DAWSON CREEK – The growth of B.C.’s oil and gas sector was fodder for election fever on Wednesday night, as Premier Gordon Campbell addressed supporters in the heart of the oil patch.
“Let me tell you what’s happened in the energy industry in British Columbia in the last eight years: thirteen billion dollars of investment,” Campbell told a crowd of about 60 at Sudeten Hall.
Campbell entering the hall to the chords of Bryan Adams’ “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started,” which appears to be a campaign theme for the B.C. Liberals. He was joined on stage by Peace River South candidate Blair Lekstrom and Peace River North candidate Pat Pimm, all backed by a banner reading, “Keep BC Strong”.
“We’re not just going to build a great new northern energy corridor, we’re going to build a great opportunity with the Asia-Pacific; we’re going to open new opportunities for British Columbians,” he said. He also outlined unconventional natural gas reserves in the Horn River Basin that he said could power 650 million homes for 15 years.
Senator Richard Neufeld was one of several political players in attendance. Mayors Mike Bernier (Dawson Creek), Lyman Clark (Pouce Coupe), and Larry White (Tumbler Ridge) also turned out to hear Campbell’s 10-minute speech, which made passing reference to agriculture, forestry, mining, health care and education, but laid the focus squarely on the oil and gas industry.
Speaking on the same night the Vancouver Canucks played their first playoff game this year, Campbell indulged in a hockey analogy while lashing out at New Democratic Party (NDP) plans to increase the taxes for the industry.
“It’s like tonight saying to the Canucks: you know you guys, we know you’re in a tough fight, we know you’re in the playoffs. All we need you to do is get rid of the Sedin twins, we’re not going to have Kesler, we’re not going to have Burrows, by the way, let’s make sure we don’t have Willie Mitchell either, and then take away Luongo, and go and win the Stanley Cup.”
In a media scrum after the speech, Campbell said the party will look at “a whole series of ways” to address the concerns of landowners affected by oil and gas development if handed a third term as government.
“At first, it was ‘anything is fine’, and now people are saying ‘hold it, what about us’,” he said. “I think Blair (Lekstrom) is going to have a very good handle on that.”
Ongoing calls to increase the 100-metre setback distance between sour gas wells and nearby buildings is being handled by Lekstrom, Campbell emphasized. Asked about the NDP’s proposal to axe the carbon tax, Campbell defended the tax by pointing out the range of personal income, corporate income, and small business tax reductions northern B.C. residents are set to receive.
“We do recognize there’s distances to travel, and different sets of choices,” he said. “It’s the first levy in the history of the country that doesn’t go to government coffers; it must go to reducing taxes, and that’s what it’s done.”
Campbell said he’s been asked about BC Rail lobbyist Patrick Kinsella just once in the campaign thus far, but the premier will likely face similar questions as the campaign drags on. The NDP opposition spent the final question period before the campaign asking about the lobbyist and BC Liberal campaign manager, and are making the relationship between Kinsella and the premier a focus of their campaign.
The Premier is scheduled to appear in Kamloops tonight.
Greg Amos reports for the Dawson Creek Daily News.
11
Login or register to post comments
Skywalker
2 years ago
This is news?
This sounds like a Liberal Press Release. Where is the analysis?
Moonbug
2 years ago
how does his cheerleading of
how does his cheerleading of oil and gas square with the greenies? Why does he get a free pass on oil and gas?
G West
2 years ago
Why ASK?
The CEO has just one answer to anything substantive anyway...
'It's before the courts.'
This man is so mired in the oily filth of his connections to corruption and double dealing that it's no surprise he'd feel at home in little Alberta....
And notice, he isn't even defending the Wurlitzer Campbell Tax any more. He's relying on a few bought and paid for folks like Ms Berman and Jim Hoggan to promote the Campbell Tax. He knows it's a loser with the vast majority of working people in this province and that it hasn't done a single thing to reduce the production of greenhouse gases in the province.
As long as his friends and puppeteers on Howe Street are happy Mr. Campbell will just keep on keeping on.
Wait a week or two till Jock Finlayson speaks a few words into his shell-like as the 'BCLiberal' campaign begins to go pear shaped in the face of a growing realization that the smell of corruption and payola which clings to Campbell's 'character' isn't going to go away.
They're gonna rue the day they put the CEO's name on every bit of 'BCLiberal' campaign literature.
Curt
2 years ago
Greenies or party members?
You mean these greenies?
