As a member of the opposition, I am taking my place in this debate to criticize the deal for what it is and call it a bad one, because we should have done better or hold. I will be highlighting not one but multiple points, raised by many qualified to evaluate this PDA, on how this proves to be least in the interest of British Columbians and foremost for the Premier’s political posturing and timeline.

Now, many of us in B.C. are aware of and recognize our prospects of natural gas development in this province. But we are also critical of the fact that the current economic climate and other competitors for this product in the global market are not exactly favourable for our bargaining position and do present us with significant risks for any long-term commitments. At the same time, that’s not to say that there aren’t positive probabilities for better gains in the near future.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

To put it quite simply, the present conditions dictate that we might be selling lower at this point. So the business case here is, then: how low are we willing to go, and why right now? Given that the government is probably desperate to lock in something or anything before the next provincial election, “Why right now?” is quite obvious. But how low is the government willing to go? Pretty low, as one would imagine.

It was expected that the Liberals would be crafting something that is now characterized by many, including their own, as a colossal sellout. He has been mentioned several times — Martyn Brown, the former chief of staff to Gordon Campbell.

We’ve seen how much this government can sell out. There has been a recent incidence of that to illustrate the point — the fire sale of the prime real estate in Coquitlam. How low can we go? We would sell a 6.5 hectare lot appraised at $5.6 million, and we’ll let that go for $100,000. So $5.6 million for $100,000 is how low this government will go to balance their books. I can’t say that there was much faith to begin with in their business acumen.

Of course, we have a Premier whose idea of a debt-free B.C. is being a Premier who piled on more debt at a record speed than any other Premier in the history of this province, racking up $20 billion on her watch. Again, on that note alone, I also can’t say that there was much optimism that she would be bringing us our fair share for the LNG deal.

What I didn’t anticipate was that this Liberal government could set a whole new low on what is already a pretty low expectation by making this LNG project development agreement not only a colossal sellout, but they made it a multigenerational colossal sellout that will lock us in their weak dealing for a quarter of a century. Here’s the catch: a quarter century dealing for not just one corporation but for nine corporations. They gave this deal to not one but nine more corporations.

Let’s take a look….

Interjections.

J. Shin: Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I must mention this is the first time that I’ve been heckled. I’m sorry it has taken me two years to get there, but at least I’m learning. I can say that I can take off the rookie hat.

Deputy Speaker: I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

Continue, Member.

J. Shin: Let’s take a look at the Liberal PDA they tabled here. Well, the project development agreement at its core is no different than any other memorandum of understanding between two or more parties in a given transaction, where the intent of every party is to strive to have their best interests represented and inked within the negotiable terms.

What should a good deal look like? Ideally, I think it should be a win-win for every party. At the very least I would expect my representative to land me the best win that I can trade in for my asset. That should be the definition of it. But it turns out….

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On the other hand, we do have a relevant comparison in another jurisdiction. It was mentioned several times. That’s Australia. So let’s consider what the Australian government delivered for their people in the Gorgon LNG and the North West Shelf LNG project.

Firstly, they negotiated for and built into their PDAs clauses that guaranteed jobs for Australians, saying that the proponent must “use labour available within Western Australia.” In contrast, this Premier’s deal doesn’t have a single reference to guaranteeing jobs for British Columbians in all 140 pages of it, and the corporation has already indicated that they could use up to 70 percent of the workers from overseas. That’s 70 percent.

Now, I understand that the 100,000 LNG jobs that the
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Premier promised during the election…. I didn’t have much of an expectation there. But we are, realistically, looking at 4,500 jobs from this particular LNG project and 330 jobs that will be long term. Those are not even the real numbers when you consider that 70 percent of them wouldn’t be locally hired in the first place. The numbers are dismal right there. To put that in perspective, attracting one major motion film to come into town to film in B.C. would create twice that, if not more.

Secondly, Australia wrote in a buy-local policy. 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.”

They don’t stop there. They further elaborate by specifying “services of engineers, surveyors, architects and other professional consultants, experts and specialists, project managers, manufacturers, suppliers and contractors resident and available within Western Australia.”

Yet, in contrast, our Premier made no requirement to buy local products and services from B.C., and Petronas, the company, has already signalled that they will be bringing services from overseas. At this point I’m pretty sure some of us are scratching our heads, going: “Really, what’s in it for us, then?”

The third point. The Australian government provided no tax breaks and, certainly, no protection from future tax increases to the proponent for any length of time. Yet this Liberal government is locking in the LNG income tax that was already cut in half and reduces the corporate income tax from 11 percent to 8 percent for 25 years. I don’t know if there’s anybody else that would envy a deal like that.

Lastly, Australian PDAs contain environmental benefits with a clause where the proponent must pay “for ongoing programs that will provide net conservation benefits.”

What about us in B.C.? What did this government get for us? The Premier came back with nothing that will protect our environment. Instead, she came back with something in writing that says that they will protect the company from increased costs if B.C. moves to improve environmental regulations in the industry.

How did we end up with a PDA so lacking compared to that which our Australian counterpart was able to strike up with their LNG proponents? This is where, I guess, Mr. Speaker, you and I can have a little bit of fun. Let’s try to imagine for bit here what the thought process might have been for the government, at the table, to have ended up with a PDA like this.

Remember, this government made an exorbitant promise, and they know that the market is grim, with the oil price having tanked this spring. There was a sudden U-turn, a change in the chant from LNG to diversified economy. That’s the new marching order for the Liberals. But it would sure be nice, I’m sure, for the government members to have something, anything — and apparently at any cost — to come through from the LNG side before the next election. The government must have thought: “Okay. It’s 2015. Not a single LNG deal yet.”

Let’s pretend that I’m the government, and Mr. Speaker, you will be the LNG proponent. I need to make sure you sign this deal. How can I entice you? The obvious. Okay. So how about I reduce your LNG income tax? I’ll slash it. It’s not 10 percent off. It’s not 20 percent off. It’s not 30 percent off. How about I slash it in half? That’s a bold offer right there, from 7 percent to 3.5 percent.

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That’s worth about $800 million of revenue shortfall for us over ten years. But hey, revenue shortfall? I can always jack up the revenue by — I don’t know — jacking up the MSP, ICBC, hydro, tuition, ferries — you name it. And you know what? If that doesn’t bring in enough money for us, I know how to squeeze dollars by closing programs and cutting services.

But, Mr. Speaker, you don’t look so convinced. What if I give you a handsome natural gas tax credit? It’ll cut your corporate income tax from 11 percent to 8 percent. That’s another $150 million over the next ten years that you can keep, and it’s on us. Even the richest 2 percent in the province only got a 2 percent tax break in this budget, and I’m saying that I’m giving you 3 percent.

Still no, eh? Well, let me lock in those rates for you. For five years? Ten years? How about 25 years? You can keep those unbelievable rates for 25 years. Think about it. Even the mortgage rates for us don’t go beyond five years fixed.

Interjection.

J. Shin: I don’t think I was…. Was I born at that time when that deal was done? I think that we can get past that.

Mr. Speaker, still no? Aha. It must be the carbon tax thing that’s bothering you. I know, eh? So let me protect you from any increases on that too.

What else have I got? Oh, the greenhouse gas industrial reporting and control. That can be a bummer too, eh? So don’t worry, we can lock in the rules for you for 25 years on that, too, so you can be safe from any added material costs to your operations, like having to pay for GHG offsets.

The Pembina Institute says that the subsidy is worth about $400 million over 25 years, and that’s what you get to save. If anybody after me tries to change that and make you pay, I’ll make sure that I put that in writing today, also, so that we have no choice but to compensate you dollar for dollar.

You still don’t look so sold. Okay. So he’s still not biting.

Are you worried about buyer’s remorse? I understand. So let’s say that in the next, oh, ten years if a different LNG proponent comes along and gets a better deal than you, I will retroactive our deal so that you can not only get the same benefits, but you can renegotiate the whole
[ Page 9014 ]
thing with us to make it even more favourable for you. Although, I don’t know how this deal can possibly get any better than this, since we might as well be paying you to take our goods away.

But, Mr. Speaker — the LNG proponent — you’re still not signing. Is it because the Australians put in writing job guarantees and local procurement? Well, how about if I say that you don’t have to worry about any of that, because we won’t put it in writing in our PDA.

Still no, eh? You’re twisting my arm. Is it the apprenticeship quota for British Columbians that’s bothering you? How about I let you off the hook on that one too? Just do me one favour, though. I want you to keep talking about how many jobs you’re going to create through LNG, because nobody really needs to know how many of those jobs will actually be filled by British Columbians.

That’s a pretty good deal so far, no? But they want more. Hmm. I’m running out of ideas. Well, how about you don’t have to worry about conservation benefits either? And First Nations? We can sign the deal without them.

Social licence. Don’t worry about the First Nations, building trades, academics, scientists and the British Columbians. In fact, I even had many from the University of Victoria show up in the gallery on Monday, and I thought the protest was so funny that I couldn’t stop grinning. I just shut the gallery from public access the next day, and that’s how we solved the problem here. How cute is that? The protestors forgot that I have majority here, and I can pass whatever I want.

There you have it. My offer is on the table for you to sign anytime. I wish I could make it valid for you indefinitely, but I do have an election coming up in 2017, so the offer can only be good for two years. I really hope that you’ll buy in now while you still can, because I doubt that anybody is crazy or irresponsible enough to give you the deal that I’m giving you now.

All right, Mr. Speaker, I think I’m going to wrap up there. The Coquitlam land fire sale made it pretty clear, I think, to many of us that there wouldn’t be anyone in this province who would hire the Liberals as their realtors to sell their property.

[1615]

This Bill 30 proves the exact same thing, seeing as this government came back with an LNG agreement that reads like they were bargaining for the corporation instead of negotiating for British Columbians.

It is just too unfortunate that…. Never mind the heckling. We seem to do it all the time. Logic, science and evidence seldom have a place in this government when it comes to their political agenda. We already know how this debate will end, if you can even call it a debate when the end is already predetermined, which is the reality. The reality is that this Bill 30, too, will pass to the tune of the Premier, irrespective of the qualified opposition across party lines.

I have seen this government rip up whatever they want to, whether it’s the agricultural land reserve…. From adult basic education to English language learning, they will cut whatever they want to. From making money off student loan interest to increasing user fees like ICBC and MSP premiums, I know they can squeeze whatever they want to. Of course, I’m sure they will smear whoever they need to along the way to get their way.

My only regret in rising today on behalf of my constituents…. I tried to have some fun with it. Having tried coming to the debate respectfully or academically or whatever way, this is just another shot at it. My only regret is that the substance of my remarks, however I put it, will end up making no difference to the outcome of this debate against the majority government that we have.

My colleagues on this side of the House rose one after another to compel the government to be critical of the weaknesses that are inherent in their PDA that they came back to us with. The government failed to negotiate effectively for British Columbia. This project development agreement is a sweetheart deal — let’s call it that — for the corporations. This government’s attitude of “It’s better than nothing” is not only not good enough, but we categorically reject the notion.

On that note, I can’t support Bill 30.

D. Plecas: Never before in the history of this province have we had the opportunity to talk about a seminal moment in the development of our economy. As legislators, we are literally witnessing the launch of a new economic sector through the export of liquefied natural gas.

As a province, B.C. is already blessed with many resource industries that have guided the course of our economic development. Forestry, mining, agriculture and fishing have been our mainstays in our economy, and they continue to be today.

