Northern Sentinel, Wednesday, December 24, 2014 5
Year end with Clark Tom Fletcher A year-end interview with Premier Christy Clark. An extended version at opinion section of www. northernsentinel.com. Tom Fletcher: Are you still confident that we’re going to see a major LNG project approved by the end of 2014? Premier Christy Clark: We’re still in negotiations with Petronas and Shell, so I don’t know if it will be by the end of 2014, but I’m hoping in the next few months. [Days after this interview, Petronas announced a delay in their investment decision until 2015.] TF: I talked to a couple of SFU climate mitigation specialists, and they agreed that it’s unlikely to the point of impossible to have a major LNG industry and still meet Gordon Campbell’s ambitious greenhouse gas target of a 33 per cent reduction by 2020. What do you think? PCC: I think that
we may prove them wrong. Many of these facilities, not all of them, will be partly or fully electrically powered up, so that reduces those impacts, and there’s going to be a real incentive to invest in new technology to minimize that as well. I think the bigger picture is what really matters, which is that in shipping 82 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas to Asia, we help them get off coal and other dirtier sources of oil, and that is the biggest contribution that we’ve ever made to reducing climate change. TF: Ontario and Quebec have taken a page from your book. They have seven conditions for an oil pipeline, Energy East, which involves conversion of gas pipelines and taking Alberta oil to the East Coast. What do you think? PCC: I think they took our five conditions and elaborated on them. So you’ve got British Columbia, Al-
berta, now Ontario and Quebec, all signed on to some version of the five conditions. And of course Enbridge and Kinder Morgan as well. TF: What about the conditions they have added? PCC: One of the things they say they want to protect against is a shortage of natural gas coming to Ontario and Quebec. These are the same two provinces that have put a moratorium on extracting natural gas. They want to make sure that we do it here, good enough for us to do, and send it to them, but they won’t do that themselves. I look at their last two conditions, and I roll my eyes a little bit. TF: All the way to New Brunswick, they’ve basically bought the anti-hydraulic fracturing myth? PCC: Yes. Somehow they all watched an American mockumentary or whatever you call it, and believed it. Here in British Columbia we do fracking better than anywhere in
History to RTA appeal Cameron Orr using content, with permission, from submitted piece Two Kitimatians will have to wait until the spring to say their peace in an appeal of an environmental permit for Rio Tinto Alcan. An appeal process had been scheduled to start early January but the Environmental Appeals Board has postponed the hearings until undetermined times in the spring. The hearings are still to take place in Kitimat and in Victoria. With RTA’s smelter rebuild, they’ve been granted a permit that allows them to increase their SO2 emissions. From 27 tonnes per day, they will rise to a maximum of 42 tonnes a day, which reflects a larger output of aluminum. The smelter’s remaining emissions are seeing a dramatic decrease, most notably with their Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons which are going from 212 tonnes a year to three tonnes a year, a 98 per cent drop. Greenhouse gas emissions are also dropping 36 per cent. Four people and two conservation groups sought to appeal the permit on concerns regarding the increase in SO2, which can lead to
things such as acid rain. Those would-be appelants were from Kitimat and Terrace. The courts decided that only the two from Kitimat could have standing and Lis Stannus and Emily Toews were on their own on this outing. Toews grew up in Kitimat and returned here after university and a few years teaching in Williams Lake. Her own health matters has inspired her to seek out lower emissions in Kitimat. Emily is currently on maternity leave from her teaching job at Kildala Elementary School. She is a dancer, and considers a healthy environment an essential aspect of any community. Now that she is a new mother, it has become even more important. Stannus came here 17 years ago with her husband and young son. Like many, they came for only a few years and have since settled here for good. She enjoys the outdoors and her large garden. Stannus said she’s noticed that small neighbourhood changes in Kitimat seems to get more scrutiny than the permit process from RTA. Stannus, like Toews, is a school teacher in Kitimat.
the world. It is the gold standard. TF: Finance Minister Mike de Jong says we have a surplus estimated at more than $400 million for this fiscal year, and he suggested that much of that would have to go to pay off deficits from previous years. Of course the opposition is interested in welfare rates and in particular ending child support clawbacks. What’s your view? PCC: Like any family that’s been through tough times, the first thing you need to do when you get back to finding a job and making an income again, is to pay off your credit cards. And that’s what we’re going to do. We are going to see if we can find ways to improve some of the programs over time, but can’t do that until we can afford it. It’s typical, the NDP want us to spend the money before we have it. An interview with opposition leader John Horgan will run in next week’s issue.
Season’s Greetings from Kitimat LNG Our Community Office will be closed for the winter holidays from December 15 – January 5. On behalf of all us at Kitimat LNG, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season, and look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
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