{"id":55674,"date":"2015-07-14T15:48:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T07:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=55674"},"modified":"2015-07-14T18:46:15","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T10:46:15","slug":"finance-minister-says-b-c-s-law-blueprint-for-largest-private-investment-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/14\/finance-minister-says-b-c-s-law-blueprint-for-largest-private-investment-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance minister says B.C.’s law blueprint for largest private investment deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Winter<\/a>
Winter at gas plant (ShutterStock image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s finance minister says he has introduced legislation that provides the blueprint for building and operating the province’s first liquefied natural gas plant.<\/p>\n

Mike de Jong said Monday the proposed $36-billion facility on B.C.’s north coast would be the largest private investment in the province’s history.<\/p>\n

He called the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act a tool to grant investors certainty from targeted tax increases and environmental regulations.<\/p>\n

Pacific NorthWest LNG, a joint venture backed by Malaysian state-owned energy giant Petronas, wants to construct a plant near Prince Rupert though it has not yet made a final investment decision on the project.<\/p>\n

De Jong said legislation is the final piece of the puzzle that the government has been building for years to attract an LNG industry to B.C.<\/p>\n

“This really is that final piece and following what I hope and believe will be passage of this legislation.”<\/p>\n

He said all that’s left is a federal environmental certificate approving the project, adding Pacific NorthWest LNG is “anxious to begin.”<\/p>\n

De Jong said the law provides the company with a 25-year assurance specific to LNG-related income and ensures that energy and environmental taxes do not increase while corporate and sales taxes could rise.<\/p>\n

He said the guarantees against targeted tax increases are a tradeoff in exchange for thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in revenues that the LNG industry is expected to generate.<\/p>\n

Premier Christy Clark has touted LNG as a way to boost the province’s economy.<\/p>\n

“It really will be an historic debate, one that people will look back on for decades,” she said about the proposed law.<\/p>\n

Opposition NDP Leader John Horgan said his party will vote against the legislation because the tradeoffs do not come with job guarantees for British Columbians.<\/p>\n

“I certainly believe there should be guarantees in a project development agreement that’s giving a 25-year tax holiday to a foreign company, that we should get something back in return other than making a final investment decision in time for the next election.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s finance minister says he has introduced legislation that provides the blueprint for building and operating the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":15415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,19,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-business","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}