Today during Question Period I rose to ask both the Minister of Energy, Mines & Petroleum Resources and the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations & Rural Development what the greatest climate change-related risks and opportunities their ministry faces, and how they are prepared to deal with both.

With the upcoming release of the economic vision embodied in the clean growth strategy, it’s critical that every Minister is up to speed on how it will affect their Ministry.

As you will see from the exchange, I was not very impressed with the response I received from the Minister of Energy, Mines & Petroleum Resources. I felt that the response from the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations & Rural Development was quite good.

Below I reproduce the text and video of the exchange with the Ministers.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: In the span of just a few centuries, earth has transitioned from a past when climate affected the evolution of human societies to the present, in which humans are affecting the evolution of the climate system.

Today we are at a pivotal moment in human history. Our generation will be responsible for deciding the path we take and the future climate will take along with us. As elected officials, we’ll either be complicit in allowing climate change to despoil our world or we can lead the way and choose a different path.

Our provincial emissions have risen in four out of the last five years. Every minister has a responsibility to ensure that tackling this issue is within their mandate, as mitigating the impacts of climate change requires an all-of-government approach.

Accounting for 7.2 million tonnes annually, mining and upstream oil and gas production are the biggest contributors. My question to Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is this. What are the greatest climate change–related risks and opportunities facing your ministry and how are you prepared to deal with them?

Answer

I appreciate that for the member this is a very, very important issue that he’s very passionate about and the work that he’s done with this government to address climate change and our climate action plan.

For this ministry, in particular, we have been looking at what we can be doing as a new government to reduce our impact on climate change. The list is quite long. But I know that question period is the opposition’s time, so I won’t try to list everything. I’ll give the member a few examples of some of the things that we’re doing.

A couple of weeks ago I was at UBC talking with architect students about our new program called the better buildings B.C. program, where we’re looking for innovative ideas in terms of how we can reduce our emissions in our buildings throughout the province.

But the member brought up, specifically, mining and oil and gas. One of the things that this government did was we eliminated PST on electricity for businesses. That includes the mining sector. That includes the oil and gas sector. If they can electrify and move away from oil and gas — diesel, for example — to generate the power that they need to do their operations, we’re reducing our greenhouse gas emissions quite significantly. Those are the types of opportunities that we’re looking at.

As the member will note, I also just introduced legislation to reduce our methane emissions as well. There’s lots that we are doing, and I look forward to being able to brief the member fully at another time

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: I must say, given the scale of the challenge as well as the scale of the opportunity, going and meeting a few people to discuss some ideas is hardly taking advantage of this opportunity and meeting the challenge. I remain quite disappointed in that response, so let me try again.

The B.C. fires of the past two summers were no surprise to the climate science community. Back in 2004, my colleagues and I published a paper in Geophysical Research Letters, pointing out that we could already detect and attribute increasing areas burnt in Canadian forest fires to human activity and, in particular, global warming.

According to the B.C. Wildfire Service, this year was the worst on record. Over 1.35 million hectares were consumed by forest fires. The fires burned homes, endangered lives and released hundreds of megatonnes of CO₂. What’s happening in California is no surprise to the climate science community, yet it appears to be a surprise to politicians du jour.

We know that global warming will lead to an increased likelihood of summer drought. This, in turn, will lead to more extensive wildfires. We know that precipitation extremes will increase and that flooding events will be on the rise. This threatens human health, ecosystems and the economy.

While the members opposite are concerned about their survival as a political entity, I’m sitting here asking the minister about the political survival of all of our collective species. To the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, what are the greatest climate change-related risks and opportunities facing your ministry, and how are you prepared to deal with both?

Answer

Hon. D. Donaldson: As my colleague mentioned, climate change is a considerable risk for our province and planet, and we are committed to tackling it. The member and the Leader of the Third Party asks — and I appreciate — the question about opportunities and risks.

The risks are in forest systems and ecosystem resilience. Ensuring that into the future, we have forest ecosystems that are resilient to and can adapt to the climate change that we are seeing.

We are seeing it, certainly, in the forest fire situation. It’s had an impact there. Large forest fires that we saw in the past two seasons have had enormous impact on ecosystems. We’ve seen it even more recently in the level 4 drought conditions in the areas that I represent up in the northwest and unprecedented drought that has led to impacts on fisheries resources. You’ve seen the pictures of the riverbeds, extremely dry riverbeds — unprecedented.