As a matter of fact, the natural gas industry is not new to British Columbia. It has been in operation in this province for over 50 years and currently employs over 13,000 people. What is new is the export of LNG to new markets overseas. As such, the project development agreement signed between the government of British Columbia and Pacific NorthWest LNG is the first of its kind with an LNG proponent. This agreement will mark the largest capital investment in B.C. history. I’m also taken to understand it’s the largest investment in Canadian history.

On behalf of my constituents of Abbotsford South, I am pleased to rise in the House and declare my wholehearted support for Bill 30, the LNG project development agreement enabling act. Following a conditional final investment decision by Pacific NorthWest LNG, Bill 30 represents an obligation on behalf of the government to ratify the agreement. This agreement will also serve as a model for future agreements.

Of course, the process does not end there. In addition to passing the legislation, the proposed project also re-
[ Page 9015 ]
quires a positive outcome from the federal environmental assessment process. It also requires a strong commitment to constructive engagement with First Nations. The government will continue to work with First Nations and the proponent to ensure the highest environmental standards, including the protection and enhancement of fish habitat.

[1620]

This opportunity is indeed something that comes along only once in a lifetime. It also represents good-quality, high-paying jobs for British Columbians, remembering that they will be first in line for those jobs. It will create 330 direct operational long-term jobs. It will also generate 300 spinoff jobs. Furthermore, 4,500 jobs will be created at peak construction of the facility.

Bill 30 also creates certainty for Pacific LNG. It is designed to provide LNG proponents with long-term cost certainty regarding certain provincial taxation, environmental laws and regulations applicable to LNG facilities.

Under the tax and royalty framework in place, we estimate that the province should see almost $8.6 billion in total royalties and tax revenues by 2030. This includes royalty revenues of $3.6 billion, LNG income tax of $697 million, carbon tax of $1.16 billion, corporate income tax of $1.2 billion, PST at $1.2 billion, motor fuel tax at $462 million and property tax at $253 million.

These are significant revenues that would not come about without the leadership of the Premier, the minister responsible for natural gas and the Minister of Finance. Naturally, the government is not counting on this revenue until the first shipment is delivered. But we have paved the way towards prosperity by balancing the budget within our current means.

By balancing the budget three years in a row, we are now in the driver’s seat and able to chart our own future. It has enabled the government to look far into the future and make strategic investments into our infrastructure.

This one particular project will require more roads and more highways. It will kick-start the need for all of the supporting jobs that come from a new industry. From road builders to the restaurant industry, from engineers to grocery stores, this project will generate jobs of all varieties.

We can also look at the fact that last fall we passed legislation that will make LNG the cleanest industry in the world. There are some of those who would tell you that we’re facing an uphill battle. In the first instance, our critics claim that the government is hindering its own efforts to attract investment by insisting on developing the cleanest LNG industry on the planet. Yes, that’s true. We are insisting on that.

It would be an easier path if we were to lower our environmental standards, but that’s not going to happen. We are choosing the more difficult path because it’s the right thing to do, not only for us in the present but for succeeding generations of British Columbians.

B.C.’s world-leading benchmark will limit GHG emissions to 160,000 tonnes of CO₂ per million tonnes of LNG produced. These are the lowest emissions of any similar facility in the world. The province arrived at this target by surveying leading LNG facilities worldwide and determined that 0.16 benchmark would surpass the standards of any other jurisdiction.

One day future generations are going to look back and thank us for choosing to develop the industry properly. If we start out on the correct path, then the technology to extract the gas will only begin to improve over time. That is the nature of innovation. And the legislation that we have before us is designed to serve as a model for others to follow.

The scale of taxation is escalated over time to provide companies the opportunity to invest in better technology — specifically, waste recovery, carbon capture, co-generation, and the use of natural gas in heavy vehicles out in the field. These types of technology will drive further innovation.

Our critics have also attacked the government’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become a carbon-neutral government. In fact, the NDP vehemently opposed the carbon tax, saying it would be a disaster for the economy. They said it would be impossible to reduce emissions without costing jobs.

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That was in 2007, and lo and behold, in 2012 the government achieved its interim target for GHG emissions, and that being 6 percent below 2007 levels. This was an aggressive target, and we achieved it without hurting the economy. The government remains committed to eventually achieving a 33 percent reduction and eventually an 80 percent reduction from 2007 GHG levels, so much so that the Minister of Environment noted in a speech last fall that British Columbia is leading by example in terms of setting and meeting its own climate change targets.

In fact, we are attracting international attention and literally convincing other jurisdictions to follow our lead. France and Mexico are implementing carbon taxes this year. The European Union is following with its regional program, and Chile is announcing plans to implement a carbon tax. Through the Pacific Coast Collaborative that B.C. is a part of, we know that Oregon and Washington state are also following suit.

With this kind of progress, I wonder what’s going through the minds of our critics, who have been quite vocal about opposing carbon offsets. They say that carbon offsets are not good policy, that we are essentially paying people to emit and letting polluters get away with it.

If the NDP is really serious about opposing carbon offsets, then they should inform First Nations in this province, who are currently in the process of negotiating with LNG companies to protect the environment and generate much-needed revenue for those communities. These are B.C.-based offsets and will benefit the province as a whole.
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In closing, I would like to remind my fellow members that this bill is just one element that makes British Columbia internationally competitive. We have an abundant supply of natural gas. We have emerging technologies that will continue to drive innovation and more environmental extraction techniques.

It all adds up to the fact that while the price of energy will fluctuate over time, the demand for energy can be expected to increase as countries like India and China grow their middle class. These economies will come to expect the same comforts and enjoyments that we in developed economies have known for many years. This demand will propel B.C.’s LNG for years to come and generate an important source of revenue for generations. For all these reasons, I am pleased to vote in favour of Bill 30.

A. Weaver: I rise today to take part in the debate on Bill 30, the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, or PDA. That I’ll refer to later. This is a bill that our Premier has indicated will have historic implications.

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge the Minister of Finance’s efforts to ensure that my office received the necessary briefings and had an opportunity to ask questions prior to debating this bill in the Legislature. I’d also like to acknowledge that, true to the Minister of Natural Gas’s word, we are indeed debating the PDA in the Legislature, providing MLAs an opportunity to examine and debate its implications. While I may not like what I see, I do feel I need to acknowledge my gratitude for the opportunity to voice my concerns publicly.

Now I’d like it make two confessions. First, I’m surprised in how the government is choosing to frame the debate on this bill. In her introduction of the bill, our Premier noted this: “It is not every day in this House that we get the chance to really make our mark in history.”

Those words ring oddly familiar to me, having heard similar remarks from a previous Finance Minister back in 2008.

“Or we can seize the opportunity before us to be the generation of British Columbians who made the right decisions, who chose to take action and who, by doing so, showed their respect for the earth, for the atmosphere, for those who came before us and for those who will follow in the decades to come. Let’s rise to the occasion, and let’s work together to shape the next proud chapter in the history of British Columbia.”

These are, of course, the words of Finance Minister Carole Taylor as she introduced the 2008 budget in British Columbia, which laid out a path towards a sustainable and resilient future for our province with the climate action plan.

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It is in this that I must admit my surprise. I’m surprised at how far this government’s ambition has fallen, from striving to achieve a place of global leadership on the most pressing issue of our time — namely, the transition to a diversified, resilient 21st-century economy — to declare that we are “building our future” on the bedrock of a fossil fuel industry. I hope the irony is not lost on the government.

The second confession I must make is that I was wrong about the government. Three years ago, when our Premier began her all-in sales pitch on LNG, I was certain that the reality of the global market conditions, the uncertainty we see in neighbouring jurisdictions — like Alberta, when they have tried to build a province around a single industry — and the greenhouse gas reduction commitments the previous administration had made would force the government to dial back on the rhetoric and accept that it was unlikely we would attract an LNG investment. But the rhetoric was never dialled back.

I couldn’t possibly imagine what this government was willing to give away in order to potentially land an LNG facility — our climate leadership, the ability of future governments to renegotiate tax rates in the interests of the province, a fair price for the resource that belongs to the people of British Columbia.

Back in the fall of 2012 the then deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas gave a presentation at the 2012 annual Clean Energy B.C. conference, entitled Fuelling Our Economy: British Columbia’s LNG Strategies. The government’s expectations at that time were revealed. This was in 2012. At the time Japan LNG was trading at $16 per million Btu, and the government was promising rising global LNG prices for many years to come.

So what’s happened to the global market since 2012? Well, we all know, and it was entirely predictable given the fact that we are not the only ones in the world who’ve discovered horizontal fracking technology. Our shale gas reserves pale in comparison to those of other countries. There are massive reserves in Australia, in Russia, in Iran, in Qatar, in China and in the United States. Shale gas exists all around the world, yet somehow B.C. thought that it, and only it alone, was going to fill Asian market supply gaps with our natural gas.

Well, as I’ve been pointing out for almost three years now, there is a global market oversupply, and we are latecomers to the game. Today the LNG East Asia index is trading July 2016 delivery contracts at $7.35 per million Btu. August 2015 contracts are even lower — $7.25 per million Btu. It’s more than a 50 percent drop from just three years ago, but it’s not going to end there.

Sanctions are about to be lifted on Iran, and with Iran being the home of the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves that are in order of magnitude that’s more than a factor of ten — that’s larger than Canada’s reserves, let alone British Columbia’s — it’s clear that downward price pressures will continue in the natural gas and LNG markets.

As the reality of this government’s irresponsible election promises became more and more transparent, the government became more and more desperate to land one positive final investment decision. That is why this
[ Page 9017 ]
legislation and the project development agreement it is meant to enable represent, as I outline below, a generational sell-out, a public display of affection between Petronas and the B.C. Liberals.

We may eventually get an LNG facility in this province, but at what cost? As Martyn Brown, former B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s long-serving chief of staff and the top strategic adviser of three provincial party leaders, so aptly noted in an article published on Monday: “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 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 can collectively stand to gain.”

Please let me explore this cost in some detail to illuminate what this government is asking us to give up to ensure they deliver on an over-the-top election promise. Start with the LNG tax. In the fall we passed the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act, a bill that laid out the tax regime for LNG. With its introduction, we saw the LNG income tax slashed from a proposed 7 percent to only 3½ percent.

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We also learned that companies would only be paying a 1.5 percent tax while they paid off their capital investment costs and that the tax they paid in that period could be applied as a credit on future taxes at the 3.5 percent rate. The LNG income tax legislation was a clear reflection of the unrealistic economics behind the government’s hyperbolic LNG promises.

In the spring, only a few short months after we passed the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act, the government introduced the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Amendment Act. At 109 pages, this amendment act was longer than the original act, and the purpose of the amendment act was to close many of the massive loopholes that were left open when the original act was signed.

The key point to acknowledge here is the very fact that the government had to introduce the bill in two stages. They couldn’t introduce the complete income tax legislation all at once because it wasn’t ready, and they were in a rush. The government had to get the skeleton passed so that LNG companies would know, more or less, what they were going to have to pay, but they were operating on such a tight timeline that they didn’t have the time to have the fully finished legislation available in the fall.

I appreciate that the government is acting swiftly to try to meet what it perceives to be a limited window of opportunity before the 2017 election as Petronas tries to firm up supply for its mid-2020s supply gap. My concern is that in trying to meet that window, we may be opening ourselves up to making colossal errors.

