Where things go now in BC

We are in a unique situation in Canadian political history.   There are only a couple of examples I know of where the government was reduced to a large minority or a bare majority.

• Ontario 1985 - the PCs won 52 seats, the Liberals 48 and NDP 25.   The Liberals and NDP cut a deal and replaced the PC government after it was defeated on a vote of non-confidence.  With the change in government the Liberals provided the speaker and the PC speaker resigned.
• Saskatchwan 1999 - NDP won 29 seats, the Sask Party 25 and Liberals 4.  The NDP government continued in a coalition with the Liberals with a Liberal being the speaker.
• New Brunswick 2003 - PCs 28, Liberals 26 and NDP 1.   With the speaker the numbers were tied in the house but the Liberals decided to let the the PC government continue to rule.
• Ontario 2011 the Liberals won 53, PCs 37 and NDP 17.   A PC member almost ran to be speaker until it was pointed out to him this would allow the Liberals to govern as if they had a majority.  The government lasted 32 months as a typical minority.

Only in the Ontario situation, where the opposition clearly had many more seats than the government, did the government change.   Interestingly in 1975 the Ontario PCs were reelected with a minority but the Liberals and NDP could not come to a deal to replace the government.

We had our election on May 9th but did not have the final results until May 24th which is the day I am starting on.

May 24th - election results are completed
May 25th to May 28th the Greens negotiate on who they will support
May 29th - NDP announces they have come to an agreement with the Greens
May 30th - 1:30 pm Christy Clark addressed the province and said she would meet the legislature in June
May 30th - 2:00 NDP and Greens sign their deal - this is many ways is the functional end of the 2017 election

June 22nd - Legislature returns and Throne Speech is read.   Is this a reasonable time to meet the legislature?  I would argue yes.   We are only talking just over three weeks between the end of the election process and the Throne Speech.  In Canadian terms this is relatively fast.   It is only a few days longer than it took in Ontario in 1985.

When will we get a vote of confidence in the government?   If every member spoke as long as they were allowed the vote would take place on July 5th or 6th.   The soonest the vote could happen is on the afternoon of June 29th.

Let us say the vote is on June 29th and the government is defeated.   Christy Clark would then resign and the Lieutenant Governor can call on John Horgan to try and form a government.   Horgan would most likely be sworn in on Friday July 7th.  

John Horgan said he would meet the legislature within a month of being sworn in which would be most likely Tuesday August 8th with a vote on August 16th or 17th on confidence in the government.   This would be the first vote of the NDP speaker to keep the government in power - yes, it will be an NDP Speaker.   The house will be tied 43 to 43 with the speaker as the 87th member.

The Speaker of the House votes only if there is a tie.  They vote for confidence in the government but against any new laws or amendment of the laws.    This is not only the convention but is alluded to in the law in Section 43 of the BC Constitution.

The problem at this point is how does the NDP manage to pass any laws when the house is tied?   The conventions that guide how the speaker votes is not one that works well for a new government trying to do anything.   Unless the Liberals agree, the NDP would not be able to pass any laws or even change the standing orders of the Legislature.

I assume the NDP would try to bring forward a budget in mid to late August.   What this budget would look like on final reading is very much in question.   During the committee stage, the point at which any bill is considered clause by clause, the Speaker does not take part and the government provides a chair who does not vote.    This means during the committee stage the NDP would have 39 votes, the Greens 3 and Liberals 43.   The Liberals would have a majority and could amend the bills as they like.   This means the Liberals could alter the NDP budget, though there are limits within the standing orders to how far the changes can go.

When the bill comes out of the committee stage in an amended form, this is what now goes forward to the 3rd and final reading.   The NDP does not have the votes to amend the bill at this point.   The NDP would have to pass a budget as amended by the Liberals even if the Liberals voted against it because the budget is a confidence motion.   Based on the NDP/Green agreement the Greens would expected to vote for the amended budget as well.

The NDP could withdraw their budget after the committee stage but this is not a good way to go.  Interim supply would only last for three months after the NDP government is sworn in.   They would have to pass a budget by early October or go to an election.

This all applies for any government bill.   $10 a day childcare?   Liberals can amend it at the committee stage.   Changes to the voting system?  Liberals could alter at committee stage.   Political donations?   Liberals could change to a form they would like to see.    Everything depends on the Liberals if it comes to the legislature.

