Clear environmental message runs up against jobs opportunity
Candidates focus on proposed liquefied natural gas plant near Squamish
Pacific Oil & Gas is prepared to spend up to $1.8 billion to build a modest liquefied natural gas plant near Squamish and provide permanent jobs in a West Vancouver-Sunshine CoastSea to Sky riding that could use an economic shot in the arm.
But Woodfibre LNG has divided the area’s various communities and brought the different federal parties’ approaches to the resource economy and environmental stewardship into sharp relief.
The construction phase of the plant is expected to create the equivalent of 650 person-years of employment over two years, while plant operations would employ 100 workers, plus 20 administrative jobs. That’s not bad, especially when you consider nearby Port Mellon’s Howe Sound Pulp and Paper recently shed 171 well-paid jobs when it permanently shut down paper production operations a few months ago.
Woodfibre LNG would also be a surprisingly green facility, with a considerably lower carbon footprint than many similar operations because the firm plans to use low-carbon hydroelectric power — rather than natural gas — to power the plant.
Conservative MP John Weston, a second-term incumbent, has already come to the aid of Woodfibre LNG after West Vancouver council twice voted to express opposition to tankers in Howe Sound, the first time without even hearing from company representatives. The plant would load 40 double-hulled tankers a year in Howe Sound, which is well-used by recreational boaters, tugs and ferries.
Weston scolded council for what he called its shortsighted opposition to the project, touting Woodfibre LNG as a source of much-needed jobs and tax revenue for struggling communities.
But jobs and revenue are not as big a concern in West Vancouver — the wealthiest city in Canada — as they are for small resourcebased economies along the Sunshine Coast and Squamish, or tourism towns such as Whistler.
“A project like Woodfibre LNG can be a stimulus to the local economy in communities that are struggling,” Weston said. “It will provide government revenue and 400 direct and indirect jobs.”
Weston stressed the need for due process and science-based decision-making when large projects are proposed.
Muddying the waters, Liberal candidate Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, a former mayor of West Vancouver, has neither supported nor condemned Woodfibre LNG, saying only that it must pass a rigorous and transparent environmental assessment and that its product would have to be accounted for under the Liberal greenhouse gas framework.
“What unites people in all parts of the riding is our deep love for where we live and our love for the environment,” said Goldsmith-Jones. “The problem is that there is no open, transparent way for communities to provide input on projects like Woodfibre LNG.”
Canada needs to catch up and incorporate world-class marine safety standards and LNG industry best practices, while considering the economic benefits, she said.
With the 180-day Environmental Assessment Review period on Woodfibre’s proposed LNG plant complete, the company is waiting on approvals from the provincial
and federal governments before entering into a permitting phase with the Oil and Gas Commission, company spokesman Byng Giraud said.
The company is also completing an environmental review process with the Squamish First Nation. The Squamish set out 25 conditions, 13 of which are related to the plant, while 12 are related to the pipeline and marine traffic.
“We looked at those and didn’t think there was anything insurmountable,” Giraud said.
Nonetheless, Weston is on the record as opposing separate review and approval processes like the one being imposed by the Squamish Nation.
“No special interest group or community should be able to veto what others do,” Weston said.
The company hopes to break ground on the project — situated near Squamish on an 86-hectare brownfield with a 100-year industrial history — within a year, and commence operations in 2018.
Green party candidate Ken Melamed makes no bones about his opposition to Woodfibre LNG. His platform includes a four-point plan intended to kill the project, which includes repealing tax subsidies, applying stringent marine shipping standards, expanding a nearby Marine Protected Area to exclude tankers from Howe Sound, and banning sea water cooling systems, one of the technologies proposed for the plant.
“People are concerned about the immediate threat of increased tanker traffic and Woodfibre LNG, even when you get farther away from the areas most directly affected, like the Sunshine Coast and up into Pemberton,” Melamed said. “They are angry, in fact, that these kind of projects can get political legs without the social licence.”
New Democratic Party candidate Larry Koopman fears the LNG plant will move forward without proper scrutiny from an environmental review process that has been “gutted” by the federal Conservatives.
“People have no faith in the (National Energy Board) approval process,” said Koopman, who also questions the real economic value of the project to Squamish. “There’s no assurance that the people who will run that plant will even be from here. This is a new industry for British Columbia.”
Koopman suggested the bluecollar communities in the riding would be better served by developing value-added products from wood rather than shipping raw logs out of the area.
In the absence of Woodfibre LNG, where well-paid jobs will come from is anybody’s guess, but tourism appears to be the best hope.
“This riding really is the backyard for Metro Vancouver, so the livability of the region as a whole has everything to do with environmental health,” Goldsmith-Jones said. “So a tourism strategy is really important, protecting wild salmon is really important. These things have high economic value.”
Melamed concedes the loss of jobs at Howe Sound Pulp and Paper has been devastating to communities in the riding.
“I think people understand that we don’t need (resource-based) projects to create jobs, and that many of the (construction) jobs created will be offshore jobs,” he said. “These are not the kinds of jobs that many people in the riding want.”
Melamed points to tourism, renewable energy and the green economy as potential sources of stable employment.
Koopman, too, pointed to green energy and the NDP’s promise to invest $30 million in tourism to create jobs in the hospitality sector.