The truth is we have no idea at this stage if we have closed all of the loopholes in the LNG Income Tax Act. Our first-rate civil servants, of course, have been doing their best to remediate the act’s shortcomings, but it’s not uncommon for tax legislation to be amended in the future to account for unforeseen loopholes, even years after it’s been introduced. In this case, of course, we won’t have years to fix it. In fact, we won’t have any time to fix it. If we pass this bill, the LNG Income Tax Act will be locked in for 25 years.

Now, I know the government would respond by saying it has reserved the power to make amendments for administrative and technical matters, for enforcement measures and to respond to tax avoidance issues, but I’m not talking about tax avoidance. I’m talking about tax planning. I’m talking about an LNG taxpayer identifying and exploiting a legitimate loophole in the legislation such that they could, for example, pay tax at the 1.5 percent rate well past the originally intended period.

If it’s deemed that the taxpayer’s actions are legitimate and therefore do not constitute tax avoidance, then under this agreement any change you make to close that loophole could trigger the indemnity clause, requiring the province to potentially pay that producer millions in damages.

If we pass this bill, we won’t get another chance to close those loopholes, so we’d better have gotten it right the first time. Given how quickly LNG income tax bills were developed and the manner in which they were introduced, I’m deeply concerned that we didn’t get it right the first time. In fact, I raised serious issues myself during the debates about potential loopholes.

Yet it’s not just about the loopholes. It’s about the legislation itself. This is an LNG giveaway designed to attract an industry that wouldn’t otherwise come to B.C. By passing this legislation, we’re locking the province into LNG income tax rates that have been widely criticized as being too low, and we won’t have another chance to reconsider those rates for 25 years. What if the government got it wrong? Twenty-five years is a long time. It’s too long for British Columbians to wait to fix the government’s error.

Let me turn to the natural gas tax credit. The same is true for this. B.C. already has the lowest corporate income tax rates in the country, but apparently that wasn’t low enough for the LNG companies, so we gave them an additional 3 percent back through the natural gas tax credit. What makes LNG companies so special that they need an additional 3 percent corporate income tax cut on their corporate income tax? What makes them so special? Do they not make enough money to pay themselves, like all other corporations do? Are their profits so low that they need government assistance in the form of tax breaks?

Consider this. Petronas by itself funds 45 percent of the Malaysian government’s revenue, so why are we giving them an additional 3 percent off their corporate income tax? My concern is that is inconsistent and an arbitrary policy that is a result of government negotiat-
[ Page 9018 ]
ing from a weak position to fulfil a campaign promise that never should have been made. British Columbians today and in the future will bear the cost.

Let’s turn to the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act. The day the project development agreement comes into force is the day that we officially give up on our climate targets. There’s no debate there. Government can spin this any way they want, but there is simply no debate there. It’s a simple fact. We cannot have an LNG industry and meet our climate targets.

[1640]

If constructed, Pacific NorthWest LNG alone, one company, would emit nearly as much carbon as the rest of our entire province in every single sector would emit in 2050 — one LNG facility — if we actually take those targets seriously. So when we hear the rhetoric about “We have targets, and we will meet them,” let’s be clear. Those targets, if we are to meet them, mean we cannot have an LNG industry. You can’t have it both ways. The facts are clear.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a surprise. When we debated the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act back in the fall, it was clear that this government was no longer serious about addressing climate change. Instead of strengthening our policies, they repealed the cap-and-trade legislation and introduced a new focus on emissions intensity, a scheme that would allow you to pollute as much as you want so long as you did so efficiently, a scheme directly out of legislation that exists in Alberta.

On Monday the government released further details on its environmental incentive program. The sellout continues. The program essentially gives yet more tax breaks to LNG companies to pay for the costs of their emissions offset. What’s particularly noteworthy is that the government’s new “environmental incentive program” has made it even easier for LNG companies to qualify for tax breaks by making the qualifying threshold higher. Originally, under the GGIRC, a company had to have an emissions intensity of 0.23 to qualify for a tax break. Now the actual emissions intensity can be substantially higher than that because the company can discount all of its “entrained” CO₂ emissions before it is assessed for the tax break.

What are entrained CO₂ emissions? In any natural gas stream, there’s unwanted carbon dioxide that can now be freely released to the atmosphere as fugitive greenhouse gas emissions at the site of the LNG facility. Fugitive greenhouse gas emissions are not covered by the carbon tax.

So this is not the cleanest LNG in the world. This is the cleanest LNG if you have a whole bunch of loopholes and don’t account greenhouse gas emissions in the world. But nobody takes that seriously. It’s a bit rich for this government to continue the rhetoric that it is dealing with the climate issue and at the same time building the cleanest LNG in the world.

Emissions from the gas stream can be very large. They’re not subject, as I mentioned, to the carbon tax. Even those LNG companies that have emissions intensities well above 0.23, far from the so-called cleanest LNG of 0.16, now can qualify for an additional tax break. What even makes this worse is that once this bill passes, we can’t change it. Should we decide that only low emitters that actually hit the 0.16 intensity mark deserve any kind of bonus, we would still have to pay those other higher emitters anyway under the indemnity clause. It makes no sense.

Similarly, should we decide that 0.16 is too high an emissions intensity, we’ll have to pay the LNG companies under the indemnity clause to lower it. So there’s no real point in improving those standards.

Contrary to what’s suggested by the name LNG environmental incentive program, by signing this agreement we are giving away any incentive for these companies to actually lower their emissions under the GGIRC for the next 25 years because we won’t have a way of steadily and predictably increasing costs of emissions. That’s hardly encouraging the development of the cleanest LNG in the world.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the current carbon tax applies only to emissions from combustive fossil fuels. A major gap is the methane and CO₂ leakages from upstream natural gas operations and pipelines, which are not taxed but now could be because of audited information from British Columbia’s greenhouse gas–reporting regulation.

While I recognize that this bill specifically states that any indemnity only applies to regulatory changes specific to the LNG facility itself, my fear is that in eventually plugging the regulatory gap on methane leakage emissions, which will increase the cost of gas at the LNG facility, Petronas would litigate. Now, government will surely claim that this was not the intent of its agreement. But Petronas is a powerful, resourceful, state-owned multinational corporation, and even the threat of litigation could frighten future governments from regulating methane emissions.

Perhaps most worrisome of all is the framework in which all these pieces are embedded: the project development agreement. With the PDA, the government is setting a new precedent for how it will manage investments into our province. I’m concerned that this may put British Columbia in a very weak negotiating position on any future negotiations.

Please let me explain. Under this PDA, companies have the ability to negotiate for more favourable deals and piggyback on those secured by future proponents.

[1645]

If the province doesn’t have this ability, in fact there are only two options for the province: maintain the relatively low standards of this PDA and hope other companies agree to them, or lower them further to attract other LNG
[ Page 9019 ]
investors, in which case we have to lower the standards for everyone. These are precisely the conditions that risk exacerbating a race to the bottom.

Furthermore, while the province will be locked in for 25 years with no exit clause, the proponent can pull out at any time with 90 days’ notice. I understand, of course, that when a company is making a large investment, they would like to have added certainty. However, if we are to provide that added certainty — and I caution that, in my view, a 25-year time frame seems a bit rich — then I would expect significant concessions in return.

In essence, we are transferring risk from the company to our province, which, in turn, is de facto transferred to the British Columbia taxpayers. If British Columbians are to take on that risk, then we should be adequately compensated for it.

Yet with this PDA, we are locking in tax rates that have been criticized as being far too low, thereby limiting the revenue we receive from the industry while also establishing no guarantees regarding jobs, training or other — for the lack of a better term — non-monetary commitments.

This, unfortunately, isn’t surprising, because the market conditions aren’t there to support these commitments, and our government was never in a strong negotiating position to demand them to begin with. I fear what we’ve done is we’ve transferred risk to the province and to British Columbians without gaining a fair return in exchange.

In addition, what is particularly concerning about this approach is that there doesn’t appear to be a clear, consistent policy on when a company can get a PDA. Businesses and our economy prosper best under a level, transparent playing field and certainty. Yet here we have a new policy tool, the project development agreement, that’s being applied to one company with no clear criteria for conditions under which another company could apply for a similar agreement.

The government likes to tout Pacific NorthWest LNG as constituting a $36 billion investment. I’ve heard it time and time again through the debates. It states that the scale of this investment is the reason that it qualifies for a PDA. The PDA only applies to the LNG facility, though. There are separate, other long-term royalty agreements that govern upstream natural gas extraction, and other measures to govern the pipeline.

Let’s break down these numbers. Let’s unpack them for all those riveted to their television screens across British Columbia. If you actually break down the numbers, the LNG facility only counts for $11 billion in investment. And guess what — $8 billion of that will be spent overseas. They’re not going to build the facility here. They’re going to build it in Asia, bring it in on tidewater and put it in British Columbia. So really, we’re actually talking about $3 billion, maybe $4 billion invested in B.C.

Let’s put that in context. While this is clearly a significant amount, the northern gateway pipeline was a $7.9 billion investment. Should we be giving them a PDA? The Trans Mountain pipeline was a $5.4 billion investment. Should they get one? EDP Renewables, TimberWest and First Nations on Vancouver Island want to invest $1 billion today, not hypothetically in the mid-2020s, yet the government has turned its nose on that, and they’re walking. Should they get a PDA?

I don’t believe we should be bringing forward a new policy tool such as PDAs without first establishing how they’re used. The last thing we want is either an unfair playing field for business or a proliferation of PDAs that facilitate the fire sale of our resources while constricting the ability of future governments to make necessary changes.

To First Nations. I’m disconcerted about how little we have heard from this government about its negotiations with First Nations. I’m left with many unanswered questions and a concern that we may be failing our fiduciary responsibility towards aboriginal people.

Is the PDA established even constitutional? Have we got legal opinion that section 35 of the Constitution Act — which limits provincial or federal government’s ability to legislate in a way that results in a meaningful diminution of aboriginal or treaty rights — is not being violated? Would the law that we are debating today that would tie hands of future governments also purport to limit the aboriginal groups’ ability to negotiate the revenue they will receive from a project? Is this in line with what has been established in the Tsilhqot’in decision? There are many unanswered questions that we have yet to have answers given to us by government.

Are we setting up a regime where First Nations are partners in the development? Or are we foisting the development of an LNG facility on an ecologically sensitive island that would deprive future generations of the benefit of the land and the salmon that spawn, which the eelgrass nearby is critical for?

[1650]

Signing agreements while committing to further engagement is not the way to reconcile relations with First Nations. It’s not rising to the challenge before us to chart a better path. We must instead engage and partner with First Nations, proceeding to sign agreements and move development forward when we can do so together.

In conclusion, I’ve lost track of the number of times the government has stressed that LNG is a generational opportunity. Indeed, the impacts of our decisions this week will be felt for generations to come. Yet I fear those impacts will not be positive. The fact we need this PDA should underscore how much this government has had to put on the table to buy this industry.

This legislation is highly illustrative of the shaky and desperate LNG climate that currently exists in B.C. and is embedded in a larger pattern of industry giveaways. We’ve already locked ourselves into long-term royalty
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agreements and changed municipal tax laws to allow for the special treatment of LNG facilities. We’ve dedicated years of government resources to develop a single industry instead of investing in a diversified, resilient economy that is based on the multitude of strong, existing and up-and-coming industries we have in B.C.