The NDP budget is likely to be passed in mid September with some amendments from the Liberals.  Once it passes I expect the NDP to end the sitting of the house and not resume till February.   There is no reason the NDP would want to have the legislature sit more than the minimum.   I have to wonder how well the NDP/Green agreement would fare over the five winter months when the NDP is governing but the legislature is not sitting.

The NDP would bring forward a budget in February 2018.   I think this budget will be defeated because the NDP wants a new election to try and get a majority.  We will most likely have an election in late March 2018.

John Horgan is not going to be willing to govern for any length of time having to cooperate with the Liberals all the time in the house.    He will not be able to implement his political agenda.

A few things to look out for if/when the NDP is government:

• Problems with some NDP cabinet ministers - a new government has teething pains in their first year, normally you have four years in power to the teething pains are long gone
• Liberal and Green cooperation to amend government acts in the legislature 
• A possible serious fillibuster by the Liberals at some point
• More discord between the NDP and Greens
• Anger by people that the government is defacto governing by Orders in Council
• Loud opposition to the actions of the NDP government from business interests and from construction unions
• Discontent from the public sector labour movement because the government will not deliver anything close to what they are seeking
• A possible Liberal leadership race over the winter with a new leader by February 2018.   Christy Clark would not resign her seat
• Death of any Liberal MLAs.   If a Liberal MLA were to die the NDP has a six month window in which to govern 43 to 42 before a by-election is held.   I would expect the legislature to be recalled rather quickly after the death of a Liberal to pass as much of their program as they can.  Ralph Sultan is 84 years old though a very fit 84 year old.
• Death of any NDP MLAs.   This gets really tricky if it were to happen because now the NDP and Greens would not have a majority even with the speaker.   If the death happens while the legislature is sitting the Liberals could easily pass a non confidence motion.

Yes I was at the BC Liberal Convention - it was well run and good for me to be there

I am back with the BC Liberals again.  I joined them the first time in late 1999 when a friend ask me to run his nomination campaign in the Yale Lillooet riding.   I went to the 2016 convention and I have a number of personal and political observations.

The Political

• This convention was bigger than past BC Liberal ones I went to
• The age of the people at the convention was much younger than I had expected.   At 51 I often still feel young at political events.   At the BC Liberal convention I felt old for the first time.   The representation of millennials was significant
• This is not Gordon Campbell's Liberals.  In the past no serious man would have gone to the convention in anything but a suit.   I arrived in a suit on Friday and I felt overdressed   It was also a much more grass roots feeling event than in the past.   
• The Liberals are better organized than I have ever seen them, frankly better organized than any BC party I have ever seen.   The convention theme was "Team" and it was very much how the event felt.
• The convention was very well organized and the details well though out
• The convention was a very positive event.   People were happy and even energetic.   
• I have never seen as many or as well attended hospitality suites as I did on Friday night

  The Personal

• As you may or may not know I am suffering from severe clinical depression.  And I went to the convention with some anxiety about how I would do because I tend to dislike crowds of people when I do not know a lot of them.   I did not need to worry.
• In general the event was very welcoming for me.  Within in 10 minutes of being there I had run into five people I had not seen in years.   Over the weekend connected with a lot more people than I had expected.
• The very positive atmosphere at the event was very good for me.   No one was talking negatively around me and that helped my mood.  It made me realize I need to not engage with negativity when it comes to politics and simply ignore the angry people online
• The most important thing for me was that I got a lot of positive validation from the people at the convention.   I had a number of people that I really did not know come up to me and ask me how I was doing, how was the depression, how was I after the fire at the old house and more.   I several MLAs and one MP seek me out to meet me in person.  
• Once again dissenting opinions are ok with the BC Liberals if you are expressing yourself rationally   I liked that I could talk to people I disagreed with on issues and feel like we could both hear it each other and find points of commonality

Digging into the details of this week's poll

There is a lot more detail in the Innovative Research poll that came out yesterday than what is out in the media and I thought I would look at some of the more interesting things I can find

Issues

If we group issues into larger broad categories - take the numbers with a grain of salt because I am using the existing rounded numbers and not the raw results

Economic Issues 33% - more than half of this is affordable housing
Govt programs 19%
Environment Issues 13%
Social Issues 6%

They asked how likely people were to vote for a party which I find an interesting measure because it shows if the support is deep or not.

