The federal government says it will provide $200 million over three years for British Columbia’s Woodfibre LNG project, aiming to expand its liquefied natural gas export capacity.
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The federal government will invest $200 million over the next three years in British Columbia’s Woodfibre LNG project, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said in Vancouver.
Hodgson said the funding will help diversify Canada’s energy exports and drew on the “geographic advantage” of Canada’s Pacific coastline, adding, “We will turn geographic advantage into conditions to attract investment to this country, to build major projects, and to create jobs for British Columbians and Indigenous Peoples, as we grow this industry in partnership with the private sector.”
Woodfibre LNG is a liquefied natural gas export facility about seven kilometres southwest of Squamish. The project’s CEO, Luke Schauerte, said the facility is about 75 per cent finished and that the first exports are more than a year away.
According to Hodgson, the federal investment would support a nearly 25 per cent increase in the project’s capacity to 2.6 million tonnes of LNG per year, up from 2.1 million.
Hodgson also said Woodfibre is being developed in collaboration with the Squamish Nation and described it as the first major industrial site in Canadian history approved through an Indigenous-led environmental assessment, with the First Nation acting as regulator.
British Columbia’s premier-designate, Lorne Doerkson, said the federal funding was welcome and pointed to the province’s ability to “build big things.” He said, “One question that has come up, whether I’m in the Cariboo, whether I’m in the Okanagan, the Island or Metro (Vancouver) is: Can we still build big things in this province? And today is proof that we can.”
Schauerte said the project has already generated benefits, including more than $13.6 billion in economic output from construction and nearly $7 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product. He also said construction has created more than 52,000 job-years, with more than 1,500 people on-site.
He said that once completed, Woodfibre LNG would generate about $11.6 billion in government revenues over the next 40 years.
Not all reactions were supportive. Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, questioned why the project could not proceed on “straight up commercial terms,” saying Woodfibre and other projects face competition from “a lot of new supply coming on stream” and that Ottawa is “pushing Canadian projects across the ‘finish line’ with various subsidies.”
The BC Greens also criticized the funding. MLA-elect Jeremy Valeriote, who said he represents the area where the project is under construction, called the federal money another “gift for the fossil fuel industry,” adding that communities are dealing with the cost of living and recent flooding around Squamish. He said the federal funding “deserves a government focused on keeping them safe, not on another fossil fuel project that will only increase the climate risk.”
Interim British Columbia NDP leader Jennifer Whiteside said she supports the federal investment, saying work by the out-going provincial government helped position the province for a more prosperous future.
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