Today I released a media statement in response to the meeting in Ottawa between Rachel Notley, Justin Trudeau and John Horgan concerning the future of the Transmountain pipeline project. It is reproduced below.

Media Release

Weaver: Prime Minister’s willingness to put federal dollars on the line in response to ultimatums should alarm all Canadians
For immediate release
April 15, 2018

VICTORIA, B.C. – Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, issued the following statement following the meeting between Premiers John Horgan and Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Trudeau regarding the Trans Mountain pipeline.

“I am encouraged to see Premier Horgan continue to stand up for B.C.’s right to protect our economy, our environment and our people,” said Weaver.

“It is deeply troubling that the Prime Minister is considering using public funds to absorb investor risk in this project. The message this sends to investors is that if they issue ultimatums for projects based on fundamentally faulty economic rationale, the Prime Minister will put taxpayer dollars on the line to bail them out. Since Kinder Morgan made its case to the NEB predicated on oil prices being at least $100 per barrel, markets have shifted dramatically and oil price projections are between $40-70 per barrel.

“This should concern all Canadians who took the Prime Minister at his word when he said he would build a clean, forward-looking economy. That means providing targeted incentives and support programs for industries who are embracing low-carbon solutions. Instead, the Prime Minister is doubling down on a sunset industry whose expansion puts our climate targets out of reach. We need to be investing in our shared future, not subsidizing the wealth of Texas oil companies.

“Three years into his mandate, it appears the Trudeau Liberals have no actual plan for transitioning to the low-carbon economy. This is a massive missed opportunity to make Canada  a global leader in climate solutions. Worse, his insistence in pushing this project through despite significant Indigenous and community opposition risks everything that makes Canada great – our commitment to human rights, our beautiful natural environment and our international reputation as a peaceful nation of hard workers unafraid to tackle the challenges before us.

“B.C.’s world-leading climate policies introduced by Premier Gordon Campbell showed the world that climate action and a thriving economy are compatible. My caucus is working closely with Premier Horgan’s to develop a climate plan that will make B.C. a world leader once again. We will continue to provide this leadership in B.C. because we know it is the only way to secure a bright economic future for our province and for our country.”

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Media contact
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@leg.bc.ca

Today I was afforded the opportunity to address delegates at the 69^th annual convention of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities. As noted on their website:

“The Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) is the longest established area association under the umbrella of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). The area association was established in 1950. It now has a membership of 53 municipalities and regional districts that stretches from the North Coast Regional District down to the tip of Vancouver Island and includes Powell River, the Sunshine Coast, the Central Coast and the North Coast. The Association deals with issues and concerns that affect large urban areas to small rural communities.“

Below I reproduce the text of my speech.

Text of Speech

I am delighted to be here this morning with all of you – and I think we share an essential trait as politicians, even if we are not always aligned in policy or vision.

Each of you, I expect, can identify the issue or the passion that motivated you to run for local government. It may have been an environmental issue, as it was for my colleague Sonia Furstenau, or it may have been a desire to see a project in your community to move forward.

And it is passionate leadership at the local government level that sees so much positive change come forward in our province.

Look at the Town of Gibsons – the first in North America to pass a natural asset management policy, showing extraordinary leadership in recognizing the indisputable logic of including natural assets in financial planning.

In Cowichan there is the Cowichan Watershed Board, laying the foundation for watershed co-governance with First Nations, and taking tangible, necessary steps toward reconciliation in the process.

Recognizing that healthy and happy communities – as Charles Montgomery so eloquently points out – have social connection and collaboration in their fibre, Oceanside and Mt. Waddington’s Health Networks are models for bringing people together to create long-term positive health outcomes.

It was my own commitment to action on climate that motivated me to run for MLA in 2013, after I had seen our province go from a climate leader under Gordon Campbell to a climate laggard under Christy Clark.

As a climate scientist, I had long encouraged my students to engage with decision makers – or become decision-makers themselves – if they wanted to see politicians take action on climate. I realized that I too had a responsibility to participate in the building of political will to act on climate – not as a voice of doom, but as a voice for the extraordinary possibility and opportunities that lie before us in this challenging time.

So much of the conversation around climate and the transition away from a fossil-fuel economy is backward-looking, focusing on the economy of the 20th-century.

Look at the hysteria and rhetoric around the kinder morgan expansion – the shocking doubling-down on a pipeline that would export heavy oil – diluted bitumen – out of Vancouver. In every way, this is the wrong direction for our economy, our environment, our relationship with First Nations, and our climate.