We are working on mitigative measures. In June, we hosted the first wildfire and climate change conference. A couple of topics it focused on were creating resilient ecosystems to better adapt to climate change and mitigate wildfires and ensuring effective carbon management. Part of that is our forest carbon initiative. That’s a $290 million federal-provincial initiative that’s focusing on incremental reforestation and improving utilization of waste and reducing slash burning.

Finally, in regards to the question as far as opportunities, we also have long-term research trials, assisted migration and adaptation trials to identify seed sources most likely to best adapt to future climates. We’ve made important progress in 16 months, and we need to do more.

Today in the legislature I rose during Question Period to ask the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development what his ministry was doing to curtail glyphosate spraying in BC forests. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup™. It’s used to kill off broadleaf plant species that might inhibit the growth of seedlings that are replanted after a forest is logged. There are a number of significant negative impacts that arise from the current practice of widespread glyphosate spraying.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: Every year in B.C., 16,000 hectares of forests are sprayed with an herbicide known as glyphosate. It’s sprayed over forests that have recently been logged and replanted to kill broadleaf plant species that might inhibit the growth of lodgepole pine seedlings. The result is reduced plant diversity, leading to monocropped forests that are vulnerable to more frequent and destructive wildfires and beetle infestations.

The World Health Organization has warned that glyphosate is likely carcinogenic. It also has genotoxic, cytotoxic and endocrine-disrupting properties. For decades, researchers have been reporting reduced numbers of rodents, moose, insects and birds in forests that have been sprayed.

To the Minister of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, if our forests exist for the monetary value once felled, glyphosate is an efficient tool. If we consider the value of our wildlife ecosystems and human health, it is a veritable threat. What are the values that inform our ongoing use of glyphosate in B.C. forests?

Supplementary Question

Hon. D. Donaldson: Thank you very much to the Leader of the Third Party for the question on glyphosate. It’s a topic that I’ve been following closely since 1990. It’s of great interest to people around B.C.

Glyphosate is broadleaf herbicide. Many members in the House might recognize it as the active ingredient in Roundup. I want to say that our government is committed to protecting the important biodiversity of forests while ensuring a continued vibrant forestry sector.

The herbicide glyphosate is approved by Health Canada for use in forest management and is used to improve survival and growth of trees. In B.C., any users must follow the Integrated Pest Management Act and take steps to minimize impacts on the environment, including fish-bearing streams, a very important consideration.

B.C.’s reforestation practices are continually updated based on new scientific research and information, and recently, the ministry started to allow increased levels of aspen and broadleaves in managed stands throughout B.C., which will lead to a further decline in the use of herbicides.

I know the member quoted a figure of 16,000 hectares where glyphosate was applied. That was a number from 2015. I’m happy to report, in 2017, that number went down to 10,000 hectares — so a decrease of almost 40 percent.

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: Numerous jurisdictions have banned or restricted the use of glyphosate. These include the Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal, El Salvador, Argentina and Denmark, to name but a few.

 Meanwhile, in British Columbia, we continue to spray tens of thousands, or at least 10,000 hectares, of forests annually with glyphosate. We are contributing to the severity of wildfires, harming wildlife and watching the chemical work its way through our food supply, all without any sound justification.

We should be thinking about the precautionary principle here, not waiting until it’s too late. As Rachel Carson once wrote: “The right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks.”

To the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, we are risking a lot for questionable benefit. How can the minister continue to justify the ongoing use of glyphosates in our provincial forests?

Answer

Hon. D. Donaldson: I want to acknowledge that we’re looking for ways to do better in the forests, especially around the application of herbicides, and so other forestry innovations, such as the use of superior orchard seed, improved nursery techniques, fast-growing seedlings and well-timed planting is also reducing the amount of herbicide being required.

We continue to investigate other silviculture strategies that take into account climate change and managing for resilient forest ecosystems. I’m very excited about the work of re-establishing forests after they’ve been disturbed by wildfires and recreating a forest mosaic so that deciduous as well as conifer stands are part of that mosaic,  leading to more resilient forest eco-types.

