Government Downplays LNG Expectations in Throne Speech
Victoria, B.C. – Short on details but long on rhetoric, the Honourable Judith Guichon, B.C.’s Lieutenant Governor, opened the fifth session of our province’s 40th Parliament with the Throne Speech this afternoon.
She touched on a wide variety of topics, from LNG, to transportation along the so called Highway of Tears and social services.
On the LNG file, she seemed to downplay expectations from the enthusiasm BC Liberal’s expressed during the 2013 provincial election campaign.
The Honourable Judith Guichon, B.C.’s Lieutenant Governor in Victoria today
“There are 20 active projects at various stages of development. Over 30 investment partners are involved, and between them, they have invested some $20 billion,” said Guichon.
“There is no question that unforeseen global conditions are posing new challenges. Low global prices will have an impact on your government’s initial timelines.”
However she noted “success is not for quitters,” that “success demands steadfast attention” and that “demand for LNG will increase, and with it the price.”
Also of interest to Northerners, Guichon reiterated the government’s plan to improve transportation along Highway 16, the so called Highway of Tears, between Prince Rupert and Prince George.
Other pledges included:
– to spend more money on new social workers than recommended by Bob Plecas in his report on child welfare problems
– to work carefully to protect the savings and equity that homeowners have placed in their homes
– to work with federal counterparts to secure more RCMP resources and officers
– a commitment to fiscal responsibility, noting there are currently more than $7 billion worth of infrastructure projects underway without pushing B.C. into debt
– a commitment to First Nations communities pointing out since 2011 the government has invested in clean energy projects in 116 Aboriginal communities
– right now, more than 200 red tape reduction projects are underway or completed
Comments
Keep in mind, opening service BC in Prince George on Saturdays, by appointment only, on a trial basis, counts as a red tape reduction project.
Not on your shift crusty …..just Resign…NOW we do not want you!!and take the Dam with ya……NO LNG..either…
Without Site C how will you power your grow lights tliotg? You gonna have a hard time going off the weed cold turkey.But you will have to cut down or hire a driver because they will not legalize it till they come up with a working roadside screening device so they can charge those driving high on pot with DUI same as booze.
If only I could count how many in one room…PP…..no ya get none!still ROTFLMAO…..
So tliotg when all this LNG stuff started a few years I guess you know where the markets where headed. Did ya make a bunch selling short.
Mutt get yer script renewed….I hear the price of Prozac is going up…
Sounds like pre-election jockeying to me. To bad this kinda B.S wont even fertilize a garden.
When it comes to LNG prosperity dreams… place the wishes in one hand, crap itno the other hand and see which one fills up first! Christy should let someone else take over the party before the next election.
The Clarke Brigade – our cross to bear. Ugh.
Sounds like pre-election jockeying to me. To bad this kinda B.S wont even fertilize a garden.
watchdog— Might have to get those chickens after all to fertilize.
Say what you will but Christy I think has done quite well so far there are a lot of people who hate her and her party but from my stand point BC is still fairly stable and work is still to be had and especially up here in the north I haven’t seen too much negative job loss hell my brother in FT St John with the company he works for has so much work that they are hiring 2 more crews to keep up with it. I have a stable job within the forestry and pulp industry sector and a steady paycheck and more hiring going on within the industry hell my company hired 150 people in the last 11 months To me that is good news.
But then again there is no pleasing some people all they choose to see is bad stuff never any positive stuff.
Dearth, I can just imagine that mess that we would be in if that twit Adrian Dix was running the show! Now the NDP has John Horgan at the helm. John seems to want to kill Site C, kill pipelines, kill LNG and basically shut down the province.
The NDP:
No Darn Pipelines
No Darn Projects
No Darn Prospects
No Darn Plan
He got my vote and many others..crusty has to go…..lets see that Picture of out then Drunk Prem. Scambell,and ya still voted the SOB in..not suprised…
Dearth. Seems you have overlooked the curtailment of the pulp mill in Chetwyn, the closure of Endako Mines 600+ jobs. The downsizing and pending closure of Huckleberry mines 250+ jobs. Loss of coal mine jobs in MacKenzie. So we do have some job losses and if this recession gets a grip there will be a lot more.
