LNG is full steam ahead, Christy Clark says

Christy Clark | BCBusiness

Clark says her government will follow its economic game plan with ‘iron discipline’

Premier Christy Clark took stock of a “politically turbulent” summer and laid out her government’s plans for the coming year in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade Thursday afternoon, with a focus on job growth, international trade and resource development.

Despite uncertainty stirred by the Mount Polley mine disaster, public tiffs over LNG projects and the new landscape of aboriginal rights and title in the wake of the June Tsilhqot’in decision, the government will “stick to its guns” on supporting the development of B.C.’s resource economy.

“We’re sticking to our plan,” she said, citing the need for “iron discipline.”

The premier emphasized the importance of B.C.’s resource economy throughout her speech, which she said B.C.’s cities often undervalue. Urban politicians need to remember that natural resources provide wealth to the Lower Mainland, said Clark, singling out Burnaby.

After speculation last week that the future of B.C.’s LNG sector lay in doubt, Clark underscored the importance of exports. We can export or we can watch hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear, said Clark. Later, in a scrum, the premier said that her Monday meeting with Petronas CEO Azhar Abbas had been productive, and that she felt confident that the company would make a final investment decision by year’s end.