The NDP government introduced a new tax regime Monday that is tailor-made to LNG Canada’s satisfaction. All the other paperwork is done and work has already started on the natural gas liquefaction plant in the Kitimat region.
Getting the new industry to the starting line took almost 10 years. The tax changes are the final pieces of the process, Finance Minister Carole James said.
All that’s left for Premier John Horgan’s government to do is weather several weeks of incredulity at the brazen “hypocrisy,” the sheer “stupidity” and the epic amount of backtracking it took to manage such an about-face.
By the time the bill is passed, the cabinet will be wondering if the $40-billion contribution to the economy that is expected will be worth all the abuse.
“They’re going to have to eat a certain amount of crow,” B.C. Liberal MLA Rich Coleman said. “I look forward to pointing that out to them.”
Coleman spent years as the lead minister on the LNG file, courting investors all over the world and trying to close a deal. Through most of that effort the NDP slammed the Liberals for being overly generous and giving away B.C. resources.
Then they took power and looked at the potential for LNG. In the space of a few months they became just as enraptured as the B.C. Liberals were.
Opposition critics often have to drop their criticism and change their views once they take over government. But the NDP went well beyond simply switching from skepticism to favouring the new industry. They have taken several of the key Liberal breaks to which they objected and enhanced them. After spending years warning people the Liberal government was giving away the farm, they gave away even more farm to finally close the deal.
Liberals will still support the tax changes, because they’re too far down the LNG road to change course now. But they won’t be able to resist highlighting the vast gulf between what the opposition NDP said and what the government NDP is actually doing.
And when they get tired of reciting all those newly ironic quotes about giveaways, the B.C. Green caucus will take over where the Liberals left off.
Green Leader Andrew Weaver went into rhetorical overdrive Monday after his first look at the legislation. He said the NDP want to champion themselves as climate-change leaders while at the same time they introduce the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canadian history.
“It’s about cake and eating it too.”
Weaver equated it to professing to care deeply about the opioid crisis while “putting in an order for a massive shipment of cocaine from Colombia.
“This is the kind of stupidity – it doesn’t make sense.”
Weaver said: “To see the NDP take what the Liberals did to a whole new level can only be described as remarkable.”
He said he will be reading all the myriad NDP criticisms from the past into the record and will enjoy doing it.
The NDP’s LNG framework now notes that the Liberal version had impediments and risks to investors. So the LNG income tax, which was criticized for being too low, is abolished. The electricity rate for LNG processing is lowered to be compatible with all industrial users. LNG proponents will be exempted from paying PST up front during start-up. That’s a savings of almost $600 million, but companies will have to make up that amount through performance payments once plants begin operating.
The single toughest contortion the government had to make was in fitting the LNG plant into the stringent new emission-reduction scheme. There’s room in the plan for LNG Canada, but just barely, recognizing the plan only gets B.C. three-quarters of the way to its target.
And the industry gets an exemption from carbon tax hikes if it can maintain the cleanest possible standards.
Just So You Know: The PDA between B.C. and LNG Canada was released Monday.
It stands for Project Development Agreement, but it’s entirely fitting to think of the abbreviation as “public display of affection.”
Les Leyne writes on provincial affairs for Victoria Times Colonist.