We’ve also been doing work on the impacts of glyphosate on wildlife, specifically with moose. That’s a huge concern to many people in rural areas — moose populations. We want to make sure we’re responding to scientific evidence, and so we have a program where we’ve initiated a two-year study to look at the impacts of herbicide spraying on feed and moose forage and nutritional quality of moose forage.

We anticipate the preliminary results to be available in 2019, and we look forward to implementing that research, based on scientific evidence.

Today in the legislature I rose during Question Period to ask the Minister of Energy Mines and Petroleum Resources why we are giving untold billions in subsidies to an LNG industry instead of investing in the infrastructure that would create long-term, sustainable jobs in our existing mining industry.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: This government has been touting an LNG industry investment decision that will create, at most, 950 long-term jobs, yet B.C.’s internationally regarded mining industry, an industry that literally built our province, already employs more than 16,600.

While LNG prices have been sagging, solar has become the fastest-growing source of new energy worldwide, and photovoltaic cells need copper, molybdenum, silver and other metals that we produce in B.C. Batteries need lithium and graphite, the former of which has incredible potential at extraction when combined with geothermal energy production.

The B.C. Mining Association highlighted the opportunity that this presents in a 2017 report. We have the workforce, the resources and innovation necessary to make B.C. a global hub for solar technology materials, yet we choose to invest in emissions-intensive sunset industries, with comparatively few long-term jobs.

My question is to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Why are we giving untold billions in subsidies to an LNG industry instead of investing in the infrastructure that would create long-term, sustainable jobs in our existing mining industry?

Answer

Hon. M. Mungall: Thank you to the member for the question.

There is no doubt about it. Mining is a foundational economic sector in this province. It is critical to our overall economy. I’m so glad that the member sees the important value and that its future is involved in electric cars, like the one that the member drives, and is involved in renewable energy and all the potential that mining has in terms of our future and those opportunities.

I honestly can’t say why the B.C. Liberals chose not to do so much for this industry while they were in power. It was very unfortunate. Because of that 16 years of neglect, we have stepped in with our first order of business — to start the Mining Jobs Task Force — and we have done that. That task force includes representatives from First Nations, industry, labour, environmental organizations, local government and academia. They have come together. They are doing yeoman’s work to identify how we can ensure that British Columbia is one of the most competitive jurisdictions in the world for this foundational sector to our economy. I look forward to their report.

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: We’ve got an incredible opportunity to define a new vision for industrial development in our province. But it will take careful planning and a commitment to our clean growth strategy. This requires government to become more proactive in signalling the type of investment it wants in our province.

In rural B.C., this starts with ensuring that we have in place the electrification infrastructure so that both existing and prospective mines have the ability to hook up to our provincial grid, providing opportunities to electrify their operations while contributing to the creation of the clean energy sector.

My question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is this: what tangible steps is her ministry taking to ensure that the province has the infrastructure in place to ensure that all future industrial development in our province can have access to the required electrification for their operations?

Answer

Hon. M. Mungall: Absolutely. I agree, exactly, with what the member was saying — how important mining is to our economy in this province, and the opportunity to electrify our industries so that they are producing less and less greenhouse emissions is a huge opportunity and exactly where we need to be going.

It’s one of the reasons that we included mining in cutting PST on electricity. The mining sector is not having to pay PST on their electricity, incentivizing them further to adopt electricity for their operations.

It’s very important as we look at the energy package as a whole that we have the capacity, as well as the energy generation, so that we can meet future demand.

The BC Government today released the Fish Processing Facilities Compliance Audit Report that was commissioned following findings by Tavish Campbell that effluent containing the Piscene Reovirus (so-called “blood water”) was being discharged from a BC fish processing facility.

This issue was explored by my colleague Sonia Furstenau during question period late last year:

The report provides a clear illustration of the type of problems that have arisen from the previous BC Liberal administration’s severe cutbacks to compliance and enforcement initiatives within government.

As the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy noted in the government’s statement accompanying the report’s release:

“The industry has been largely operating under an outdated permitting regime, going back several decades. We are taking immediate steps to ensure permits are updated and strengthened at fish processing facilities throughout B.C.”

Between ICBC, money laundering, the housing crisis and a litany of environmental disasters, it’s increasingly clear that the previous government badly mismanaged our province.

