Les Leyne: Clark, Dix choose industry-enviro sides
When it comes to the big wedge issue - the resource sector versus the environment - the gulf between the Liberals and the New Democrats seems to be growing.
The Liberals are usually pro-development and the NDP usually tilts environment-first. With new leaders on both sides, it looks as if that split is going to get more obvious.
There’s usually a middle ground on economy versus environment arguments. Both leaders are headed away from it.
Premier Christy Clark spoke to the Canada West Foundation three weeks ago and made it clear where the resource sector fits in with her “family first” agenda.
It’s first and foremost.
Addressing 200 people at a foundation dinner in Vancouver, she said: “It is easy for people to be against things. Easy for people to say: ‘You know, we should just cut down fewer trees in B.C. We should just have fewer mines. Maybe we shouldn’t have all this oil and gas development .... Maybe we shouldn’t be disturbing the Earth.’
“It’s pretty easy to say that when you don’t understand the connections between that economic opportunity and your family.
“I see the premier’s job very much as helping people make that connection. Because public support for economic development is crucial if we want to make sure it keeps happening, and our economy keeps growing.”
Clark has already walked the proindustry walk. The first thing she brought up at her initial meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the Prosperity mine in the Chilcotin, which passed a provincial environmental review but flunked the federal one.
She wants the new version of the mine approved and told Harper that.
NDP leader Adrian Dix, whose party raised some resource-industry caution flags during the legislative session, objected to that stand during a debate with Clark last week. He said she favoured destroying a lake and bypassing the First Nation that’s involved.
The difference extends to other issues. Clark hasn’t committed to the proposed Enbridge pipeline, pending the environmental review. But it’s not hard to imagine the Liberals supporting it. She’s left herself lots of room to support tanker movement on the coast, a related issue.
Dix was pleased to read one of her old quotes to her: “We’ve got tankers going up and down the St. Lawrence, for heaven’s sake. I don’t know why we’d ban them necessarily off the west coast.”
Clark took pains to point out the much-discussed moratorium is “solely directed at tankers that are transiting the B.C. coast and not oil tankers that are sailing to or from B.C. ports.”
There’s also a split of sorts on natural gas drilling. Dix questions the hydraulic fracturing technique now used in unconventional wells.
Clark told the Vancouver dinner: “Every heart operation in this province is paid for by oil and gas out of the northeast .... Boy, you want a health care system, you better be damn happy we’re getting oil and gas out of the northeast, because that’s what’s paying for it.”
It’s clear Clark will back resource industries over the environment in all but the most extreme circumstances.
And Dix told his party shortly after winning the leadership that a strong environmental policy is critical in the next campaign.
They botched the carbon tax introduction two years ago by opposing it, and have a lot of making up to do with green voters.
This time around, they’re going to be as green as green can be.
“Clark is essentially opposed to environmental assessment; we’re in favour,” Dix told his party. “She favours the Enbridge pipeline; we’re opposed. She favours offshore oil and gas: We’re opposed to it.”
Whether that’s a winning game plan or not, it’s the one he’s going to execute.
Just So You Know: Three weeks ago at the Liberal convention, Clark hinted at a “bold new plan” that will attract investment and send a signal that B.C. is open for business.
The Vancouver speech provided a few more details. It looks as if it was over-hyped. It’s just about focusing the government’s economic development programs - which have been housed in 10 different ministries - on areas with the most obvious payoff.
lleyne@timescolonist.com
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