For example, government proudly proclaims that if and when it becomes operational, the Petronas facility could — not likely but could — support 500 long-term jobs. Let’s put that number in context. Hootsuite, the rapidly growing Vancouver-based social media company, already employs more than 700. So 700 jobs and growing weekly, yet government is touting 500 jobs.

In the last legislative session, I voiced my concerns about Bill 12, the Federal Port Development Act. As I previously explained, on its own, Bill 12 is not inherently problematic. But when considered in conjunction with Bill C-43 federally, issues arose, as Bill 12 did not account for any of the regulatory holes left open by the federal bill.

As I continue down this path, it’s very troubling that the recently proposed Port of Prince Rupert liquefied natural gas facilities regulations put forward by Transport Canada and recently posted in the Canada Gazette, plan to put the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission in charge of regulation of LNG terminals on federal land. Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Especially worrisome are the broad exclusions described in section 11 of these federal regulations now in the Canada Gazette. This is what they say: “Unless otherwise provided by these regulations, a provision of an incorporated law that imposes an obligation, liability or penalty on an owner, occupier, public authority, public body or unspecified person or entity does not apply to Her Majesty in right of Canada or to the Prince Rupert Port Authority”

It’s essentially saying that laws that would generally apply to the port will only do so if expressly required by regulations — regulations set by the Oil and Gas Commission. The effect of this provision would be that laws of general application would no longer apply to the port, making it above the law. It could mean that the port could operate nearly independently of the Oil and Gas Activities Act.

Deputy Speaker: We seem to be straying from the bill at hand. If the member could draw it back.

A. Weaver: Hon. Speaker, I’ll bring it right back. I’m trying to give an example of the desperate efforts that this government has taken to actually land this, as embodied in the PDA. This desperate measure, one of them, I raised last session and is actually coming to fruition as we speak. In fact, it just came in the Canada Gazette, and it’s very relevant. I’ll finish with one sentence.

What I wanted to say is that it means now that the port could operate nearly independently of the Oil and Gas Activities Act, the Drinking Water Protection Act, the Environmental Management Act, the Species at Risk Act and any other laws that could be required to protect the environment and public health. This is the extent of the giveaway embodied in the PDA, embodied in all the other pieces of legislation that this government has brought forward. And sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as these regulations are concerned.

Now with the passing of this bill, we will be locking ourselves into an untested LNG income tax regime and signing away our ability to fix any unforeseen problems. We will be solidifying tax rates demanded by industry in negotiations with a desperate government. We’ll be throwing away our climate targets and the commitments we made to them and selling out the next generation. An LNG export industry and our climate targets never could have coexisted. You don’t have to believe me. Government can ask its own civil servants, who’ve been advising them of the same thing for several years.

[1655]

An LNG export industry, as I said, cannot coexist with our climate targets. We could have done more to mitigate the increased emissions. Instead, we saw the definition of “cleanest LNG” that we were pitched two years ago gutted to remove upstream and midstream emissions.

Still, I’m an optimist, and I’m still a firm believer that it’s not too late. I still believe we have the opportunity to change directions. There’s still time to redirect our efforts into building a diversified, resilient economy, one that builds on our potential in clean tech, high tech and the creative economy, that embodies our strength in tourism and small business and that is based on the sustainable and thoughtful development of our natural resources, including forestry, mining, fisheries and natural gas, to name a few.

It is with this hope in mind and with these concerns laid out that I move a reasoned amendment on Bill 30, Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act. I submit to the House the following motion.

[I move that the motion for second reading on Bill 30, Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, be amended by deleting all the words after “That” and substitute the words “be not now read a second time as Project Development Agreements inappropriately limit the ability of future governments to use their legislative prerogative to respond to the future environmental, social and economic challenges that will face both an LNG industry and our Province.”]

On the amendment.

A. Weaver: Very briefly, on the amendment, all I would like to say is I’ve laid the case out there. I look across the aisle to the MLAs opposite, and I ask them to ask themselves one question. When they open a history book 20 years from now, those of them who are still around, I will ask them this: how do they think history will judge them?

I will tell you how history will judge them. The gen-
[ Page 9021 ]
eration of tomorrow will look back and will say: “This generation sold us out.” They will look back at this government’s decisions here to pass this bill with disdain, with shock, with disbelief and ask why. That is why I’m giving government a last chance.

Some of its MLAs…. There must be truly one or two Liberals left in the Liberal Party of Canada. For them to think that this can pass and for them to think that they are Liberals — it’s just simply not possible because Liberals, true Liberals, federal Liberals, would not do this. They would recognize the importance of meeting our climate targets. They would recognize the importance of working for a sustainable economy. They would not sell out the future generation, as this government is about to do.

With that, I shall take my place.

Hon. M. Polak: Thank you to the member. I know he has a great passion with which he speaks. He’s always serious and thoughtful. Unfortunately, I’m sure it won’t surprise him to find that I am not wholeheartedly in agreement, and I would advise that government will not be supporting the amendment. I thank him for his thoughtful interventions, and yet that is the position that government will be taking.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the question is the amendment proposed by the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

[1700-1705]

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

On the main motion.

Hon. J. Rustad: It is with tremendous pleasure that I take my position and rise to speak in support of Bill 30 and to speak in this debate. Never in the ten years that I have been an MLA in this Legislature have we had an opportunity to debate something so historic and something that could have such a positive, profound effect for all of British Columbia, but especially for northern British Columbia.

You look at the magnitude of this investment and what it means for British Columbia, not to mention the revenue to government and the services that it supports, but how it will continue to maintain and build our natural gas sector, what it will mean for all the people that live across the north, but especially for northwest B.C.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

Northwest B.C. has gone through a long period of time — decades — of struggling economically. It just never seemed to be able to catch fire when so much else of the province is performing. They always have higher unemployment rates — always struggling to find things and opportunity and optimism to be able to grasp onto. Liquefied natural gas presents that opportunity for northwest B.C.

Think about the community of Port Edward and how it’s been struggling along. You know, it’s fallen from its previous glory in terms of the fishing and other industries that it was involved in and the forestry side. Now it has an opportunity to regain some of its past and to grow positively into the future.

You think about Prince Rupert and what liquefied natural gas means for the community of Prince Rupert, for an opportunity to see that community renewed, to see growth throughout the area. You look at Kitimat and what it will do for the community of Kitimat and the boom that is already happening in Kitimat and the growth that will happen. And right across my riding of Nechako Lakes hundreds of kilometres of pipe will be placed, thousands of jobs will be created through that period of time, new skills and training opportunities created.

[1710]

Then to the northeast with the extraction industry and the opportunity for growth and, really, for the whole province to think more positively about: what could a
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petrochemical industry mean? What can we do now that we have this potential opportunity that’s in our grasp?

It troubles me when I think about so much that could be delivered for aboriginal communities and non-aboriginal alike in the province. When you see what this represents, and you see the Leader of the Opposition say that there is no compelling reason to be in the Legislature…. A $36 billion investment in British Columbia, the birth of a new industry for our province, the thousands upon thousands of jobs created — and there is no compelling reason, according to the opposition, according to the NDP.

According to the NDP, they were here in this Legislature to say no. They’re here to say no to that investment in this province. They’ve called it disappointing and depressing. I quote from one of the members opposite. “There is nothing in this deal worthy of support.”

Northwest B.C. has an opportunity to build an incredible future here. That area is represented by the member for North Coast, by the member for Skeena, by the member for Stikine — all of which have stood in this House and said no. Every opportunity there has been to support LNG, to move the LNG forward in this Legislature and in this province, the opposition have tried to delay, have tried to drag this thing through, have tried to say no and have opposed.

I get that it’s their job as opposition to oppose, to point out where there could be problems or where things could be done better. But this is talking about the future of communities, talking about rural B.C. and how we can strengthen this province, and the best we can get from the opposition is to say no.

The people that represent the good folk in the northwest should be, quite frankly, ashamed of their position. It is incredibly disrespectful to say to those people: “No, we’re going to ignore that opportunity. We’re going to ignore the potential for those jobs and community and family-supporting growth that can be seen in this province.”

When I think about my portfolio, about First Nations, it’s probably worth noting that every single First Nation from the northeast to the northwest in this province has signed one or more pipeline benefit agreement. Every single nation has said that they want to be part of a liquefied natural gas industry — every single one.

On the Pacific NorthWest LNG project and the Prince Rupert gas transmission line, every nation has signed on to that but two. We’re working with those two nations, and we’re going to continue to work with those nations because they want to see these benefits as well. We’ve been working through, respectfully, on issues that they’ve raised, and we will find a way to make sure that they’re going to be able to see these benefits as well.

I want to point out, in particular, what this means for those nations, for all of those First Nations people — the opportunity to do something different. Do you know what happens if we don’t do this? Nothing. Status quo. I’ll quote Chief Wilf Adam from Lake Babine Nation. Wilf was just in an election. He was the deciding vote on saying yes to the pipeline benefit agreement and went into that election, fought for his people and fought for the future. He said that he is tired of managing poverty.

We have to engage and do something different. Doing more of the same is not going to get different results. They have to try, work and seize economic opportunities that are in front of them.

I’m proud and happy to say that he was re-elected with a significant majority just last week. He stood up for what was right for his people. He stood up for building a future, for trying something different. His people said: “Yes. That is the direction we want to go.” First Nation after First Nation across the north have said the same thing.

[1715]

I know there are pockets of resistance, and there are some people that are nervous about this. But the training that we are creating, the $30 million that we’re investing with the companies, with First Nations, to create the training, to make differences for families….

The environmental stewardship initiative that we’ve set up. We’re looking forward to announcements that we’re going to have in the near future around this and what that will mean in terms of how we can work together and do stewardship on the land base. The government-to-government agreements that we’ve reached, the pipeline benefits, the site location benefits, the upstream benefits…. We just announced one with Saulteau recently — the renewal of the economic benefit agreements for the gas extraction. All of these things lead to making a difference, to changing communities and changing lives.

The opposition sits over there and says no to all of those people that want those benefits, that want to try to change the future. They’ve all stood throughout this debate and many debates in the past and talked about how they want to see more money spent on services and more money spent on solving the very situations that the First Nations are trying to work on. Yet the very opportunity they have to grasp that and build the future, they say no. In my opinion, that is shameful.

As we work through liquefied natural gas and what that can do for the province, when we think about just the one project over ten years, of $9 billion coming in revenue to the province, and we think about the other ones that can come up in front of us, we have to seize this opportunity now. We’re in this House because we need to do this urgently. We can’t do as the Leader of the Opposition says and say there’s no compelling reason. You don’t get deals done. You don’t build an economic future. You don’t see prosperity for British Columbia.

I’m very proud to have been able to take this time this summer on an emergency basis to debate this bill. I’m proud I’ve had an opportunity to be part of the historic bill. To the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head…. He says: “How will the future reflect on this?” We will see when those chapters are written. But those same
[ Page 9023 ]
words were read and were said about building dams in British Columbia 60 years ago. What was the legacy that has been left to this province because of the foresight of a government and the foresight of the people to say yes, it’s the right thing to do?

I think about liquefied natural gas and that potential in the same light. Without liquefied natural gas and the opportunity to get our gas offshore, where does our gas go in North America? As gas expansion happens in the States and in other jurisdictions and other areas across North America, the demand for our product drops. Not only would we lose an opportunity for liquefied natural gas, but we lose the opportunity that we already have and what we can build with it with our natural resource.

