CleanBC plan could ‘ruin’ the province’s economy, says BC United leader

The leader of B.C.’s official opposition is criticizing the NDP’s CleanBC plan following the release of a study that shows the potential for negative economic impacts.

The Business Council of British Columbia (BCBC) released a report in August stating the “government’s own modelling shows its CleanBC plan will dampen economic growth and set B.C.’s prosperity back more than a decade.”

The report stated the CleanBC Roadmap policies “will result in B.C.’s economy being $28.1 billion smaller in 2030 than would be the case in the absence of its additional policies” when compared to the B.C. GDP projections dating back to 2017.

The BCBC report stated the economic impact of the plan, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, would “mean lower average incomes, fewer job opportunities, less government revenue, and a meaningful decline in B.C.’s overall prosperity.”

Specifics on how the average household would be impacted were not stated in the report.

The B.C. NDP’s CleanBC report stated the policies would create 18,000 direct and indirect jobs between 2020 and 2030, and while the BCBC’s report did not state if jobs would be lost during that period, it did note that the projections equate to 1,800 jobs a year in a province that typically sees a net job increase of 30,000 annually even during times of economic turmoil.

In response to the BCBC’s report, BC United leader Kevin Falcon told Vernon Matters the plan would result in a historically low GDP rate of growth if the NDP plan was implemented.

“It would be 0.4 per cent GDP growth by 2030, which would be the lowest level of economic growth in the history of this province,” Falcon stated.

Falcon said calculations show the economic impact of the plan would “also result in an $11,000 reduction in family income annually” and would “cost over 200,000 jobs in British Columbia,” though neither he nor the BCU team had provided Vernon Matters with details on where those figures came from as of time of publication.

Falcon also claimed the measures outlined by the BC NDP’s plan “would not make a blip” in terms of impacts on global emissions.

“British Columbia represents, in terms of global emissions, 0.17 per cent,” Falcon told Vernon Matters.

“Part of our argument is why would we ruin our economy and hammer families like this to have virtually no improvement in global emissions.”

Falcon said he does believe that climate change is a real threat to B.C. but believes so-called “common sense measures” should be put in place to address emission reduction and climate readiness while not impacting the province’s economy or workforce.

“What we would do as a BC United government is we would go to where we can actually see meaningful reduction, and because B.C. is part of a global citizenry, we would use our LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports from Canada LNG, a project we supported and got launched long before the NDP could kill it, which is important because that would export LNG to countries like China, India, Japan, Korea, which allows them to move off of coal-powered fire, the dirtiest form of emissions, onto LNG power, which can reduce their emissions by 50 per cent,” Falcon explained.

The leader said the BCU also has a plan for wildfire management.

“Rather than do what the [NDP] government did, appoint yet another committee to go and study wildfires again for another year then come back and make recommendations, we all know what we have to do and that means we have to start today and treat it like a crisis and get out and get into communities, make sure that they’ve got the dollars necessary to begin doing the preventative work to ensure we’re creating resilient communities that can handle future forest fires when they come. That means interface breaks; we’ve got to make sure we’ve got technology so those bordering communities near urban forests or rural forests have the sprinkler technologies to protect the assets; making sure we work with First Nations and contractors to get a lot of that work happening now during the non-forest fire season; making sure we embrace technology including night-vision technology so we can fight forest fires 24 hours a day.”

Falcon added these measures will not only help prevent forest fires but also reduce emissions, claiming fumes from the fires in B.C. this past summer accounted for more greenhouse gas emissions than those produced by all vehicles, trucks and planes in B.C. combined.

Other key points in the BCU plan are investing in climate-resilient infrastructure such as reservoirs and dikes to “not only prepare for the impacts of climate change but also create jobs and economic growth;” to end the electric vehicle subsidy; to prioritize private sector innovation in areas like carbon capture utilization and storage and the electrification of the LNG sector; and invest in rapid transit infrastructure and build high-density housing near transit hubs.

The leader of the BCU added that all these actions could be put in place to “make sure that we’re doing our bit here in British Columbia for climate change, but not at the expense of destroying our economy and putting us back into a recession and hammering families and family income.”

In response to the study and Falcon’s comments, George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy issued a short written statement to Vernon Matters.

“CleanBC is reducing emissions and creating jobs,” Heyman’s statement read.

“Ripping it up would set us back and hurt our economy. The costs of climate change are too high not to act. And people are paying the price for that: B.C. has spent billions responding to wildfires and floods. People want to create jobs while also protecting our environment. That’s what we’re doing. Kevin Falcon showed today that he can’t be counted on to do either one.”