I don’t know. Do you? No.

And, it seems, we won’t be permitted to determine if the BC Liberal government is lying to us about their future vision of rolling in billions in fresh new LNG tax money because the supporting reports won’t be released. So much for accountability and open government.

We also won’t be able to determine if these independent reports were actually independent, or if their spreadsheets included rainbow juice and unicorn tears to come up with this credibility-challenged $1 trillion LNG industry.

If the BC Liberals want to be credible and not continue to be painted as the BC Lieberals, they should release these reports. If they don’t, people will merely conclude they’re making this all up. And that’s what I’m concluding until the government dials down their contempt for transparency and the public, and releases the data behind these wild plans. Maybe the budget next week will have the facts, but I’m not holding my breath.

Here are some details from the throne speech spin:

Item: “The economic impact of five new liquefied natural gas plants will be significant. Projected total revenues to government are estimated between $130 billion and $260 billion over the next 30 years. In order to maximize the benefits to future generations, the provincial government is establishing a new B.C. Prosperity Fund.”

Fund to begin accumulating in 2017, just in time for the next election in the four-year provincial cycle. Benefits determined by calculations from two independent reports, neither of which was made public.

[snip]

Item: “By introducing an additional tax applicable to LNG in B.C., we can maximize the benefits to British Columbians while still remaining competitive.”

Competitive with whom? Australia, mainly. And according to a review conducted by the Liberals, which they’ve also not released, B.C. has plenty of room to move on the tax front vis-à-vis Down Under.

Read more: http://ow.ly/hGG89

 

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and in a limited capacity in Facebook, and at his website, dgiVista.org.