Now take the potential that lies in new technology and innovation. Shell has recently announced that it has the technology to extract vanadium from bitumen, and use the vanadium to build steel that can be used to manufacture battery cells that have the capacity to store energy.

Consider that potential! Rather than dumping yet another raw resource as quickly as we can into foreign markets that reap the rewards of jobs and revenue as they process it into a usable and far more valuable commodity, we could be looking at using this resource to develop and support steel manufacturing, innovative energy storage technology, and the renewable energy sector.

We could massively increase the return to our citizens and our economy, and we could be actively building the future energy systems that will sustain our children and grandchildren.

We sell ourselves short by looking backwards – when transformation and innovation are happening more and more rapidly, it is the worst possible time for us as a province or a nation to double down on the ever decreasing returns in a race to the bottom of early 20th-century economics.

And it’s smaller communities – like the ones that many of you represent – that could benefit immensely from the emerging economy that’s rooted in education and driven by innovation and technology.

Consider the potential of Terrace as a centre for manufacturing – we as a province should be reaching out to Elon Musk and encouraging him to see the potential benefits of a Tesla plant or battery manufacturing plant in Terrace, where shipments to Asia are easily accessible through Prince Rupert’s port, and shipments to Chicago are at the end of a rail line that runs straight through Terrace.

Here on the island, Victoria has already earned the moniker “Techtoria” – and the Cowichan Valley is situated perfectly to be the next destination region for an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds.

BC’s own digital technology supercluster was recently awarded $1.4 billion in federal funding – an investment that is expected to produce 50,000 jobs and add $15 billion to BC’s economy over the next ten years.

And the work being done will make the lives of British Columbians better – including creating a health and genetic platform that will allow medical specialists to create custom, leading-edge cancer treatments that are personalized to the unique genetic makeup of each patient.

This work – hi-tech innovation, research, education – this work can happen anywhere in our increasingly connected world. It’s the connectivity highways that we should be investing in – these will allow all communities to reap the rewards of the 21st-century economy.
At a reception for the BC Tech Association last week, I met Stacie Wallin. Her job is to nurture tech companies that have hit the 1 million dollar level in revenue to scale up to the 25 million dollar level.

And she is so busy that she has nearly a dozen people working with her to keep up with the work that’s coming her way. When pipelines and LNG plants crowd out our conversations about BC’s and Canada’s economy, we miss what’s actually happening – the exciting, innovative, emerging economy that is reshaping our communities.

And there’s so much more. The film industry, tourism, education, professional services, value-added forestry, innovation in mining, renewable energy – our potential in this beautiful province is as boundless as our stunning scenery – and squandering time and energy to prop up sunset industries is the wrong place to be putting our precious efforts and money.
And if governments double down on 20th-century carbon-based economics, it’s your communities that feel the impacts and pay the prices.

Floods, droughts, wildfires, damage from increasingly punishing storms, sea level rise & storm sureges – all of these cost your communities, and your citizens, more and more money.

Communities are hit with the costs of building infrastructure to prevent flooding during the melt season, at the same time as having to determine how to deal with depleted aquifers that won’t be able to sustain the residents who depend on them for drinking water, and another drought this summer will once again put Vancouver Island at severe risk for wildfires.

The impacts of climate change will continue to put severe pressures on all our communities – which is why it’s utterly irresponsible for our provincial government to be considering a 6 billion dollar subsidy of the LNG industry – including letting LNG Canada off the hook for paying their fair share of carbon pricing.

Consider that fact alone – that the potential single greatest emitter of greenhouse gases in BC would only ever have to pay $30/tonne for its carbon pollution, while the rest of us, including industry, will see carbon pricing rise by $5/tonne each year.

This is an unacceptable logic, and one that we can’t possibly support – and I urge you, as the elected representatives who will be seeing the costs and consequences of climate change in your communities – I urge you to also encourage this government to recognize that giving massive tax breaks to the LNG industry because it isn’t economically viable is not the direction BC should be heading right now.

Consider an alternative. Why not invest in the Squamish Clean Technology Association (SCTA) created to seek out leading edge ventures that will help create an innovation hub focused on clean energy. We could attract the best and brightest minds to come to BC to figure out how to harness the renewable energy that abounds in our province while encouraging the innovation that our world needs most right now.

In response to a question from the audience on Friday about how to get municipal staff to think beyond their standard frames of reference, I understand that Charles Montgomery pointed to new models for civic design, and suggested that politicians may need to “drag them kicking and screaming” into the 21st century.