Government has a responsibility to ensure the public interest by proactively updating laws and regulations to fit changing realities. Instead, the previous government left British Columbians with mounting debts while they pillaged the public books and turned a blind eye to harmful activities. We have taken significant steps to remedy this, including banning big money and reforming the lobbying industry, but we must take every opportunity in this minority government to clean up B.C. to prevent such blatant misuse of power.

Below I reproduce the media statement that the BC Green caucus issued in response to government’s release of the report.

Media Release

Findings of fish processing compliance audit show need for reform: B.C. Green caucus
For immediate release
July 4, 2018

VICTORIA, B.C. – The B.C. Green Caucus is calling on government to step up marine monitoring and protection in the wake of an audit of fish processing facilities. Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, says the report shows a disturbing pattern of widespread mismanagement by the previous B.C. Liberal government that must be addressed.

“Between ICBC, money laundering, the housing crisis and a litany of environmental disasters, it’s increasingly clear that the previous government badly mismanaged our province,” said Weaver. “Government has a responsibility to ensure the public interest by proactively updating laws and regulations to fit changing realities. Instead, the previous government left British Columbians with mounting debts while they pillaged the public books and turned a blind eye to harmful activities. We have taken significant steps to remedy this, including banning big money and reforming the lobbying industry, but we must take every opportunity in this minority government to clean up B.C. to prevent such blatant misuse of power.”

Sonia Furstenau, environment spokesperson, added that the findings show why government should adopt Mark Haddock’s recommendations to reform the professional reliance model.

“As the previous government cut the funding needed to fulfill government’s duty to protect the public interest, they saddled our province with completely avoidable messes,” said Furstenau. “Many British Columbians were horrified, like I was, to see Tavish Campbell’s videos of blood water effluent that prompted this audit. It is no wonder people don’t trust the process when we must rely on private citizens and the media to bring such serious issues to light. Adopting Mark Haddock’s recommendations – and the ministry’s recommendations following this audit – will go a long way to restoring the public’s trust that government is looking out for their health and safety, as well as the long-term sustainability of our natural resource sector.”

Adam Olsen, spokesperson for agriculture, said the findings underscore the litany of threats facing B.C.’s wild salmon and added the release of infected blood from farmed fish is another reason why the government should keep its promise to transition away from open-net pen finfish aquaculture.

“Wild salmon are culturally, economically and environmentally essential to our province, yet we are allowing them to be hit at every stage of their development,” said Olsen. “Now we learn they have also been exposed to ‘acutely lethal’ levels of effluent.”

DFO’s 2018 salmon outlook for B.C. states that of 91 different groupings of salmon, only 28 are expected to be at or above the amount necessary for a healthy population.

“This is absolutely unacceptable – we can and we must do better if we want our grandchildren to live in a province with wild salmon,” added Olsen.

-30-

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

Today I was afforded the distinct honour of giving a keynote presentation at Clean Energy BC’s Global Electrification Summit. I took the opportunity to take the audience on a journey from the past to the future — from where we were when Gordon Campbell was BC’s Premier, to where we went when Christy Clark was BC’s Premier, to where we are in this minority government guided by our Confidence and Supply Agreement, to where we can go, when we focus on our potential in the Clean Energy sector.

Below I reproduce the text of my speech.

Text of Speech

Introduction

Thank you. It’s a distinct honour for me to be here and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak at Clean Energy BC’s Global Electrification Summit.

I entered politics via an unusual route. Prior to my election as the MLA for Oak Bay – Gordon Head (and subsequently becoming leader of the B.C. Green Party), I was Lansdowne Professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and analysis at the University of Victoria.

With a PhD in applied mathematics I’d spent 25 years working in the field of atmosphere/ocean/climate science.

I decided to seek election with the BC Green Party in 2012 as I could no longer stand by and watch the dismantling of British Columbia’s climate policies and leadership in clean energy innovation.

Over these past 25 years Clean Energy B.C. has been the voice of British Columbia’s Clean Energy sector and I am sincerely grateful for your contributions to our province.

The BC Green Party and I share your goal to support the growth of British Columbia’s clean energy sector and we will continue to do what we can to improve the regulatory and economic environments for clean energy production through our work in the B.C. legislature.

Clean Energy B.C.’s vision statement is to have British Columbia, Western Canada and the Western US all having access to clean, reliable, cost effective energy produced by the private sector.

It’s to see British Columbia leading the world in modelling a sustainable way of life.