We have got 150 years of supply of natural gas just in the Montney basin alone. We have the potential to grow that industry and, through that, expand out and create some extraordinary economic growth in this province.

That’s why when I stand here and I think about all the things that we have achieved with First Nations — more than 60 pipeline benefit agreements — when I think about all the other types of agreements we’ve reached with First Nations, all about building the opportunity for economic development, the opportunity for First Nations to be able to grasp a future and provide something better for their families and their children…. This is the right thing to do.

I’m very proud that I’ve had an opportunity to partake in this debate, to be able to stand up proudly for all British Columbians, for my riding and for First Nations and say yes to the future of this province and the future of liquefied natural gas.

[1720]

B. Ralston: I rise to join the debate on Bill 30. The bill itself is very brief. It’s ten sections. Its essence is to authorize the Minister of Finance to enter into LNG project agreements and, in particular, indemnify — that is, pay them — should any government in the future seek to change key terms in a project development agreement.

The government tables with the legislation a completed project development agreement with Pacific NorthWest LNG Limited Partnership, signed by the Minister of Finance on May 20, 2015. It also tables a number of other documents, which will be the subject of committee stage, including a number of so-called adherence agreements with the junior partners and the consortium, extending, by contract, the terms of the principle agreement to them as well.

The Minister of Finance has acknowledged, properly, in debate here, that the debate at committee stage will consider the detailed terms of the agreement and the context in which it was negotiated.

The Minister of Finance refers to the fact that the agreement is now public. Clearly, he prevailed in the internal debate between himself and the Minister of Natural Gas, who in this Legislature predicted calamitous results on world stock markets if negotiations between Petronas — a state-owned entity that reports not to the Malaysian Parliament but directly to the Malaysian Prime Minister — were to be disclosed.

Certainly, the tone of his comments suggested a certain skepticism was warranted on the question of whether the eventual public release of a project development agreement would take place.

Of course, we also have to put that skepticism in the context of the repeated and vigorous attempts of the government to resist a disclosure of other lengthy and complicated and very expensive — in terms of public tax expenditure — provisions of services, such as the Maximus contract, even though, through freedom of information, it was pursued for many years.

Clearly and happily, the Minister of Finance has prevailed over his cabinet colleague, and his position that the agreements should be public has resulted. It’s also clear — and this is the context in which this debate takes place — that similar agreements with other proponents are also taking place right now, most notably the Shell consortium in Kitimat, known as the Canada LNG project, and the Woodfibre project proposed on the site of the former pulp mill in Howe Sound.

This agreement — and this is why it is more significant than simply one project development agreement — effectively sets the template for future agreements. By operation of the project development agreement, if a subsequent negotiation were to result in financially better terms with another proponent, Pacific NorthWest would receive the benefit of that provision of the subsequently negotiated agreement. That is in section 10.17 of the project development agreement with Pacific NorthWest.

In effect, this negotiation has locked in the maximum benefits to the province for the entire industry should there be other proponents who follow and negotiate agreements. So it is financially significant beyond the terms of this individual agreement.

But before I deal with more detailed questions of the project development agreement, I want to briefly comment on what the Premier said in her debate. She intervened briefly at the outset of the debate, a rare intervention for her in debate of any bill in the chamber over the time that she has been Premier.

She spoke of getting “a fair share of the benefits” of the resource. She spoke of protecting the environment and then of what she called fairness. In this context, what she meant was making sure investors have certainty.

Those are the comments that she made at the outset. Those are the comments that she wished to record — I think, as she has referred to this — for posterity in this historic debate. I’ll refer to those comments as I proceed through my remarks, but I think it’s important to set the context with her comments at the outset.

[1725]

It’s interesting that in the debate we’ve heard here…. It has really been echoed by virtually every member on the government side who has spoken, that the agreement itself really, because it was negotiated, should automatically be accepted and embraced. That seems to be the position of the government. A deal was negotiated. Because it was negotiated and the Minister of Finance has signed it, therefore, it must be accepted. No criticism is really warranted or justified.

We heard the minister of aboriginal affairs refer — to members of the opposition who dared to question in the Legislature — to our position as shameful, which is a really extraordinarily arrogant position to take but characteristic of some of the debate that we’ve heard, unfortunately.

Now clearly, there were other options. It is certainly our obligation and our duty…. Indeed, there’s great public skepticism about the terms of this agreement, notwithstanding that the opportunity is here to create a new industry. This is indeed a momentous agreement in the sense that it sets the financial terms for the future, and it also locks in a number of very important revenue and taxation issues, future revenue streams for the province. It locks those in for at least 25 years, and given the way the agreement works, it’s actually likely longer than 25 years because of how some of the provisions of the agreement work.

Clearly, there were other options to consider in this debate. Who better than — he has already been quoted fairly extensively here — a very knowledgable commentator, one that will be known to members of the executive council, the cabinet opposite — Martyn Brown? He knows very well how government operates and, indeed, knows the quirks, strengths, weaknesses and foibles of the members opposite and certainly the members of the executive council. Considerable experience in government.

He refers to the effective negotiating strategy of big oil and harshly refers to those who negotiated this deal as “dupes.” I quote from his article.

He also goes on to say…. This is his conclusion:

“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 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.

“We should not accept this deal that would enshrine an unprecedented…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.

“Yet the Pacific NorthWest LNG project development agreement with Petronas and its partners would do all this and more. In its totality, it is a deal that played our government decision-makers for suckers.”

There is someone — formerly a principal adviser to the Reform Party leader of British Columbia, then an adviser for a considerable period of time to Premier Campbell — making his comments from a position of some considerable knowledge about how government actually works and the personalities and operation of the B.C. Liberal government over some years.

How did we get to this state? What is it about this deal that provokes that kind of comment and invites the kind of proper skepticism about the benefits of this deal, this individual deal that has been negotiated?

[1730]

Now, I don’t have a lot of time, but the recitation of the Premier’s approach to this topic is well known and has been canvassed by many members. Certainly, the promises were grandiose and extravagant and, in some cases, I think even might be characterized as outlandish. That’s a word that sometimes is used by members of the cabinet on the opposite side of the House here.

The promise was 100,000 new jobs, $100 billion in a prosperity fund, one plant up and running by 2015 and three more by 2020, and the following financial consequences for the fiscal health of the government would be abolition of the sales tax. And that was only the beginning.

This was something that was not repeated once. This was not something that was repeated twice. This was the constant theme of the Premier, ramped up in 2013 and hammered home repeatedly in the public sphere. So these promises, this position, was well known and sets the context into which this negotiation began.

There are other junior partners which have signed on for minority positions, and I’ve set those out as well, but effectively, Petronas was the lead partner in the consortium. They’re an interesting company.

They were established in the 1970s by the national government of Malaysia during the oil shock of the 1970s. They report directly to the Prime Minister of Malaysia, not to the parliament of Malaysia. They’ve set out to develop the oil reserves and gas reserves of the country — a state-owned enterprise doing that.

They realized in 2004 or so that their internal reserves — that is, the capacity of Malaysia itself to continue to support the industry…. They very rapidly came to contribute up to, by some estimates…. Their financials are rather opaque.

They’re not a model of good corporate governance in terms of financial disclosure, but up to 40 percent of the Malaysian national budget was contributed in some years by Petronas. What they realized in 2004 was, because their reserves were declining, they would have to expand internationally.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

So they set out, in a very determined program, to secure reserves and supply globally. They were in Myanmar,
[ Page 9025 ]
Iran, Chad, Sudan and Vietnam. Their scope is truly global. They are one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, so they have much experience in negotiating project development agreements.

In fact, I did quote in estimates in debate with the Minister of Natural Gas the International Monetary Fund publication called The Taxation of Petroleum and Minerals: Principles, Problems and Practice. Generally, these are very typical in Third World countries, which Petronas would be very familiar with.

The IMF does point out the following:

“It can be argued that the need for a fiscal stability clause” — as they’re sometimes called — “is less compelling under certain conditions: a history of sound fiscal management; statutory and effective corporate tax rates in line with international rates; low tariff rates and non-imposition of taxes that distort investment and production decisions — e.g., asset taxes, excises on machinery; non-discrimination between foreign and domestic investors; a low level of corruption; a transparent tax policy; and a reasonably efficient tax administration.”

And even:

“Some developing countries with a significant petroleum sector, including Angola and Nigeria, and most developed countries, including Norway and the United Kingdom, do not grant fiscal stability clauses in their petroleum agreements.”

[1735]

There are mechanisms, other ways of negotiating that Angola and Nigeria don’t feel necessary to enter into project development agreements with proponents in their national economy, nor does Norway and the United Kingdom. But this is apparently the decision made by the Minister of Natural Gas and the cabinet, to negotiate such an agreement in this case.

When questioned in estimates, the minister said — I’m quoting the Minister of Natural Gas:

“First of all, we’re trying to attract a new industry that hasn’t been in British Columbia before. The IMF doesn’t actually dictate British Columbia’s policy on how we do business. 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.”

I was pointed to Australian examples by none other than the Minister of Natural Gas Development. He suggested that that’s the inspiration for the agreement that was ultimately negotiated here.

I will deal with some of the aspects of Australian agreements that have seemed to have provoked a very strong reaction on the other side, given that the minister directed me there. I suppose I shouldn’t have had the temerity to actually look at the agreements and find out what their provisions were and compare them to the agreement here in British Columbia that’s been negotiated. Certainly, I plead guilty on that, if that’s the offence that I’m being chastised for by some of the members opposite — who, despite being directed to Australian agreements by the Minister of Natural Gas, don’t seem to like the idea that I actually did it.

Given that the Premier had set the context of setting a very high bar, setting, I suppose, an utterly unachievable goal in terms of the goal that she set of $100 billion in revenue in a prosperity fund, the 100,000 jobs…. All of that context was set by the Premier. Then the province set out to negotiate with proponents — this particular proponent, as I’ve said, a very sophisticated proponent, a global company with lots of experience in many different countries, largely Third World countries but not all of them — and set out to negotiate with Petronas.

The negotiation began in the context of a very rapidly falling liquid natural gas price. It has been falling dramatically since the commencement of the negotiations, and one can see almost a direct correlation between the concessions that were made by the government in its negotiations and the decline in price. They almost fall in lockstep with the decline in price.

The position, increasingly, was a position of weakness. One will recall that in the spring of 2014 the LNG tax act initially proposed a tax of up to 7 percent. It was important to stress the up to 7 percent, although when it comes to talking about the up to 4,500 jobs, the “up to” prefix is dropped by most of the members on the other side. In the fall that was lowered to 3.5 percent. In order to get revenue flowing, the proponent, assuming this went ahead, would pay a tax of 1.5 percent immediately, but that would be deductible as a credit against tax to be paid in the future.

[1740]

The full tax would not be…. The company would not be obligated until they had recovered their entire capital investment, which could take, one would guess, at least ten to 15 years, given the magnitude of the money that’s being talked about. So that was part of the negotiation. That was something that took place between the spring and the fall of 2014.

Petronas also made some very strong public declarations about what it thought was an appropriate tax regime. In September of 2014 the then CEO of Petronas warned that “unless the B.C. government unveils competitive tax and regulatory rules next month” — that is, in October — “he will cancel plans to spend an estimated $36 billion on the Malaysian-led energy project…. The massive budget includes nearly $11 billion for an export plant to be built at Lelu Island in northwestern British Columbia.”