This also applies to many of our provincial and federal representatives, who may say that they recognize our need to transition to the new economy, but then try to convince us that the way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions … is to increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Doubling down with doublespeak – let’s not let this become a new Canadian tradition.

We need our provincial and federal politics to reflect the best of what we see at the local government level.
Informed discussion and debate, listening to people who present differing opinions, allowing for compromise as a path forward, working from a place of shared values and finding solutions that best reflect those values.

And while it may not always feel this way at your council and board tables, the reality is that your level of government is one that is generally far less driven by partisanship and ideology.

We have an extraordinary opportunity to bring our electoral system into the 21st century in BC with the referendum that is happening this fall. And while there will be many discussions on both sides of this debate over the next several months, it’s essential to begin with what are we trying to solve with electoral reform in BC.

Currently, under First Past the Post, elections are geared towards a “winner take all” outcome. And that winner almost never has the support of the majority of the voters.

40% is often the magic number.

40% of the popular vote in BC can generally deliver to one party a majority of seats in the legislature, and 100% of the power for 4 years.

Informed discussion and debate, listening to differing opinions, compromise, collaboration, finding common ground based on shared values – that’s completely unnecessary when your party has enough votes to ram through any legislation and any agenda you like.

Compare this to almost any other human endeavour, where collaboration, cooperation, and respect deliver the outcomes that have moved us forward throughout history.

Yes – let’s compete to bring forward the best ideas, the boldest visions – but let’s not make competition the only value that underpins politics.

Charles Montgomery points out that the infrastructure of our cities and our communities can be a source for unhappiness, through creating mistrust, a sense of disconnect, and a lack of sociability.

It seems that our political infrastructure – and in particular a first past the post system that delivers 100% of the power with a minority of the votes – can also create mistrust, lack of sociability, and unhappiness. In our winner take all system, inflicting knock out blows to the other side becomes a normal part of our politics – but how much does this damage our governance?
How many good ideas, brought forward by opposition MLAs or MPs have died sad deaths on the order papers under a majority government that can’t be seen to work across party lines?

Electoral reform – particularly electoral reform that would bring in a form of proportional representation – would deliver more minority governments to BC.

And some may try to convince you that’s a terrible thing – but I ask, is working across party lines a terrible thing? Is collaboration on policies and legislation a terrible thing? Is having more minds engaged on solving problems a terrible thing?
Or could this change in our electoral infrastructure actually bring us politics that contribute to more sociability – the one factor that Charles Montgomery said was paramount to our happiness.

Premier Horgan mentioned in his address that there has been conflict between our two parties.

There has indeed – and the media will always focus on these points of tension – but if you look at how much legislation was passed in the fall, how many initiatives have moved forward over the past nine months and then consider the ratio of collaboration to conflict, you’ll recognize that – much like at your own council tables – when you work from a place of shared values, it’s possible to almost always find a path forward.

Our current electoral model has its origins in the Middle Ages, and it has undergone significant change over the centuries.
It was only 100 years ago that women were given the right to vote in BC, and as we discuss and debate extending that right to 16 and 17 year olds, let us remember that the world around us changes continuously, and it’s up to us to ensure our institutions – particularly our democratic institutions – adapt to meet the needs of our society.

Happy cities, happy communities, happy politics. Let’s dream big.

Thank you.

Yesterday in the BC Legislature we debated Bill 6 – Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2018 at second reading. This bill provides new, extended and more flexible maternity, parental and compassionate care leave provisions that would meet or beat standards set across Canada.

Below is the text and video of my short speech.

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: I, too, rise in support of Bill 6, Employment Standards Amendment Act, which makes a number of substantive amendments to the existing Employment Standards Act — in particular, with respect to issues of compassionate leave, paternity leave, maternity leave, family leave, as well as matching these with federal legislation that was passed late last year, in November, I believe it was.

In fact, one of the things that happens, as this bill is being debated and discussed, is that we’re proposing here to mirror the federal legislation, which essentially extends employment insurance benefits to those with newly adopted children or parents of newborns from 12 months to an extended 18 months. They’re allowed to have their EI benefits.

B.C., by passing this legislation, would ensure that not only federal employees that are subject exclusively to the federal legislation but also in British Columbia, here, we would be protected both for job security and be eligible to be part of this extended EI. It doesn’t actually give people more money. It allows families to determine if they wish to take the amount of money that would be spent and just distribute it over a longer period.