I guess it depends where you live.
And, of course, you figure BC could buck the international trend of downsizing the need for resources at the moment.
Instead of whining, suggest something ANY BC government could do to force countries to buy our resources?
Then how come its harder and harder for the company I’m working for to find work? We are getting less and less projects and more and more people are being laid off.
I suppose your company is not as aggressive as those that are not downsizing during the resource recession. It is the nature of any business. When the marketplace falters, those who do well are either lucky or are astute enough to make sure they have a more solid customer base. Those who weather such storms most often typically have a nose for ensuring business does not falter during such times.
If things are going so great in this province maybe someone could answer why you would have 500 people show up for 20-50 jobs at Canadian Tire in Vernon BC. Vernon the second worst place in Canada to find employment.
First place is Kelowna. All those people who were working in Alberta have to go to where there may still be jobs. Many came from small town BC, some even working a few weeks on and a few weeks off in Alberta while the family is still in BC. BC reaped the benefit of that, as did some other provinces. Once this all settles out for a long enough time, we will see the true unemployment in the various regions of Canada who shipped people to work in the oil and gas fields.
How about because of all the Albertans that are out of work have moved back to the Okanagan to their second homes to wait out the low oil prices. Once it recovers they will all return to where they came from.
First thing Palopu Chetwynd pulp goes up and down regularly it is a specialty mill that produces a specialty pulp which when there is demand it runs when there isn’t demand it shuts down always has done that since it opened its not uncommon for it to shut down 3-4 months of the year due to low demand for its specialty pulp
As far as Endako goes the mine has suspended operations due to weak Molybdenum markets but the company has already stated when markets pick up the mine will reopen yes it’s a job loss but there will be a reopening the question is When
Mackenzie is primarily a forestry town hell it is the towns only industry and from my understanding the vast majority who lost their mining jobs were not local but a transient workforce so overall it doesn’t affect the towns bottom line.
As to Huckleberry mine I have no info on it so you have me there.
Huckleberry has a high strip ratio compared to other copper mines in the province. As well it doesn’t produce enough precious metal credits to offset low copper prices. A strip ratio is the amount of overburden you have to move just to get to the ore. Example if you have a ratio of 2:1 that means you have to move two cubic meters of overburden to get one cubic meter of ore. It’s not uncommon for some mines just to mine overburden for two years or so before they hit ore. With the current copper market and low grades if you have a high strip ratio it’s game over..
For those that are condemning our BC Liberal Government, I’d like to suggest that you take a look at our neighbours next door in Alberta. They elected Rachel Notley (Nutley seems more appropriate0 and her NDP Government.
So, now Alberta is suffering thousands upon thousands of job losses! Yes, many are the result of low oil prices, but Nutley isn’t doing a single thing to help address the situation. In fact, she is making things worse by scaring away business and investment.
At least Alberta’s public sector workers are happy. So far, while private sector employment in plummeting, the public sector has grown by some 12.7%!
During the worst economic crisis since the 80’s, Alberta’s NDP government feels it necessary drive away private sector employment, while dramatically increasing the ranks of the public sector!
That’s really going to help things Rachel, NOT!
By the way, did I mention that Notley’s husband is some bigwig with CUPE?
Just imagine the mess in BC if we had elected Adrian Dix and his NDP!
“Nutley isn’t doing a single thing to help address the situation.”
The problem is that nobody did anything before the crash. Please do not tell me that nobody in the oil business knew of this possibility. What have they done beforehand to plan for any kind of downturn?
When speaking to someone who works in the oil business in Saskatchewan a few months ago, he knew things were not going well. He may not have known exactly how bad it would get, but those working in the industry knew. It is why a fund was set up, which the Alberta government depleted at a time when they did not have to. They overspent their credit card. Very simple.