On Monday, the eve of the the provincial election campaign, the David Suzuki Foundation, Pembina Institute and ForestEthics publicly shamed NDP leader Carole James for pledging to axe the carbon tax.
Not only did Suzuki praise the Liberal tax on gas at a March 30 Vancouver news conference, but Elections B.C. records show foundation chairman and communications advisor James Hoggan is a frequent Liberal donor.
The B.C. Liberal Party received six donations totaling $8,943 from James Hoggan and Associates from 2005 to 2008. Hoggan’s company was paid $353,855 by the B.C. government from 2005-2006 to 2007-2008, according to Public Accounts. Contracts included the Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion project and Canada Line.
Environmentalists you say? Liberals destroying the bluffs (environmentally sensitive) in West Van - Gateway, taking lands out of the ALR, - coal mine planned for the Flathead in the East Kootenays as just some examples.
Mmhmm, they're there for the good of the environment you say? Or for their own pockets?
MAC
2 years ago
David Suzuki Foundation - missing in action on this issue
Never mind how this squares with the greenies - more importantly, how does this square with the David Suzuki Foundation who are suddenly touting the Liberals as "the" environmental party!
Thanks, but no thanks! My vote will go to the NDP for protecting the environment.
MAC
mcdull
2 years ago
Programming the issues.
As i listen to CKNW's morning news and then the promos for BIll(boring) Good and Christy Clark what do I hear the real issue is not the environment or the Lieberals record but the minimum wage and how bad it is to raise it. No other issues.
jimmy_laroux
2 years ago
Tax THIS carbon, bitches!
How do they do it? Pushing oil and gas production (including offshore), as well as highway construction that is guaranteed to dramatically increses GHG emissions, all while
according to the Pembina Institute, David Suzuki Foundation, and ForestEthics.
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/Election+question+will+keep+future+green/1498314/story.html
Alas, no mention of the fact that the Liberals were the ones proposing coal-fired power plants in the first place.
In addition to the utterly ineffective gas tax, this "green future" apparently also includes a "build[ing] a great new northern energy corridor" based on precisely the kind of fossil fuel production that the Pembina Institute et al. pretend to oppose.
Janie Jones
2 years ago
"the green future BC is now building . . ."
What a joke using Whistler and Dawson Creek as examples. Hasn't Whistler achieved build out? And Dawson is just down the road from one of the world's largest conglomerations of gas plants in the world at Taylor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor,_British_Columbia
These sell-outs are too effing much.
cfvua
2 years ago
Free pass
I also wonder why the free pass on oil and gas. What about subsidies from the "NO subsidies" party that will total about $2 Billion by the end of this year. What about lack of jobs for locals while Albertans dine high at Horn River. Income Tax levels won't matter at all if no BC residents are working there. Folks on EI don't pay much tax.
The only tax I fear is the carbon tax as they haven't quite figured out how to make my Alberta competitor pay that or the PST.
But then if we don't go to work we won't pay much carbon tax either as the equipment sits idle.
The hockey analogy is quite appropriate right now. Take away weigh scales to allow easy entry for Albertans, change transportation regulations to favour Albertans, don't enforce PST or carbon tax payment by Albertans, allow natural gas producers to bring in Alberta services when they are readily available locally and then subsidize those producers. Sounds to me like the game is stacked against us already. The only people that could get punted in the race for the cup might be the liberals. This is the type of thing that will get someone else elected, even up here in the red neck world. MOre people were observed at the local smorgasbord than at the Campbell friend-fest in Fort St. John today.
I'm sure Campbell won't invite anybody to his events that would ask about KInsellagate.
Janie Jones
2 years ago
Thanks Gordo
"What about the lack of jobs for locals while Albertans dine high at Horn River?"
We can thank TILMA for that. This also seems to be a theme running through all these big buck energy projects, green or not. Except for a few token first nations they do not want local people working on them. Why ? Because local people actually care about the places they live in.
The guys I worked with who were flying back and forth across Canada every month only cared about taking their pay cheque home and spending it. How is this helping BC's economy?
The people of BC were previously sold a bill of goods by the sustainable BC timber industry and know it. Now the same shite is being dished back to us about green energy by the same cast of clowns, although somewhat switched in the saddle.
Too bad we can't all take money from oil companies to fight global warming, some of us actually have work for it.
anahistoric
2 years ago
how?
did he "field" questions on landowner concerns? A headline should probably be more than simple pun...
the comments by curt and g west made up for the lack of insight and analysis.