Here are the results for "Definitely" and "Very Likely" versus "Would Never Vote For" for each party

Party     +    -   net
Liberals 26%  22%  -4
NDP      19%  27%  -8
Greens   14%  28% -14
BCCP     11%  29% -18

As you can see the Liberals enjoy a significant advantage

Looking at the two major parties in a couple of sub groups
      under 35  35-54  over 54
Party     +       +       +
Liberals 25%     24%     28%
NDP      24%     17%     19%

Among younger voters the NDP is very close to the Liberals but still behind as you get to older groups the NDP falls behind

by region
       Van/LM North/Int Van Isle
Party     +       +        +
Liberals 29%     23%      21%
NDP      22%     15%      20%

They also have a table looking at how people said they would vote compared to how likely or they were to support the NDP and Liberals

What this table shows is there someone that is willing to seriously consider the NDP but does not vote for them is more likely to vote for the Liberals than the Greens.

Another thing that stands out is the high result for the BC Conservatives in the Not Very/Would Never category for both parties.   It says to me there is a group of conservatives in BC that hate both the NDP and the Liberals.   

The Liberals have a significantly better number for getting the vote or the people that would seriously consider their party than the NDP does.   That together with the size of the category means the BC Liberals have a much larger safe core pool of support than the NDP.

Now if we look at people that are open to voting for a party, Somewhat likely or better in the poll, here are he results.   This is a good measure of the theoretical ceiling for each party

Party     +   

Liberals 55%   
NDP      46% 
Greens   41%  
BCCP     32%  

This is very bad for the NDP.   For them to win they need to get almost everyone open to voting for them to vote for them.   At the same time the Liberals can achieve a win with about 80%

However you slice it, this is a very bad poll for the NDP.   If the data is a good reflection of reality the NDP has to do something drastic to change the landscape to be able to win.

Finally a fix for political junkies in BC - 2 new polls

Hi, my name is Bernard and I am a political junkie.   I get my fix from election days and polls.   As much as a I know these polls are not real proper data, it is all I have to go on.   It has been six months since I last had a BC poll hit.  

Here are the results from Ipsos and Insights West

Party   All of BC   Metro Van   Van Isle    Rest of BC
       Ipsos Insit Ipsos Insit Ipsos Insit Ipsos Insit
Liberal 42    34    32    37    32    21    44    35
NDP     36    40    39    39    39    52    28    35
Green   10    14     6    13    25    22     9    13
Cons    11    10    10     9     4     5    18    18
Other    1     2     1     2     0     0     2     1

So what can we make of these numbers?    First, there is no clear leader, there is a race.   Second, the Greens have a measurable strength on Vancouver Island, high enough that more seats are a realistic target.  Third, the moribund BC Conservatives have reasonable strength in the interior and north.

The 10% or so support for the BC Conservatives says to me there is a desire by a part of the BC population for an actual right wing party.   This number is in my opinion people parking their support.    The party has no leader, no media presence and no obvious grass roots organization but it is polling at 10%.  

The NDP has good enough numbers that it could win the next election but the polls are not showing the sort of monster lead like in the run up to the 2013 election.    I have to wonder if it is seen as a race if more people will come out and vote for the NDP?

What has happened to the BC Conservatives?

In early 2012 the BC Conservatives were on the rise    They had an MLA, John Van Dongen, that had crossed from the Liberals.   The party leader was a well known former federal MP, John Cummins.   By in the fall of 2012 the party shot themselves in the foot and did not do very well in the 2013 election.

The party has had three years since then to build something up.   The latest polling even shows there is an appetite for a party on the right.   There seemed to be some life in the party and the new leader Dan Brooks had some energy but he resigned this spring.

The party is holding a leadership convention in mid September but no one seems interested in being the leader.

There is a need and desire in this province for a real right wing party but there is little chance the BC Conservatives will be that party.

http://bcconservative.ca/

How is three terms effecting the 16 NDP MLAs that have only been in opposition?