What is this country going to do now to be more prepared for such possibilities in the future? That is the question we have to ask ourselves.
Then again, everyone can sit back and procrastinate and tell themselves “this too shall pass”.
In regards to gopg’s comments about a “fund being set up” in the ‘good’ times to draw on in the ‘bad’, this concept has been around since Biblical times.
And while it seems prudent on the surface, and would be, if it were actual ‘resources’ that we were going to be short of in the ‘bad’ AND THEY WERE THEN FREELY DISTRIBUTED BACK TO THOSE WHO NEED THEM, this WASN’T the case then. And wouldn’t be the case now.
In ancient Egypt, at the advice of one Joseph who had wheedled his way into Pharaoh’s favor, farmers were required to give up a portion of their harvest each year for five years of bumper crops. This was to be stored away in government graineries to use in the following predicted five years of famine.
But when the famine came the farmers didn’t get THEIR stored grain back, they had to BUY it back. In ‘money’. Money they didn’t have, and couldn’t ‘make’, but could only GET by selling whatever else they did have to who controlled its ‘making’. And that was? Pharaoh, in whose name Joey boy was running the government.
By the end of the five ‘bad’ years those farmers had survived, but were dispossed of all their property and virtual slaves in their own country. What’s different today? Not really very much, for it’s not only a question of how much money to set aside, but how much the PRICE, in money, will be of everything needed that can be bought with it. And of that latter, no one can say.
Yeah sure whatever.
“Short on details but long on rhetoric.” A good way to describe ANY throne speech.
Why would anyone expect anything else?
Christy needs to buy herself a good quality #10 grain shovel. It will serve two purposes. She can use it as a crutch to lean on and also for cleanup after she has completed her speech.
We will never get good Government in this Province if we only compare the Liberals to the NDP.
Fact of the matter is they are both poison to the sensible development of this Province.
The Liberals are controlled by big business, and of course the NDP by big Unions. Either way we lose.
We need to vote against both parties to get any action. So that leaves the Greens, Independents, or other fringe parties.
As long as we don’t vote for either the NDP or Liberals we will start to make some meaningful changes to politics in BC.
Dearth. Huckleberry mine out of Houston is owned by the same company that owns Endako. They will go into complete shutdown by August this year with a loss of some 260 Jobs.
As for the coal mine closures I meant to say Tumbler Ridge not Mackenzie.
The Chetwynd mill has been down for over 4 months now and they have extended the shut to the end of March. So doesn’t look good.
Palopu, Huckleberry mine is owned by Imperial Metals, same owner as Mt Polley and controlling owner of Red Chris. Endako is owned by Thompson Creek Metals, same owner as Mt Milligan.
– to work carefully to protect the savings and equity that homeowners have placed in their homes
Now how will they wish that? A Vancouver housing market that is 500% over priced, about as over priced as the stock market at the start of the year but probably lagging by about six months. When the financial correction plays out the housing bubble will burst in Vancouver and that will put the BC government in a worse situation than Alberta today. BC too is a one industry province for the most part and it is the Lower Mainland real estate that is the economic driver of the majority of the province these days.
When interest rates go up its all over economically for BC and its hyper real estate market. Have we planned for that at all. Trying to hold back the dam with words, or worse yet with public dollars is futile. We need a real plan to grow a free enterprise economy, and not LNG dreams, monopoly capitalism, regulation cutting braggarts that undermine public protections from the rich, and pimping the BC housing markets as an investment casino for foreigners.
At least in Alberta they can turn the keys in and walk away from the home with no further consequences. In BC the only way out is bankruptcy or the bank will go after every asset one has and garnish ones wages.
Alberta was much more prepared legally for a resource correction than BC is for a housing correction that will be far more devastating to individual home owners in BC that have everything on the line tied to the housing equity. Albertians have the option to walk away from their homes limiting their loss at that.
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