Some have actually criticized the federal legislation, which we’re proposing to adopt here, by arguing that it is not doing enough to actually support new families by not providing additional resources. Nevertheless, I would argue that’s an EI issue and a federal issue and not one in the purview of our jurisdiction here. So I think it’s important that we actually do follow the federal lead in this area.

One of the most important changes, of course, in this legislation is the additions that are truly provincial with respect to extending the amount of leave that is eligible for those whose child, most unfortunately, happened to be taken away in an incident. My colleague and friend, the Minister of Education and the MLA for Victoria–Swan Lake knows the Dunahee case here, a very famous case here in Victoria. And I’m sure such leave…. I can only imagine the hurt that the parents of Michael went through and continue to go through. But were such leave available to them at the time, I think it would have been very beneficial. Hopefully, nobody needs to claim this benefit. I’m sure that’s the hope of all of those in this House, but it’s critical that it be there for those who do need it.

The amendments to compassionate care leave are triple the length of the leave, from eight to 27 weeks — again, a very important addition.

In terms of the other issue…. Heaven forbid. I can only imagine the loss of a child, and it would be something that would be devastating to any family. To give extended leave, protected leave, job security on that leave, over an extended period of time to parents whose child under the age of 19 were to be tragically lost is the sign of a government that recognizes the importance of putting families first, of being there for families to support them in their times of greatest need.

I applaud government and, in particular, the minister who brought this piece of legislation forward.

Other highlights within this piece of legislation, of course, are that maternity leave can start two weeks earlier, 13 weeks prior to the due date rather than 11 weeks, and that it can go longer after birth, where the employee requests leave after birth, from 17 weeks rather than six weeks. It also increases leave from 37 weeks to 62 weeks for adoptive parents and allows that leave to start no later than 78 weeks after the child is born, instead of no later than 52 weeks after the child is placed with the parents.

There are many, many reasons why this bill, I’m sure, will be passed and wholeheartedly supported by all sides of this House. The fact that it doubles unpaid leave time is important. It doesn’t address the financial barriers, the affordability issue for parents who have to spread out the benefits over a longer period of time, and I look forward to the government continuing to develop and implement its strategy to deal with the affordability crisis here in B.C.

I’m not sure whether this bill actually has provisions to deal with stillbirths or miscarriages. I would seek to ask the minister, during committee stage, whether, in fact, the bill, as constructed, does recognize stillbirths or late-term miscarriages as grounds for leave, based on the fact that death of child might be considered there, where, here, the child was born, in the case of a stillbirth, sadly, dead on birth or, in a late-term miscarriage, sadly.

I mean, we all know people who have had a traumatic effect on their lives, and perhaps government might be open to thinking about that over the coming days — about whether (a) this is dealt with in the legislation or (b) if, in fact, changes need to be amended or added to account for that.

With that, I have spoken with my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands and also my colleague from Cowichan Valley, neither of whom will speak to this bill. We collectively support this bill and look forward to bringing it forward in legislation.

Video of Speech

Today in the legislature we debated Bill 11: International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act, 2018 at second reading.

Below I reproduce the text and video of my second reading speech.

Text of Speech

A. Weaver: Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I had thought that it was a much longer speaking list, and that I would be speaking subsequent to other speakers. But I do thank you for recognizing me.

I arise to speak in favour of the bill before us. That is Bill 11, International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act 2018. As has been mentioned, this is an important piece of legislation that modernizes our existing International Commercial Arbitration Act, taking into account the changes that were done by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law in 2006 in their updates to model legislation there.

This comes on the recent move that Ontario did to update its act in March, 2017, where they did something very similar, in a very similar attempt to modernize the original 1985 model law that was adopted by B.C. — we were one of the first to do so, frankly — as well as other jurisdictions.

It’s clear as well that this is not something that was dreamt up overnight, that obviously there has been some good work that was done unto this over many years. So it’s important to credit both sides of this House for the work that they’ve done to bring this to fruition to ensure that we actually bring our arbitration law up to international standards, taking into account the best practices that exist as outlined in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s model law.

As the government has noted…. The government has suggested that they have a responsibility — and I agree — to ensure that standards are modern, that they meet the standards of the bar and judiciary, and that these standards have the confidence of international and domestic clients. This is one of the goals of modernizing our present legislation.

In addition, virtually all provinces and territories in Canada have incorporated UNCITRAL — sorry, I won’t say it again; it’s the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the UNCITRAL, a model law of 1985 — into their respective statutes.