The NDP in BC has almost become a long term institutional official opposition in BC.   19 of the current NDP MLAs are now come to the end of their third term in opposition.  16 of these MLAs have never served in government

While the NDP has been in opposition since 2001, none of the three NDP MLAs that served at some point between 2001 and 2005 are in the legislature.   Three of current NDP MLAs served in th 1991-2001 NDP goverment - Sue Hammell, Mike Farnworth and Leonard Krog.   But there are 16 MLAs that have served in opposition for 11 years now

The 14 following MLAs entered legislature in the 2005 election:

• Robin Austin
• Harry Bains
• Raj Chouhan
• Katrine Conroy
• Adian Dix
• Rob Flemming
• Scott Fraser
• John Horgan
• Carole James
• Maurine Karagianis
• Norm Macdonald
• Bruce Ralston
• Doug Routley
• Nicholas Simons
• Shane Simpson
• Claire Trevena

John Horgan and Adrian Dix both held senior political jobs with the 1991 to 2001 NDP government.

Three terms is a long time to be waiting to be in government when you are in the official opposition.   As a continuous group in opposition in BC this is by far the largest ever seen.  This group of 16 MLAs is unprecedented in BC history.

In the last NDP dry spell of 1975 to 1991 only had one MLA served all the way through it, Emery Barnes but he had done a term in government in 1972-75.   The only MLA in that era that served as long in opposition as the current group of 16 was Gordon Hanson who was first elected in 1979.

So far none of these MLAs have stated they will be retiring which means all 16 MLAs could be re-elected next year.   One has to wonder how these MLAs maintain their motivation.   Could this large constant group of MLAs in opposition dose the fire in the belly of all the MLAs in Victoria?   Have they become an institutionalized old guard comfortable with opposition?    

It is probably not healthy for the NDP to have 46% of their caucus having served for so long in opposition.    Whatever the outcome of the 2017 election, the NDP needs to have a lot more new blood running in the election.  No matter how good these MLAs are it is likely time for most of them to retire.

Possible Outcomes of the 2017 BC Election

In order of who likely I think the result is

• Liberal Majority - at the moment I think this is the most likely outcome but the election is a year away and many things can happen in that year.   At this point I would say it is Christy Clark's election to lose.
• NDP Majority - I pay closer attention to politics than the vast majority of people in BC and I can not tell you what the NDP would do as government other than not be the BC Liberals, whatever that means.   The NDP is not making a strong case for why they should be government.   The party is not resonating with the public in any significant way at the moment.
• NDP Minority - For there to be a realistic chance of a minority government the Greens need to win more seats and just a couple more, but at least five to ten.    Each seat the Greens, or anyone else, wins, the higher the probability of a minority.   Because there is a bigger overlap between Green and Liberals and Greens and the NDP, the better the Greens do the more seats the Liberals will lose.   If the Greens can win 6 to 12 seats, which is not impossible, they will have drained off enough support from the Liberals for the NDP to win a bunch of seats and could leave us in a minority government situation.  The odds of the Greens winning more than four is not high at this time but the election is still a year away..
• Liberal Minority -  Highly unlikely because it would require a very specific set of events to all happen and if it did I would expect it to be very close to a majority.  The result would be something like 42 Liberals, 41 NDP, 3 Greens and 1 independent.
• Anything else - What else could there be you ask?   A completely new populist party - unlikely because I do not see the popular groundswell for this and with only a year left till the election there is not enough time left..   The Greens win a minority by winning 30 seats while the Liberals and NDP each win about 28 or 29 seats.

A this time my ball park of the odds

1. Liberal Majority 70.00%
2. NDP Majority 25.00%
3. NDP Minority 4.80%
4. Liberal Minority 0.15%
5. Anything Else - 0.05%

2016 BC by-elections compared to the 2012 BC by-elections

On April 19th 2012 BC had two by-elections, Port Moody-Coquitlam and Chilliwack-Hope.  Both were held by the BC Liberals and in both cases the NDP won the seats.   The Greens did not run any candidates in the races but the BC Conservatives did and put a lot of effort into winning the Chilliwack-Hope by-election.

The BC Liberal melt-down was heralded by many (and yes by myself as well) as a sign of a government on the way out.   It was also an indication of how weak the Greens were and the rising strength of the BC Conservatives.   As it turned out, the by-election had no connection to the provincial election a year later.   The Liberals won a majority, the NDP lost both seats, the BC Conservatives melted away and the Greens won one seat, came very close in a second and pushed the BC Liberals into third place in two more.

Four years later and we have two by-elections, Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and Coquitlam-Burke Mountain.   This time not only are the Greens running candidates, the Greens are actually putting effort into the campaigns.   The BC Conservatives have not nominated any candidates.   So far I have not heard anyone suggesting that the party that last held the seat is not going to win it again.