That too is my vision for British Columbia, and the subject on which I would like to speak to you today.
Over the next 20 minutes I’d like to take you on a journey from the past to the future.

From where we were when Gordon Campbell was BC’s Premier,

to where we went when Christy Clark was BC’s Premier,

to where we are in this minority government guided by our Confidence and Supply Agreement,

to where we can go, when we focus on our potential in the Clean Energy sector.

Where we were, with Campbell

Last month I rose in the legislature to speak to Bill 34, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act. The Act made a number of amendments to the original Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, which first became law on November 29, 2007.
Speaking to that bill brought me back to a very important time in my life. 2007 was the year in which the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — released its Fourth Assessment Report.

It was the fourth consecutive report for which I served as a Leader Author in Working Group I’s volume on future projections of climate change.

It was also the year the B.C. government, under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell, decided that acting on climate change was an opportunity that B.C. could not afford to miss out on.

Mr. Campbell recognized that the first piece of legislation needed prior to taking steps to mitigate greenhouse gases was to set a clear target for where we were heading. In doing so, he sent a signal to the market that B.C. was going to be a leader in the new economy.

He set the stage for the emergence of a clean tech sector, a renewable energy sector and created a climate that saw companies starting to invest in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

I had the honour of participating as a member of BC’s first Climate Action Team. We were tasked with coming up with interim targets for 2012 and 2016.

We recommended that government should seek to reduce emissions by 6 percent, relative to 2007, by 2012. And for 2016, we recommended an 18 percent reduction.

I sat in the legislative gallery as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act was introduced in 2007 and listened to Minister Penner speak to its purpose. I felt proud to be a British Columbian that day and told my climate science colleagues around the world to look at the example our jurisdiction was setting for the world.

In 2008, Mr. Campbell’s government developed and entrenched in law the Climate Action Plan. The Plan was, at the time, the most progressive plan to address greenhouse gas emissions in North America, largely due to its revenue-neutral carbon tax.

Government was on track. In fact, we made the 2012 target, thanks, in part, to the policy measures put in place.

Nevertheless, at the time we knew, and government knew, through their wedge analyses, that proposed policies alone were not going to take us to the 33% reductions by 2020 — let alone an 80% reduction by 2050.

More needed to be done.

But we were well positioned to meet the challenge because BC had emerged as a leader internationally in both dealing with the challenge and recognizing the economic opportunity associated with greenhouse gas mitigation.

Where we went, with Clark

But all of our successes started to be overturned when British Columbia’s provincial leadership changed.

In every year since the 2011 change of leadership, emissions have gone up.

Why? Because of the signal government sent to the market that our emissions reductions targets no longer mattered — that economic prosperity would be found in industries from the last century, and that they would help take us back there.

The BC Liberals under Christy Clark stifled clean innovation and introduced policies that further entrenched “dig-it and ship-it” oil and gas development.

And when the market no longer supported these activities, they doubled done by creating more and more subsidies in a desperate attempt to squeeze water from a stone.

The first crack in our wall of climate policies started in July of 2012 when then Premier Christy Clark excluded LNG from the Clean Energy Act. From there, the dismantling of policies became far more aggressive.

I became so frustrated with the direction Ms. Clark’s government was taking B.C., that I ran for office and was elected in 2013.

I felt it was my job to ensure that there was a voice, and a party, that was going to stand up to the government on this issue and try to get government to once again commit to the climate leadership.

Unfortunately, the generational sellout continued, culminating in 2014 with the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, where the Legislature repealed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act from 2008.

All of this was done with the promise that LNG would make British Columbians rich and give the B.C. government a significant new revenue stream. This just hasn’t materialized.

Indeed, despite government doing everything in their power to position B.C. with a booming oil and gas economy, we have seen massively decreasing revenues to B.C. from increasing gas extraction.

What the data shows is quite shocking – while gas production has gone from 25 billion cubic metres in 2001 to over 50 billion cubic meters in 2016/17, royalty and land lease revenues to the B.C. government have gone in the opposite direction, from a record $2.4 billion in 2008/09 down to only $139 million in 2015.

Not only are we not getting paid for this public resource, we are literally paying companies to take it from us.

In 2009, B.C. collected $1.3 billion in natural gas royalties.
Last year, we collected a mere $152 million. Measured as a share of the value of oil and gas production in B.C., royalties collected by government has fallen from 44 percent in 2008 to just 4 percent last year.

