News Release

Legislation tabled burdens British Columbians with increased health, environmental and financial costs for generations

VANCOUVER – The Wilderness Committee is dismayed to learn that legislation seeking to lock future provincial governments into a restrictive royalty and tax arrangement with Malaysian company Petronas is being debated in the BC legislature today.

This summer has seen record numbers of forest fires – driven by climate disruption – igniting across the province, causing a threat to the health of BC communities. Petronas’ Pacific Northwest LNG project will contribute millions of tonnes of carbon pollution to the atmosphere every year, with a particularly heavy climate impact because 90 per cent of the gas that will supply the project comes from fracking.

“Polluted air from forest fires has already impacted our health this summer,” said Eoin Madden, the Wilderness Committee’s Climate Campaigner. “The production and consumption of fossil fuels such as LNG comes straight back to us in the form of polluted air, and it only gets worse when we continue to disrupt the climate. This Petronas deal will add fuel to future fires.”

The deal with Petronas blocks any LNG-targeted carbon tax in the future. The carbon tax is one of BC’s greatest tools against polluters disrupting the climate, and has been instrumental in a drop in carbon pollution per capita. In order to meet the climate challenge going forward, BC needs to raise the carbon tax and have the flexibility to target polluting industries such as LNG.

“By signing this deal with Petronas, our government has turned its back on its position as a leader in making carbon polluters pay,” Madden said, “We are saddling young British Columbians with a climate debt they cannot afford.”

The Petronas deal also guarantees negligible royalty returns to taxpayers. The current price being paid for LNG in Asian markets is well below that required to make BC LNG profitable. As a result, the LNG corporate tax rate applicable is half what the government originally sought from the industry. Income tax rates are locked in by the agreement, preventing future governments from generating a fairer share.

“Handcuffing future generations to a deal born of desperation and short-term thinking is in no one’s best interests,” said Gwen Barlee, Policy Director with the Wilderness Committee.  “Tackling climate change requires innovation and the ability to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances, and this deal takes that ability out of the BC government’s hands.”

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For more information, please contact:

Eoin Madden | Climate Campaigner, Wilderness Committee
(604) 353-9603, eoin@wildernesscommittee.org

Gwen Barlee | Policy Director, Wilderness Committee
(604) 202-0322, gwen@wildernesscommittee.org