Is there anything the 2016 by-elections can tell us about the 2017 election?   Here is my take:

• If the Liberals hold Coquitlam-Burke Mountain and come in second in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant I think they are well positioned to realistically win in 2017
• The Greens deliberately did not run in 2012 for financial and resource reasons.   The BC Conservatives are not running candidates in 2016 because I do not think they could find anyone willing to run for them.   It says to me the BC Conservatives will be a non factor in the 2017 election unless something dramatic happens like a serious former MP were to take over the leadership.   
• If the NDP can win the Coquitlam-Burke Mountain by-election it would say to me the party is better organized than I think or the mood of the public is much more anti-Christy than I am hearing.   It is what the NDP needs to get some momentum 
• I think for the Greens a success would be breaking 20% in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and 10% in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain.   A good result would be coming second in either seat, a very good result would be to come second in both of them, and a stelllar result would be to win either one.   Though I have trouble seeing Joey Keithley winning in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain and the NDP losing Vancouver-Mount Pleasant would be stunning.   The Liberals could not take it in 2001.
• Interesting is that the BC Libertarians have managed to nominate a candidate in both seats.   I still do no think they will get much more than 1% to 2% of the vote.

We are 21 days till the by-election and they are getting almost no media whereas the 2012 by-elections were getting headline news.   No one seems to care and for that reason I think the results will not really matter.

State of Treaty Negotiations - Dead in the Water!

The BC Treaty Commission is back in the news for the first time in a very long time because the BC cabinet would not approve George Abbott as Chief Commissioner even though he was the one suggested for the job by the province.   With the BCTC in the media because of this event there has been commentary about the state of Treaty negotiations in BC but very little of that has been well informed about the reality of what is going on in Treaty negotiations.

Ts'Kw'aylacw Negotiating Team in 1999

The BCTC was created as a tripartite "Keeper of the Process" as part of the 1991 BC Claims Taskforce Report.   The purpose of the Treaty Commission was to make sure each of the parties would take the negotiations seriously.   By 2000 it was clear to everyone that the BCTC was toothless and could do nothing other than mildly scold the parties if someone was not taking the process seriously.   Ultimately the BCTC is little more than giving the negotiations a veneer of non-partisan respectability but can do nothing to make the Feds or the Province seriously negotiate.    The BCTC oversees a Treaty process that has been fundamentally flawed from the start.

Old church on the Leon Creek reserve

Negotiations in the BC Treaty process started in 1993.  After 22 years there have only been four final agreements representing a total of eight Indian Act Bands.    Why have there been so few settlements and why have those taken so long?

The primary reason Treaty negotiations are stalled in BC is because there is a fundamental disagreement between the Crowns and First Nations on Aboriginal title and rights.

First Nations assert their ownership over much of the province and come to the negotiations from the perspective that they would not have to surrender their ownership of the land.    First Nations assumed that by being accepted in the negotiations that this was a tacit recognition by the Crown that there are Aboriginal title and rights held by the First Nation.

Pavilion Lake in the winter

The previous comprehensive claims process required the First Nation to prove what lands they had aboriginal rights to.    It was a costly research process and many First Nations were insulted they had to prove they existed.

The two Crowns come from the perspective that any Aboriginal title or rights not specifically recognized by the courts de facto do not exist and that the Treaty negotiations would replace any possible Aboriginal title and rights with new Treaty rights but since there were not court recognized ownership, any Treaty rights would be an improvement.    The Crown has acted as if the First Nations came with nothing to the table and were mere supplicants seeking government largess.

This fundamental difference has lead to the very different assumptions about how the negotiations would go.   First Nations assumed that each settlement would be unique and based on the title and rights of each First Nation.   The negotiators from the Crown have approached the negotiations with a one size fits all model in which an Indian is worth X in cash and land and that all settlements would be broadly the same in value.

The Chilcotin - no need for Treaty negotiations here

This difference in assumptions means that what First Nations expect is dramatically more than what the Crown is willing to agree to at the table.   For a typical First Nation in BC the scale of the land settlement most likely on offer is only about 10% of what the First Nation is willing to accept.  

Some people on the First Nation side see the approach of the Crowns to the negotiations as settlement through exhaustion - if the talks drag on long enough eventually the First Nations will have to settle for the position of the Crowns.   Certainly that seems to be core to the Federal government negotiation position and has been so for the last 22 years.  

Cynical people would point to the fact that negotiating is cheaper than settling for the Federal government, so why rush to a settlement?