I’m quoting from an article in the Globe and Mail. “He turned up the heat this week” — that is, September 2014 — “by raising the possibility of cancelling the project. ‘Canada has to buck up real fast to be a credible global LNG player if it wants to be taken seriously by potential investors. Until investors cross the final investment line with an economically viable project, they remain just potential investors on paper.’”

He was prepared to walk away. The Premier, having started from a very weak bargaining position of being absolutely desperate to get a deal for her electoral purposes and to confirm that she knew something of what
[ Page 9026 ]
she was doing, was not in that position. Indeed, British Columbia never undertook steps like that.

Further, Mr. Shamsul Azhar Abbas, the CEO then, on October 6, 2014, issued a news release. This is reading from their news release:

“Coupled with softening crude prices, there is a need for international energy companies such as Petronas to seriously prioritize and reassess our investments. The proposed fiscal package and regulatory pace in Canada threatens the global competitiveness of the PNW LNG project. This is further exacerbated by preliminary project costs, which indicates the cost of local contractors to be higher and not benchmarked to global contractor’s cost.

“The additional tax and high-cost environment will negatively impact the project’s economic viability and competitiveness. In fact, in our last portfolio review exercise, the current project economics appeared marginal. Without material cost-reduction efforts across the project, we’ll have a tough time reaching a positive FID by mid-December 2014.”

At that point, that’s what they were proposing. That was yet another strong bargaining position, I suppose — a threat to walk away unless further concessions were forthcoming from the government. That was, again, part of the context that this took place in.

The LNG tax was reduced from up to 7 percent to 3.5 percent, with the qualifications that I have said. The government’s position was: “Well, the bulk of the revenue will come not from this tax but from royalties and corporate income tax.” Presumably, the negotiations behind the scenes then began to focus on the royalty structure.

What happened was that ultimately legislation was passed. We debated it here not so long ago, a provision that gave the government the power to enter into a long-term royalty agreement, which actually turned out to be a 23-year royalty agreement — unprecedented. Certainly, no mineral project in the province has ever got a 23-year royalty agreement.

[1745]

That provision, which appeared on the website at some point this week…. The agreement that appeared on the ministry website is not a signed version of the agreement — at least, when I checked yesterday — but that provision dramatically lowers royalties from what they are now. I suppose the argument that we’ll hear from the Minister of Natural Gas Development is: that was necessary to get the deal.

The current rate runs from 9 percent to 27 percent. Current rates vary with price. It’s now at a rate of 6.06 percent, rising to 13.36 percent in 2038. So this is an absolutely massive reduction in royalty revenue from natural gas to subsidize LNG, and it defeats the rationale of higher prices in order to get more revenue for the province.

The royalty reduction. The province will get less for our natural gas by a dramatic amount. The royalty agreement is not strictly part of the package that’s before us, but it is a factor in the negotiations, clearly. That is obviously a result of Petronas’ entreaties to the government and the calculation of the difference between…. We’re in the process of doing the math, but the calculation of the difference between the projected revenue at the current rates and the projected revenue at the 23-year royalty agreement rate is literally billions of dollars, revenue that…. Royalties are not a tax. They’re the share to the Crown for the finite, non-renewable resource that’s being extracted by the proponent or the company in question.

In addition, under the pressure of Petronas, the next reduction…. Remember, there were two things that were going to provide the bulk of the revenue. Royalties. Those cascaded downward dramatically. The other source of revenue for the province was going to be corporate income tax. That, through a mechanism…. If a natural gas company establishes here in British Columbia and engages in liquefaction activities, it will be able to earn its way, through credits for the gas that they’re putting through the plant, down to a corporate tax rate of 8 percent. The prevailing rate is 11 percent. So that’s a dramatic reduction of corporate income tax, and it’s locked into the agreement.

In the briefing that took place a week or so ago what was made clear was that if a subsequent government, for whatever reason…. The B.C. Liberals raised corporate income tax from 10 percent to 11 percent just a year and a half or two years ago and have now dropped it back down. A 1 percent increase in the general corporate tax from 11 percent to, say, 12 percent will not be reflected in the 8 percent. It will only go to 9 percent.

So the disparity that benefits the LNG operation is basically codified and locked in for the life of the agreement. It’s a very dramatic reduction of corporate income tax that has been negotiated from a position of considerable weakness, clearly.

Now, one hears on the other side the recitation about the jobs, and from the Pacific NorthWest LNG website, they say up to 4,500 jobs. That’s up to, at peak construction, 330 permanent jobs and 300 spinoff jobs in the region. The Premier couldn’t resist, in her very brief comments here on Monday, a reference — somewhat self-justificatory, I suppose — to the 100,000 jobs which would materialize over 30 years if all the projects actually came to fruition. The rhetoric hasn’t really diminished, perhaps more qualified.

[1750]

What I know that the members on the other side object to is…. The official filing of Petronas in the B.C. environmental assessment process said that in a scenario where in phase 2 of construction — that is, peak construction — if there were other projects competing in British Columbia, they would resort to and have to resort up to close to 70 percent temporary foreign workers. I think the point about this agreement is that it does nothing to take away that power or that right or that possibility from Petronas. So we’ve heard some.…

Obviously in response to the debate that’s taken place in the Legislature and the issues that have been raised by the opposition, Mr. Culbert, who’s the president of
[ Page 9027 ]
Pacific NorthWest, has issued some news releases saying that that’s his intention, to hire British Columbians first. Well, Petronas and Pacific NorthWest were very careful in the project development agreement to get benefits for themselves very carefully written and codified in the agreement. But on that side, one is simply to attend to and expect the verbal assurance of the CEO without any accompanying language in the agreement.

Clearly referred to assent to the Australian agreements by the Minister of Natural Gas Development…. In those agreements, there’s certainly an effort to capture in contractual language obligations to hire, in the case of the two Western Australia agreements, people in Western Australia — failing that, in Australia. There are provisions to report that regularly — that is, monthly — to the government as to what efforts and to justify, if necessary, the steps to hire people from outside the country should that ever be necessary.

Some of the members…. I think the Minister of Transportation scoffed at that. The idea that one would put that in an agreement was totally unnecessary, the language was weak anyway, and we should simply just trust the proponent and take them at their word. That’s, I suppose, an interesting point of view, but that’s certainly not what the Australian agreements say, and that’s, I think, not the best approach.

Certainly, as a result of some of the debate, I know that members of the labour movement who have been supportive of LNG in general terms are disturbed by the lack of specific contractual language supporting jobs for British Columbians and Canadians. They aren’t prepared…. I suppose, given a background in collective bargaining, employers and bosses say a lot of different things in order to placate people, but if it isn’t in writing, if it isn’t something that you can refer to and negotiate on and take in your hand in a discussion, it’s not very satisfactory. It’s not very strong. It’s something that troubles them very deeply.

Indeed, Mr. Sigurdson, who’s the executive director of the B.C. building trades, said this yesterday: “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.” That’s Mr. Sigurdson, who represents a considerable body of construction workers who have participated in some of the discussion around the development of an LNG industry. According to what I just quoted, he is not happy that these Australian provisions, or something like them, aren’t in the agreement that was negotiated, and he’s expressing his public displeasure.

[1755]

The concern about temporary foreign workers is a genuine one, and Mr. Sigurdson has also said, on July 13: “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.” Everyone, I think, has acknowledged that for some very specialized trades such as underwater welding — I believe it’s one, if the pipeline proceeds underwater — there are very few people and very few operations in the world that can perform that kind of work.

It’s conceded that there may very well have to be people come from somewhere else to do that work. But for the most part it is significant, and I think very troubling, that someone of Mr. Sigurdson’s stature and knowledge about the project and about the development of the LNG industry would express these concerns about the agreement that’s put before us on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Certainly, the job numbers that are proposed…. No one would disparage a single job, and anyone who gets one of those jobs, if they should ever materialize, would be happy and grateful to get those jobs and do that work. But set in context, British Columbia has, according to B.C. Stats, 2.3 million jobs, of which 1.7 million are part-time. So it is an increment, should it come about, but set in the context of all of the jobs in British Columbia, far from a huge increment. It’s very clear that this industry is very capital-intensive, and the ratio of capital invested to jobs created is very slight.

I have referred to the Australian agreements, the Barrow Island Act. I do want to comment on one thing that the Premier apparently said in opposition to putting those kinds of provisions for local hire, local recruitment and local procurement in the agreement. She said on July 13 that similar provisions in Australia have actually scuttled some proposals.

One concludes from that, that this is a deliberate choice to keep that kind of language out of the agreement and respond to the CEO of Petronas, who says that costs in British Columbia are too high. His previous statements about contracting engineering services from offshore — China and India most notably — from fabricating most of the elements…. The steel elements for the LNG plants, for the trains, would be fabricated offshore, again, presumably because, in his view, costs are too high here in Canada. There’s nothing in this agreement that would disturb that approach, that point of view.

So even though the government members seem to say, on the one hand, “Well, if you had them in, they wouldn’t be very effective,” the Premier says they’re not in there because indeed they would be effective. It’s not clear just what is being said. There’s certainly not a consistent view taken on the other side. But the fact is that in the end, there’s nothing in this agreement like the provisions in the Australian agreement that the Minister of Natural Gas Development referred me to some time ago.

The environmental provisions are certainly a concern. This agreement locks in the environmental standards. One of the provisions of the agreement where indemnities — that is, money — would flow would be if there
[ Page 9028 ]
were, in certain circumstances, changes to the provisions of the greenhouse gas emission act.

[1800]

There is a significant commentary on this provision by a very knowledgable person, who is indeed appointed by the Premier to the panel that’s reviewing the climate change strategy for the government, Matt Horne. He has expressed publicly, in a document that’s publicly available…. I’m quoting the headline here, and I’ll quote from some of the things that he has said.

“Petronas Agreement Would Limit B.C.’s Options.” He considers that a bad thing. He says, in answer to some questions…. The question is: “Would B.C. have to compensate Petronas if the province decided to improve the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act that was implemented last fall?” And he says:

“It appears the province would trigger compensation if it strengthened the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act. For example, if the province wanted to require Petronas to use more renewable energy, they would have to compensate them for the costs. Or if B.C. wanted to improve the rules for carbon offsets or limit their use, they could owe Petronas compensation.

“Beyond the regulatory components of the act, the agreement…appears to lock in the LNG incentive program.”

We’ll get to this in more detail when we deal with the committee stage, because it’s one of the four areas that trigger indemnification.

“This program provides a subsidy to the LNG projects that have come close to but failed to meet the performance standard specified in the act. The Pacific NorthWest LNG project is expected to miss the performance target by 0.06 tonnes of carbon pollution per tonne of LNG produced, so this subsidy could amount to $411 million over the course of the 25-year agreement.”

That’s Mr. Horne. That’s not me. That’s a member the Premier appointed to review climate action and someone who is considered widely to be knowledgable about these things. That’s what he says publicly about this agreement.

“Are there ways that the compensation would be triggered if the province relies on economy-wide climate policies like the carbon tax?

“According to the agreement, the province appears to be preserving their ability to increase or broaden the carbon tax, as long as the application of the policy doesn’t single out LNG terminals. However, they are also eliminating the option of focusing a future phase of the carbon tax on LNG terminals.”