Each province or territory has a separate piece of legislation that deals typically with domestic or international commercial arbitrations. In fact, all Canadian provinces and territories as well, with the exception of Quebec, have adopted and ratified the New York convention, allowing for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards from its signatory states, of which Canada and British Columbia are.

Ontario was in fact the first Canadian jurisdiction to amend its legislation to reflect the changes made to the model law in 2006. As I noted, this was done in March, 2017 — last year. And B.C. was setting the stage to do that. Of course, we had something rather irritating occur between March and May of last year. Irritating for some, but delightful for others. We had an election, and that clearly would have ensured there were these sort of pieces of legislation that take time to develop.

Obviously, the civil service had been working hard on this in consultation with stakeholders as well as government, and this piece of legislation smoothly passed through the transition from the former government to the present government, and is brought here today for our debate — and presumably adoption, based on the comments I’ve heard from both sides of this House.

Federally, international commercial arbitration is governed by the Commercial Arbitration Act. This deals with things like investor-state disputes brought under NAFTA or CETA and similar agreements. NAFTA, of course, is the subject of much debate as we speak here in this Legislature, due to negotiations happening with our federal government, Mexico and the United States.

I’d like to provide a quote here from an individual. I’d like to get the exact…. It’s the International Arbitration Review — edition 8, Canada — by Gordon Tarnowsky, QC, Rachel Howie, Chloe A. Snider and Holly Cunliffe, published in the Law Reviews of August 2017.

They say this. “Although similar in many respects, there are certain marked differences in international commercial arbitration legislation among Canadian jurisdictions. This situation can create unforeseen risk to inter-jurisdictional entities that might ultimately resort to arbitration in more than one jurisdiction, or to those choosing a city in Canada as a seat of arbitration, if they are not fully aware of the variations.”

This is one of the reasons why it’s critical for us to adopt legislation along the lines we have here, to modernize and bring the standards that are adopted by the United Nations arbitration laws here, both nationally and federally.

Australia did some recent work in this regard. Prior to 2010, domestic legislation regarding arbitration varied between each and all of the various different states in Australia. The model commercial and arbitration bill that they agreed upon by the standing committee there of the Attorneys General actually was a way of creating domestic arbitration law throughout Australia that was uniform. They’ve all since adopted that, and we’re hoping to see such things happen here in Canada as well.

There are a couple of benefits of adopting this law. Not only is it important to have Vancouver become a host for international arbitration; it’s one of the selling cards of Vancouver. A government led by Premier Gordon Campbell did a very fine job of actually bringing British Columbia to its pinnacle of international recognition as a go-to destination in the world, culminating in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Prior to that, of course, we have to give due respect to Bill Bennett, who recognized…. He was probably the first that really went beyond the parochial vision of British Columbia as only a province of Canada, with bringing in Expo 86, I believe it was. I was in Vancouver, living there at the time, at UBC. That, too, put British Columbia on the international arena as a go-to destination. The 2010 Winter Olympics — another critical aspect in this regard. And Vancouver has grown.

This is very much a bill that’s focused on Vancouver, but Vancouver has grown to become an international city, one that unfortunately has by-products associated with that happening, one of which is, of course, the affordability crisis that’s affecting Vancouver. Nevertheless, this is actually good for business, this bill. This bill is good for business and for sending business the exact type of signal that they need to say that British Columbia is open for business, it’s open for international business, and it’s a go-to destination if you want to actually have business in the new economy.

I’m excited by the prospects of this emerging economy that’s happening here in British Columbia. I’m less excited by the trials and tribulations of members opposite as they sulk and complain about Kinder Morgan and others.

There are so many opportunities in British Columbia. Adopting legislation like this, legislation that modernizes our arbitration proceedings, actually positions Vancouver as a leader, a go-to destination in the world, along with places like Paris and New York — to come and actually have arbitration cases settled in a very non-partisan way, in a way that’s viewed to not have any particular biases. We have a good brand internationally, Canada, in terms of brokers of deals and being fair-minded, and Vancouver and British Columbia and Vancouver can lead in that regard.

It does have that other very important signal that it’s sending — that in Vancouver, in British Columbia, we want to be a focal point for international business, and we want companies to come here. We want companies like Tesla to come here. We’d love it in British Columbia if Tesla came to B.C. and built a giga factory in Terrace, to ship those batteries to Chicago or Prince Rupert via the railway that exists. We’d love companies to actually build in terms of the innovation potential that we can offer here.

