Jennifer Rice | September 28, 2016 – Victoria
“The Federal Liberal government has approved the Pacific Northwest LNG project on Lelu island providing a 190 conditions are met.
The proponent, namely Malaysian state-owned Petronas has yet to decide if the project is worth building when gas prices are so incredibly low. Every other LNG project Christy Clark has championed has cancelled or delayed making a FID (Final Investment Decision) because of poor market conditions. This could take months.
I will be carefully reviewing these 190 conditions to see how they meet the test of:
1. Including local and impacted First Nations as true partners with meaningful consultation. That is consultation that genuinely listens to people’s concerns and not check-box type consultation.
2. Providing a fair return to British Columbians. Will there be meaningful, explicit and legally-binding benefits for British Columbians or can the proponent say one thing and then do the opposite?
3. Providing explicit work and training opportunities for local people, First Nations, British Columbians and Canadians and only relying on temporary foreign workers when all other options have been exhausted. Will this be legally-binding or can the proponent say one thing about local hire and procurement and then do the opposite?
4. Protection of our land, air and water including our salmon and seafood resources as well as making good on our climate change commitments so we leave the planet habitable for future generations.
Listening to the federal Ministers during yesterday’s announcement it was disturbing that the importance of Lelu Island and the critical salmon resource of that area was not directly addressed. It will be very interesting to see the conditions related to that part of the project.”