He concludes:

“If the Pacific NorthWest LNG project is developed, the agreement doesn’t eliminate all of the options to improve climate change policies, but it significantly limits them and locks in a new subsidy for fossil fuels. At a time when the scale of our climate challenge is becoming increasingly clear, the governments should be keeping policy options on the table and continuing to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. With the Petronas agreement, however, B.C. is doing the opposite.”

That’s a searing, in my view, indictment of the climate change provisions of this agreement. Even if one speaks more broadly about future changes in technology, since LNG is a global industry, revolutionary technology over the next 25 years could change the liquefaction process and dramatically reduce emissions in some manner that we are not aware of and will only come to some creative inventors at some point in the future. If B.C. were to require the implementation of that technology at some point in the future and it costs the company money to do so, that would trigger compensation.

How is that a good policy? How is that a policy that should be supported? British Columbia claimed and continues to claim climate leadership, but this policy direction set out in here, under the pressure of the negotiations from Petronas and out of the very weak bargaining position with which the government entered this, has really, profoundly compromised British Columbia’s climate leadership.

That’s from Mr. Horne, in a published document that’s available widely, should anyone else care to look at it.

[1805]

Let’s look now at the financial benefits that the agreement purports to give. We have heard recited in the Legislature, by virtually every member of the government side, a series of figures about projected revenue. Those come from a document that was circulated by the Finance Minister as a briefing document. They assume an LNG price of Henry Hub — that is a North American supply price — plus $7. So all the calculations that have been so earnestly recited by every member of the B.C. Liberal caucus who has spoken are based on that document.

Now, leaving aside the difficulty of predicting future price, because the assumption here is that this will be the price — first of all, that the plant will be built by 2020…. That is not required in the agreement. But the actual price right now is 30 percent below that. This price is 30 percent above the market price, the so-called JKM, the Japan Korea marker, the actual July price.

So it is not a market price that is being referred to. It’s a projection based on what calculation? Never revealed. All the sums that have been done on that, notwithstanding the fact that the 23-year royalty agreement dramatically reduces future royalties, notwithstanding that the deal on income tax reduces corporate income tax down to 8 percent…. Notwithstanding that, these numbers are given here in the Legislature, recited earnestly as though they were gospel, as though wishes would make them true.

It’s not revealed in any of the briefing documents what the long-term pricing assumptions were. One knows from looking at the International Energy Agency report, its mid-term report…. That is the leading agency globally. In their mid-term report, which just came out, they predict for the foreseeable future — that is the mid-term, five to seven years — not a lot of upward movement in the LNG price.

Moody’s report. The government likes to cite Moody’s when they’re talking about their bond rating, but this is the investment side of their house. They similarly say that most of the proposed projects in North America were uneconomic because of the low and likely to persist global price.
[ Page 9029 ]

So the midterm prospects don’t justify the static model that’s put forward by the briefing document and simply recited here, uncritically, as gospel by every member of the B.C. Liberal caucus.

Certainly, with Petronas one can see that, given the decline in reserves in Malaysia, one of their global strategies is to secure future resources, a future supply, and tie it up at the most advantageous terms they can do. In this case it seems that, certainly, the government has been willing to assist them in realizing that strategy. But it’s very unclear and uncertain how this posture and this negotiated agreement will benefit British Columbians in the long term.

The other assumption that is made by members opposite is that in fact the plant will be up and running by 2020. That is not, in fact, accurate. In the agreement the effective date is defined, as in 2.1, as notification by the province of the passage of the legislation and the approval by order-in-council of the project development agreement.

[1810]

Assuming the legislation passes — which I have no doubt it will, barring some calamity — and then at a cabinet meeting — say, next Wednesday — that agreement comes forward and it’s approved by the cabinet, that would be the effective date of the agreement. Then the next time that begins to run is what’s called the project certainty date. That is set out in 2.4. I’m going specifically to the agreement and reciting it.

I think it was the Minister of Education who suggested that members opposite hadn’t read the agreement, which I thought was a very demeaning and ungracious comment, really not something that one would want to hear from the Minister of Education. But I just wanted to make sure it’s clear that I’m actually citing the agreement. This is for his benefit, if he cares to listen. I’m sure he probably doesn’t listen to members of the opposition in any event. Certainly, his comments would suggest that.

So in 2.4, 24 months after the effective date is what’s called the project certainty date. The proponent has to reach project certainty by that time. In order to reach project certainty, there are a number of provisions in what are called project certainty matters. That’s on page 8, in the definitions section.

There are a couple of things. They have to complete the FEED phase. That’s an engineering completion of some preliminary engineering. They have to give a notice to proceed in respect of material engineering, procurement and construction contracts. They have to get the environmental assessment from the province, which they have, but they also have to secure a decision statement from the federal Minister of the Environment.

They have to have a natural gas export licence, which they have. They have to show that they have the financial resources and a funding plan in place to enable the investment decision. And then finally, they have to reach a final investment decision, including obtaining all the necessary internal and shareholder or investment approvals required to proceed with the LNG facility.

They have to do all of that. Then the province, in 2.4, will certify that they have reached project certainty. But that would have to take place before — shortly after, at the very latest — the date of the next provincial election. I’m sure that’s only a coincidence, but that’s what would be required.

Then the next step…. This is where I don’t think — we’ll deal with this in committee — any attention has been focused. In section 2.5 the commercial operations date is not required to take place until 2025. So two years from now the project certainty date takes place. It’s certified by the government. The company then has until to 2025 to actually complete the construction of the plant.

In effect, they bought themselves — presumably, to construct a plant would take a couple of years, at least — at least a gap of five years. Effectively, they bought an option and propose to wait until the price rises, if it does — until it’s commercially viable to proceed.

So the idea that somehow, in the pro forma and the earnest figures recited by Liberal MLAs, this project will be up and running by 2020 is by no means certain. Indeed, the agreement doesn’t require that it be in commercial operation until December 31, 2025. Once again, the language that’s being used here, the representations that are being made are belied by the hard facts of the agreement that was negotiated.

Now, many analysts, other analysts looking at current prices don’t see a rebound anytime soon, particularly with all the new supply coming on line. Australian supply. The member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head has mentioned the sanctions coming off Iran and the access to public markets of Iranian natural gas, of which there is an abundance. All of those will, in the view of most analysts, keep the price low, so it may be some time before this agreement goes ahead.

[1815]

Certainly, the expressed intention of the company is to go ahead, but if it were not to be profitable, one can well imagine that they might not. And they can exit the agreement by simply giving 90 days’ notice. They don’t have to do more than that. The agreement specifically provides that.

In addition to the, I suppose, dubious and tentative nature of the revenue projections that have been so enthusiastically touted by every B.C. Liberal MLA, there’s no offsetting calculation of the government cost of physical and social infrastructure that would be borne by the province. Certainly, if an industry were to be established, there would be government expenditure required, and that is not offered there.

The government has dramatically overpromised. It began from a very weak bargaining position and negotiated poorly and with very bad timing and has locked the province into a long-term commitment from a position of weakness.
[ Page 9030 ]

The significance of locking the province in should not be underestimated. The member for Victoria–Swan Lake gave an example of another Canadian Premier. Premier Danny Williams, negotiating on the Hebron oil field with some of the same major oil companies, walked in and walked away. The company would not give an equity position. He walked away from the negotiations.

Eventually the company came back. They got a new deal with an equity stake, a 10 percent equity stake. We’ve never heard a discussion here about the province taking an equity stake. That’s certainly a characteristic of the Newfoundland agreement. The proposed Alaska development is a huge equity stake for the state. In addition, Mr. Williams negotiated a super-royalty if oil prices were to stay above $50 and a commitment to construct structures using local suppliers.

This is a small province with nowhere near the heft nor the clout of British Columbia and nowhere near the array of support that could be deployed in the negotiation which got a better deal by walking away from the agreement. This deal does not permit that. Once it’s done and once it passes and is ratified, as it probably will be next week, it’s locked in. It also sets the stage for every future negotiation.

On the basis of future revenue to the province, on the basis of an absence of any solid assurance about jobs, on the basis of its abandonment of climate leadership by British Columbia and the fact that it locks in the province to a very bad deal from a position of weakness, we are compelled, after a very thorough analysis of this deal, to vote against it when the time comes.

With that, I conclude my remarks.

Hon. R. Coleman: I’m pleased to take my position in this debate. I won’t be getting into the detailed discussions of clause by clause of the project development agreement, because that will take place in committee stage.

I want to talk about what today is about — what it is about for us, what it is about for our families, what it is about for our country. Today is about First Nations in British Columbia, it’s about British Columbia as a province and our future, and it’s very much about our country of Canada. It’s about our learning, our understanding and us taking the time to do something special.

Frankly, for me, it’s why I entered public life. It’s about how much we care. I am as passionately in favour of LNG in British Columbia…. I am as passionately in favour of that as the members of the opposition across from me are passionately opposed to it. That’s a parliamentary democracy. They have the right to their opinion, and they have a right to get up and say it.

[1820]

But the fact of the matter is that today at 5:07, they stood and supported a motion that would basically tell the world that we are not interested in any way in having a liquefied natural gas industry in British Columbia for now, for tomorrow or for the future of British Columbia, which I find disappointing, simply because I think we need to understand what faces us today.

The first thing I want to do is recognize today something important, and that is how, in the 19 years I’ve been in this Legislature, I have never seen a group of people in a bureaucracy and in a government come together without silos to be focused on an opportunity that might be in front of them for the province of British Columbia.

A multi-billion-dollar industry interested in doing business here requires a lot of work. It requires thousands of hours by staff, by colleagues and by ministries — specifically ministries like Finance, JTST, Justice, MOE and all the other ministries across government.

The most important thing that takes place if you’re trying to be successful like this is that a whole bunch of people have to put their egos aside because they’re seeing what’s important for the future of a province. That is unprecedented cooperation in government, in my experience, and we should be proud of our professional public service for the work they’ve done on this file.

I specifically want to recognize my deputy, Steve Carr, and the Deputy Minister of Finance, Peter Millburn, who have worked hundreds of hours with lawyers and consultants and experts to work and negotiate the PDAs on behalf of our province. The weekend time they’ve given up from their families, the time they’ve taken to do something special for the people of British Columbia, is something that we should be proud of.

In 2011 — that’s less than four years ago — we had little or no understanding of the LNG industry, the market, the opportunity. We had a couple people, a couple companies, kicking tires, looking at if maybe they would be interested in B.C.

We had work to do to crystallize plans, put together contracts, start negotiations and find out how to attract investment to British Columbia on a new industry and how to be globally competitive. Thousands of hours of work brought us to the point today where we have all of these proposals in front of us in British Columbia.

People don’t realize that 15 years ago, we had about a 15-year supply of known reserves in British Columbia of natural gas. We were thinking about how we would continue to supply just our North American customers for natural gas.

By some innovative changes that were put in place in 2001, and work that’s been done on research and how we drill and do the business differently, today we know we have 150-year supply of gas, and our challenge is that it has nowhere to go. We needed a new market because we have a stranded asset.

You can’t create a job if you can’t sell the product. You can’t get the opportunities for investment if you can’t sell the product and if you can’t get it somewhere, which means no revenue and no future.
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More importantly, we always talk about the jobs of the plant and the upstream and the midstream and the pipelines, but the reality of this is also about this. There are 13,000 people in British Columbia working in the oil and gas industry today. If this opportunity doesn’t go ahead, we actually orphan their jobs too, because our supply for North America has already been identified.