In 2009, B.C. earned $39.90 in royalties for every 1000 cubic metres of natural gas. In 2017 it was $2.95.

This is a dismal return on the resources that are being extracted from our province.

We are literally giving away more gas for less money while barrelling past our climate commitments. That’s race for the bottom economics at its worst.

While we became sidetracked with developing an LNG industry and expanding our oil and gas production, other jurisdictions began to emerge and surpass B.C. as climate action trailblazers.

In 2016 leaders around the world signed the Paris accord, which committed signatories to reduce emissions and keep global warming to below 2 degrees relative to pre-industrial levels.

This agreement laid out, in the starkest terms, the choice facing the global community.

We’ve already warmed by 1.1 degrees with another 0.6 degrees in the cards if we do no more than maintain atmospheric greenhouse gas levels at present values.

Add to this, another 0.2 degrees or so from the permafrost carbon feedback and we have a commitment to about 1.9° warming already in store.

The Paris accord essentially translates to this: effective immediately, we must turn the corner and stop investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure that will continue to be around for decades to come.

That’s because of socioeconomic inertia. We don’t build an LNG facility in Kitimat, for example, today to tear it down tomorrow. We build it to last 40 to 50 years. We build it to last past our 2050 greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The scientific community is clear, the international community is clear, much of the business community is clear: we need to make the right choice of investments today because they will affect tomorrow.

Which brings us to where we are now, with our confidence and supply agreement in the present minority government.

Where we are now, with CASA

CASA – the confidence and supply agreement – underpins B.C.’s minority government. It is an agreement to work in good faith, with no surprises, with the B.C. NDP.

CASA has provided the B.C. Green caucus with an opportunity to champion key aspects of our economic platform, and the ability to work closely with government on priority issues like climate policy.

From our perspective, these two files are largely one in the same.

For example, we included two key pieces from our 21st century economy platform in the CASA agreement to help us seize economic opportunities in the emerging economy.

The first piece is the Emerging Economy Task Force.

We proposed the Emerging Economy Task Force to enable government to adapt and respond to changes on the horizon.

We need to modernize government so that it is considerably more responsive to technological innovation.

The Emerging Economy Task Force is looking to the future, identifying emerging trends & advising government on how to maintain our competitiveness & achieve prosperity amidst these changes.

The second item from our platform integrated into CASA is the Innovation Commission (now Innovate B.C.) as well as the appointment of an Innovation Commissioner.

The innovation commissioner serves as an advocate and ambassador for the B.C. technology sector in Ottawa and abroad, to enable B.C. companies to more easily tap into existing federal programs and build key strategic relationships internationally.

I’m confident that both of these initiatives will bolster and grow key sectors of our economy.

Since government was sworn in last July, I have had regular meetings with the Environment, Minister George Heyman, to discuss BC’s climate plan.
Over the past few months, our senior staff has been meeting weekly to further these goals.

I know the Minister cares deeply about this issue and I’m impressed by the expertise of the public service supporting his ministry.

It has been a pleasure to be working with them and I’m optimistic about what we can accomplish collectively.

The B.C. Green Caucus and government both agree that a meaningful climate plan will require careful planning, innovative ideas, and a new economic vision for how B.C. will prosper in a changing and challenging world.

We agree the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples need to be front and centre as we chart a course forward.

Rights, title, lands, territories, culture, traditional knowledge and identities must be protected by, and included in, B.C.’s clean growth strategy.
We want to create a strategy that will treat reducing greenhouse gas emissions as an economic priority and a key driver of our plan to create sustainable jobs and log-term prosperity.

We know responding to the challenge of climate change is both an intergenerational opportunity and responsibility.

I am working directly with the BC NDP to ensure a climate plan is put together that doesn’t simply show a plausible pathway to meeting our targets – but drives a return to the vision of a clean 21st century economy.

We have one of the best public services in the world and for a long time they have had the policies ready to get us there.

What has been missing is political leadership. This minority government must – and will – show that leadership.

I’m hopeful, but still wary of our starting point and the strength of the status quo.

In preparation for this speech, I reread parts of The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery – one of the books said to have inspired Mr. Campbell’s climate action ambitions.

In it Flannery writes; “Climate change is difficult for people to evaluate dispassionately because it entails deep political and industrial implications, and because it arises from the core processes of our civilization’s success.”