This is the direction we’re going. This piece of legislation is critical to continue our path forward to building Vancouver as an international hub for excellence and British Columbia, in general, with all its communities, from north to south, east to west, rural to urban, suburban to single cabins on the lake. We’re excited about the prospects for British Columbia.

Another benefit of this bill, of course, is that there is, coming forward relatively soon…. I believe it is in 2022 that Vancouver is bidding to host the international United Nations conference. My notes here don’t actually have the date. Well, they do somewhere, but they’re buried within my multiple pages of notes.

In this international conference which is coming to Vancouver, it’s kind of hard, as part of your bid, to put a bid in to host the international UN conference on arbitration and then, at the same time, not have brought yourself up to standards — standards that, since 1985, recognize that in fact we have the preponderance of technology that exists today that didn’t exist then, and many other such examples.

With that, I’ll say that, after speaking with both my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands as well as my colleague from Cowichan Valley, we are in support of this bill and look forward to committee stage and supporting the bill through to final adoption in this Legislature.

Video of Speech

After a three week break, the 3^rd session of the 41^st parliament resumed today. In question period I quizzed the Premier as to how he could argue that British Columbia would meet its legislated greenhouse gas reduction targets while at the same time developing an LNG industry.

In late February I wrote an extended essay detailing the desperate, fiscally-irresponsible steps that the BC Liberals and subsequently the BC NDP have taken in an attempt to entice major LNG players to BC.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: Government has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 2007 levels by 2030 and 80 percent from 2007 levels by 2050. This is why the government’s continued desperate push for LNG is so problematic.

LNG Canada’s proposed four-train LNG facility would add eight to ten megatonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent. That’s more than 50 percent of all of British Columbia’s present industrial emissions. And they’d add that to B.C.’s total emissions.

Our targets are such that by 2050, British Columbia can emit only 12.9 megatonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent. And at about 9.6 megatonnes, LNG Canada would yield the single largest source of those emissions. That’s three-quarters of all of British Columbia’s allowable emissions in just one LNG facility.

My question is to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. How is it possible for British Columbia to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets in light of these numbers?

Answer

Hon. J. Horgan: I thank the Leader of the Third Party for his question. I know his passion for climate action and his reason for being in this House is that very issue.

I’m committed, as I said during the election campaign and as I’ve said since forming the government…. We are going to put in place targets by 2030 to see our emissions go down by the 40 percent from what they were in 2007. I’m committed to doing that.

But at the same time, when investors come calling with proposals, it’s appropriate that we talk to them. It’s appropriate that we look at the fiscal framework and we put in place the terms of engagement.

That’s why I’ve said to the LNG community: “If you’re going to employ British Columbians, there’s going to be a fair return to B.C. for access to our resource. You’re going to work with Indigenous people in partnership” — and the member for Skeena can talk to us about that — “And if you’re going to ensure that you assist us in getting to our greenhouse gas objectives, we welcome that investment.”

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: I do appreciate the response from the Premier. Nevertheless, it seems to me that rhetoric here in B.C. is not dissimilar from what we’re hearing nationally. On the one hand, Prime Minister Trudeau claims we need to build new pipelines and increase oils sands production multifold in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our government thinks we need to increase industrial emissions by 50 percent in order to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Look, LNG Canada would not build a new LNG facility today just to tear it down tomorrow. A facility will be built to be around for decades to come. That means that for all other aspects of the British Columbia economy, emissions would have to drop by 52 percent by 2030 and — get this — 95 percent by 2050. Government is essentially saying that this one LNG plant and these 200 jobs are more important than everything else in our economy.

My question to the Premier is this. Is he prepared to tell Rio Tinto Alcan, Teck, Lafarge, Canfor, Catalyst and even the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District that they all have to shut down because British Columbia’s emission budget is all but used up by that one LNG Canada facility?

Answer

Hon. J. Horgan: Well we have no final investment decision by anyone when it comes to developing liquefied natural gas, and the members on that side will know that full well, because they promised dozens and dozens of them and none of them materialised.

I don’t want to be glib with the member’s question, because he’s absolutely correct. If we’re going to meet the targets that we have set as a Legislature — or will be codified by the Legislature in the days, weeks and months ahead — we’re going to have to have the hard discussion with all members of society, not just the industrial sector but our families, our communities. Everyone’s going to have to weigh in and do their part to reduce emissions.

This is the challenge of our generation. I’m not telling the member anything he doesn’t already know. I’m committed, as the leader of this government, to realize those objectives, and I’m going to continue to fight for that.