We’re talking about Fort St. John. We’re talking about Terrace and Kitimat and Prince Rupert and Port Edward, represented by members opposite me who are all opposed to jobs and opportunities in their communities because of LNG.

We went out and did a global scan of competitiveness to attract and be ready for investment. As we go forward, people will look at us and see: did we do something with a vision for B.C., or did we sit back and do nothing?

We negotiated a number of things on behalf of B.C. taxpayers. We’ll get no royalties at all, zero dollars, for gas that stays in the ground. If we don’t have a market and we don’t move it, nobody gets any money. In addition to that, we get a tax, a value-added tax, on a product that we don’t get today when we send it to the North American market.

The LNG opportunity in front of us brings more personal taxes, PST, corporate taxes, carbon tax and other taxes and revenues to British Columbia to help to pay for health care and education and other social programs in B.C.

We’ve worked for three years to get to this point. Today on the table in British Columbia, we have 20 proposals. Eleven have received export licences from National Energy. Seven have received environmental assessment certificates — three facilities and four pipelines.

[1825]

Understanding the market is critical so we know what we’re doing, and we know the market is there. I’ve met and sat down with people in every country interested in doing business in British Columbia. Just in this deal alone there are five countries wanting to spend $36 billion in B.C.: China, through Sinopec; Japan, through Japex; India, through Indian Oil; Brunei, through Brunei oil; and Malaysia, through Petronas.

Evidently, my colleagues opposite don’t want any of that. They don’t want the revenue. They don’t want the royalties. They don’t want to sell the gas. They don’t want the jobs. They don’t want the opportunities for the future of British Columbia, and they’re entitled to that opinion.

Me, I think we should take the resource, get revenues off it, create jobs and opportunity for the people of British Columbia and do it in a way that’s environmentally sensitive and is cleaner than anywhere else in the world. I think we should do that, and we’ve made that commitment.

We also will be doing our part. I find it amazing that people don’t understand or don’t want to talk about the fact that if you replace coal-burning power plants with natural gas in an area of the world where most of their power comes from coal and pollutes the air globally, why wouldn’t you want to be part of that global solution? Why wouldn’t you have the cleanest-burning fossil fuel in the world, get that to your customers elsewhere in the world and change the outcomes and the health outcomes for generations to come? I think that’s important, and I think it’s the right way to go for us.

We’ve challenged the companies to reduce emissions below any standard across the world that they meet, and they’re doing that.

We’re making this work for our communities and people across the province. We brought together organized labour, non-organized labour, First Nations, companies, business groups, to talk about how we would build a trade format in British Columbia so that we would be able to have British Columbians trained and ready for the jobs of the future. This working group has sat down and worked with us and worked with the companies to find the solutions here and the opportunities.

There’s something else here. I have spent, in the last three years, a lot of time with the First Nations of British Columbia. This opportunity…. Whether you want to argue about tax and revenues and put your bias against it is all fine with me, if you wish to have your opinion.

But I have an opinion that when we see communities — whose average income is below half the average income of the region that they live in, and they’re at 40 percent unemployment in their area — that are looking for an opportunity, a first-time generational opportunity for First Nations to be able to be trained, get jobs and have the opportunities to change around their social outcomes for generations to come…. You vote against that, and you’re voting against that.

I’ll tell you what. We have over 90 percent of the First Nations along the pipelines and with the plants in British Columbia signed on to benefit agreements. I’ve sat in the room and got to know people as friends in the First Nations community who are taken to tears when they talk about wanting to have opportunities for the young people of the next generation of their communities — taken to tears when they say, “This is our generational opportunity to change the outcomes for our community,” communities that live in abject poverty, have lousy housing — and opportunities to work with companies and with government on revenue-sharing agreements so they can have a generational change for their community.

If there’s only one reason to pursue LNG, that’s the reason. If we can change the outcome for young First Nations youth and their communities with the agreements that we sign as this goes forward, we will do something that Canada should have done a long time ago.

When you do that, when you sit with First Nations, you are moved by their love of the land, their love of their community — and more so how First Nations leadership cares for their young people and their future.

[1830]

It is very much a moving situation to sit and share with those communities and know that they’re saying to you as a minister: “Get this done. This is our opportunity to change the future for our communities, and we will support you in it.” I think that’s really key to the discussion today. I know that because I’ve sat in the room and negotiated with First Nations on this file.

The unprecedented investment that comes with this, $36 billion of private investment, will be the largest capital investment in the province’s history. One project — $11 billion U.S. for construction in the first phase of the project; $5 billion to $7 billion more for a pipeline, with thousands of jobs attached to that as well as the plant. Upstream investments will involve several millions of dollars and keep the people in the oil and gas industry drilling and doing the work that they do to support their families in northeastern B.C., 13,000 of them.

LNG represents a strong economic future for our northern communities — our northern communities plus the rest of the province. Fifty-seven percent of the jobs are projected to be not in the northeast, not in the northwest, but across the entire province of British Columbia, whether it be Campbell River on Vancouver Island, in the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, the Cariboo or the Kootenays.

There are already engineering companies from British Columbia doing work on this file, and they’re paying people, giving them an opportunity for a job and training already. They’re changing lives because just at the beginning of this the investment that’s already gone on to the ground is in the billions of dollars. That upstream investment will continue to support those folks.

As we go through this, we’ll get outcomes. We’re going to get jobs. We’re going to get investment. We’re going to get revenues to government. We’re going to get an opportunity to be world players and take our lawful place as a province and a country in the global economy in a new industry.

We plan to be adamant that British Columbians will be first in line for jobs. They will have the training to meet those jobs, and they will work with the companies to make sure that that happens. As a matter of fact, if you sit down with the companies, it’s their priority. Their priority is to hire British Columbians and Canadians. I’ll tell you why. Because it’s the most efficient way to build a plant. It’s actually good business. Our job is to make sure we have the skilled labour here, trained to be ready to go, and we’re doing that with our jobs plan and training.

When you look at this, you’ve got to say to yourself: “What’s bothering you?” You know you have a resource. You know North America is awash in natural gas. You know you have 13,000 people that rely on the jobs today and need to have an opportunity to grow their jobs in an industry where you can move gas to a market or their jobs will disappear.

How do you ignore the things that have gone on in Terrace and Kitimat and Rupert over the last number of decades and say: “We don’t want to give you this great opportunity for more jobs and economic activity”? How do you say to the people in the northeast part of the province: “We’re opposed to you actually going to work; we’re going to ignore this industry and this opportunity at the expense of your future”? Can you do that? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so.

The investment. People want to invest in British Columbia. They want to invest in Canada. We’re a safe place to invest and do business. We have a triple-A credit rating. We have a strong economy. We have very well-educated people. We’re proud of our country, proud enough to step up on the world stage and say: “You know what? We can do LNG as well as, if not better than, any other jurisdiction in the world, so come here and invest and create the jobs with us and build our economy together.”

How can you be opposed to replacing coal? Have you ever been to Beijing? Go sometime, and you’ll understand why China wants to replace coal with natural gas.

I recently met with a company from China who is going to build a number of new power plants in China. You know what they’re going to fuel with? They’re going to shut down their coal ones, and they’re replacing all these coal power plants with natural gas. And they want what? They were here to make sure they were in a position to buy from the people investing in British Columbia liquefied natural gas for their intake ports so they can run those power plants, reduce pollution in China and change the global issues with regards to pollution. I think it’s terrific.

[1835]

I think we should do it. I think so. I know you don’t think so, but I do. And I’m entitled to my opinion like you are to yours — opposed to the jobs, opposed to the investment, opposed to cleaning the air and opposed, most of all, to changing First Nations’ outcomes. Changing the lives of people who we as a country have let down way too many times. Changing the lives of First Nations communities. Changing the outcomes for First Nations communities.

There are First Nations young people today working on environmental stewardship on pipelines, learning on the job in British Columbia, which they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do. That’s just going to grow for them.

We cannot, will not and should never think about turning our back on those communities. We should be there to make sure that they get the economic benefit agreements. They should be able to invest in training. They should be able to see full employment for the young people, because they deserve that.

This opportunity for British Columbia brings them that, something that is absolutely critical in my mind after passionately sitting down across from people and talking on how to go about education outcomes with First Nations leaders, seeing their passion for the land
[ Page 9033 ]
and their passion for the opportunity and how they were emotionally attached to the fact that they need to find opportunities for their people. This gives them that. It gives them that opportunity.

I guess the other one is: don’t you believe in British Columbia? Don’t you believe in your province? Don’t you believe that you could actually have a future for your citizens and the next generation? I do.

I believe our pursuit of a new industry for British Columbia is one of the most critical things we could do, because we’re actually trying to build a vision for British Columbia and its opportunities.

You know what? At one point, not too long ago — December 4, 2014 — the Leader of the Opposition said: “I’ve always said that it’s a positive opportunity for B.C., provided the market conditions are right.” The market conditions are right. They’re right in front of us. People are here. They’ve sold the gas. They want to go to FID. They want to build the plant, and they want to send the gas overseas to the rest of the world. That is market conditions.

But I do know that going from the opportunity being okay if there’s market conditions to this…. “Not going to support the bill. I haven’t seen the bill. I’ve been travelling on the road since it was tabled. I’ve been in touch with my colleague, the critic. One of the smartest guys in the Legislature,” he said. “His recommendation is no. We’ll see what the final bill looks like.”

So before you read it, before you looked at it, before you did the financial calculation, you already decided what that caucus was going to say. They were going to say no.

We knew that three years ago, by the way. Going through the 2013 election, we knew you were opposed to economic opportunities in British Columbia because it was proven out by your stands on other economic opportunities.

You decided, before you even thought about it, that you were opposed to LNG. You were opposed to the jobs, you were opposed to First Nations opportunity, and you’re opposed to a great future for British Columbia. And that’s fine. You can be there. Not the way that I want to go. I like to get up every morning and think: “You know what? There’s going to be a good thing happen in the world today, and it doesn’t have to all be bad.”

Now, I am one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth. I was born in British Columbia. I was raised in British Columbia. Oftentimes I tell my children: “You won the lottery of life to be able to live in a place where we actually change governments with ballots, where we have open discussion, where we can actually grow up together in a safe community, and we love this province.”

I love this province. I love my family, and I look forward to the future for my children and my grandchildren. I know that what we’re doing today is generational to move forward, to build that future for my children, my grandchildren and their children.

[1840]

The fact that we’re even here today and that I’m still in this House is an extension of my love for British Columbia and this country. I want those to live here to share in that — everybody. I want First Nations to have better outcomes. I want jobs and opportunities for the future of British Columbians. I want them to have training, and I want them to have this oyster opened up so that they have this terrific future in front of them. And liquefied natural gas is a big part of that.

Adding LNG to British Columbia secures the future of things like health care, social programs, policing and the caring society that we enjoy today. Our responsibility is to make sure we step up and make sure that people have jobs, that we have stronger families and that there’s hope and vision for the next generation.

We will look back and take pride that we stood up, looked at the future and said that we’re going to build a better British Columbia for the next generations to come.

I am proud to support this bill.

[1845]

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Madame Speaker: The question is second reading of Bill 30, Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act.

Second reading of Bill 30 approved on the following division:

Hon. M. de Jong: Madame Speaker, I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

Bill 30, Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. de Jong moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:50 p.m.

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