I think that speaks to the crossroads many governments face today.

Despite the new opportunities we’re presented with in B.C., some fractions of the B.C. government are continuing to entertain the dream of exporting LNG and are continuing the natural gas giveaway started by the previous administration.

Acknowledging that we need to transform our energy systems, with a plan for our environment, our economy and our communities – and that a climate action strategy is also an exciting economic strategy – is a big step. But it is not enough.

And that is where you come in: Where we can go, working in partnership with the Clean Energy sector.

Where we can go, with Clean Energy

If we are to meet our legislated targets – we will be doing so with clean energy — likely following the lead of people in this room.

In that regard, B.C. is setup to succeed. From our access to cheap, renewable energy, to our educated workforce, to our innovative business community, to the quality of life we can offer here, together with British Columbia’s natural beauty, we have an opportunity to develop our Province into one of the most prosperous jurisdictions in the world.

Our challenges are too big, and the consequences too profound, to ignore this opportunity.

We stand to gain by building on the expertise that our neighbours have already developed in these areas. And yet, there is still so much room to grow in this sector, to improve upon current technologies and policy innovations.

We need to learn from what has worked for our neighbours, and craft them into a “made in B.C. approach” that respects the unique characteristics of our economy, our environment and our energy needs.

The approval Site C was a terribly disappointing decision for me because I believe small-scale, distributed energy projects are the way of the future for B.C. and that we should fundamentally change the mandate of B.C. Hydro.

B.C. Hydro should no longer be the builder of new power capacity.

Rather, it should be the broker of power deals, transmitter of electricity, and leveller of power load through improving British Columbia power storage capacity.

Let industry risk their capital, not taxpayer capital, and let the market respond to demands for cheap power.

We need to optimize support for clean energy development, including grid storage for community or privately generated power and work with neighbouring jurisdictions to expedite the phase out of fossil fuel powered electricity generation.

The future of economic prosperity in B.C. lies in harnessing our innate potential for innovation and bringing new, more efficient technologies to bear in the resource sector.

B.C. will never compete in digging dirt out of the ground with jurisdictions that don’t internalize the same social and environmental externalities that we value.

We will excel through being smarter, more efficient, cleaner and by working together to solve our problems.

This means that we not only export the dirt, but we also export the knowledge, technology and value added products associated with resource extraction.

To get a fair value for our resources that deliver maximum benefits to our communities, we need to get smarter and more strategic when it comes to embracing innovation.

Government should be doing more to support these initiatives and create fertile ground for a sustainable, resilient, and diverse economy.

We should be using our boundless renewable energy resources to attract industry, including the manufacturing sector, that wants to brand itself as sustainable over its entire business cycle, just like Washington and Oregon have done.

We should be setting up seed funding mechanisms to allow the B.C.-based creative economy sector to leverage venture capital from other jurisdictions to our province.

By steadily increasing emissions pricing, we can send a signal to the market that incentivizes innovation and the transition to a low carbon economy.

The funding could be transferred to municipalities across the province so that they might have the resources to deal with their aging infrastructure and growing transportation barriers.

Yes, we should be investing in trade skills, as described, for example, under the B.C. jobs plan.

But we should also be investing further in education for 21st century industries like biotech, high tech and cleantech. It’s critical that we bring the typically urban-based tech and rural-based resource sectors together.

Similarly natural gas has an important role to play, but we should use it to use in our domestic market and explore options around using it to power local transport.

Global investment trends are being driven by the world’s shared Paris commitments, predicated on the fact that keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius is far more cost-effective than dealing with the effects of a temperature rise above that level.

This shift presents a significant opportunity for B.C.’s economy.

Our province is well poised to bolster its leadership in the cleantech sector – we have a strong competitive advantage in the building blocks required to foster a knowledge-based economy.

In Closing

I am truly excited about the prospects that lie ahead for this minority government. I am working every day to ensure that this government embraces the opportunity in front of it. British Columbia has so much to offer and we can and should be a leader in the new economy.

The years ahead will require all of us to come together to look for areas where we can be partners – to drive the innovation that will enable us to conquer what lies ahead. I don’t doubt many of solution we need will come from the people in this room.

Thank you all again for having me here today to speak with you. And for all your work to build a better future for our province.