During the lead up to Christmas and shortly after New Year’s Eve, the B.C. Liberal government was flooding the media with press releases about all the great things it accomplished in 2014.
Then, as we moved into 2015, the raft of press releases told us how great 2015 was going to be for British Columbians because of the government’s ongoing programs.
The government keyed in on job creation through its liquefied natural gas (LNG) program.
Leading up to the 2013 provincial election, Premier Christy Clark toured the province promising jobs and economic prosperity under the B.C. Liberal leadership.
The silver bullet was going to be the extraction, production and export of LNG – mainly to Asia.
The goal was to provide clean, green power to developing countries and to raise millions of dollars for British Columbians.
“The money is going to start coming in 2017, and we’re going to have three plants up and running by 2020, the first one by 2015,” Clark told the CBC in February 2013.
The goose was going to lay the golden egg, wipe out debt and provide surplus funds that would help British Columbians for generations to come.
Well, the B.C. Liberals won the provincial election on those promises, but they look a little hollow now, and meeting the targets is going to be extremely difficult for a number of reasons.
China was one of B.C.’s major targets for LNG sales, but it signed a $400-billion deal with Russia.
Increased shale gas supply in the United States and elsewhere in the world drove the LNG prices down.
Then the price of crude oil plunged below $50 per barrel and drilling contractors and oil-producing corporations are cutting back on production, development and expansion.
While it’s likely crude prices are going to recover, it’s unlikely they will jump up as quickly as they fell.
The premier admitted as much when she addressed a natural resources forum and the Truck Loggers’ convention last week.
Clark said the above mentioned problems were going to delay the government’s plans, but she maintained there would be three LNG export facilities in B.C. by 2020.
In the meantime, she has turned her gaze towards the forest industry for economic and job-producing help because of pending industry retirements and the recovery in the United States housing market.
However, with the recent Aboriginal Title victory in the Supreme Court of Canada, resource extraction has become increasingly complicated.
It may take as much time to ramp up forestry negotiations and production as it will to see crude oil prices go up to the point it’s feasible to increase production.
We can only hope the government’s economy plans blossom to secure our province’s future.