Few First Nations in the BC Treaty Process see the current negotiations as a path towards a settlement.

So why have only two First Nations left the BC Treaty Process if it is not something most First Nations see as a path to a settlement?   Money.    First Nations in BC have few revenue sources that allow them to decide what they will do and how.    The BC Treaty Process comes with loans and grants for the negotiations.   This money can be used to do a lot of the important capacity building work that needs to be done by First Nation governments.  It is also the only money that allows First Nations to do the research needed to know their land better.

Christy Clark was right in saying there have to be fundamental changes to the BC Treaty process.  The charade that are the current negotiations have to come to an end because of the Tsilhqot'in decision.

In June 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada released their decision on Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia.  With that one decision the courts affirmed that Xeni Gwet'in had ownership of a lot more land than anything that would be possible within the Treaty process.  Not only does Aboriginal Title exist, it exists as First Nations have always said, over a large amount of the land.

The current template that the Crowns are using for the negotiations are no longer viable because First Nations could get control again over a lot more land through the courts.  Not only is the court route more likely to offer a much better settlement, it also faster and much cheaper than the current Treaty negotiations.

It has been almost ten months since the Tsilhqot'in decision which should have marked an end to the BC Treaty process and finally forced the Federal and Provincial Crowns to come to the table with a process to recognize Aboriginal Title in BC.

-------------------------------------------------------
From 1995 to 2002 I worked as a Treaty negotiator for the Ts'Kw'aylcw First Nation.   The First Nation chose to leave the process when it was clear that the governments would only agree to a tiny amount of the land being returned to First Nation control.

Current Stage of LNG Projects in BC

The timelines for LNG in BC have been slipping and the government is going out of their way to try and show a huge interest in BC by listing every flight of fancy project out there.   Somehow by giving equal weight to serious projects and total pie in the sky projects the government thinks the public will be more sold on the LNG idea.

Here is my take on the 17 LNG projects in BC

Projects in operation 

• FortisBC Tilbury LNG Plant - The plant has been in operation since 1971 and was built to supply demand for LNG in BC

Projects Under Construction - this means any approved project with an investment decision made
None

Probable Projects - These projects are far enough along that they likely will go ahead

• WesPac - This is a small project next to an existing LNG plant owned by FortisBC.  3 mmtpa
• Woodfibre LNG - a small project located in Woodfibre near Squamish.   The final investment decision was supposed to be before July 1st this year but we are now just over three months after that date with no decision.  Opposition is rising to this project.  2.1 mmtpa

Not only do I think there are only two probable projects, they also happen to be among the smallest ones proposed,   These two projects total 5.1 mmtpa, less than one feed train for a large LNG project.

Possible projects - the projects seem to be actively being worked on but by no means close to a final investment decision

• Aurora LNG - It is still some years before a final investment is made but this projects has some Asian partners with markets and with deep pockets.  24 mmpta
• LNG Canada - The project has four large companies are partners so the capital is not an issue.   Originally 2015 was stated as the date for a final investment decision, but the dates for everything to do with the project beyond the end of the environmental assessment process have been dropped   24 mmpta 
• Pacific Northwest LNG - A final investment decision is supposed to come before the end of 2014 but with the noises from Petronas I have to wonder if the decision date will be significantly delayer - 19.2 mmpta
• Prince Rupert LNG - British Gas is the propoent of this project but I suspect that without a partner they will not move forward.   21 mmtpa

These four possible projects are all large ones.  They are big enough that the partners could spend $200,000,000 on their project and easily walk away because this is only 1% of the project cost. These projects will be entirely tied to long term prices for LNG in Asia.   Everything depends on the price differential between BC and Asia being large enough in 2025.   If one of these four is built this is 20 mmtpa of LNG.

 

Speculative Projects - they have at least something done but not much

• Kitimat LNG - A project partnership between Chevron and Apache.   The project has gone rather quiet.   I suspect that the partners need more partners with a lot of capital
• WCC LNG Ltd - this project is very early days with the most optimistic final investment decision date still four years away.  They do have an export permit.  20 mmtpa 

Very Speculative Projects - I do not believe these projects will happen

• Discovery LNG - The project is proposed by Quicksilver Resources.  As a project it makes no sense to me because it is not near any natural gas.   The cost of going to the island makes this unrealistic.
• Grassy Point LNG - this is a project by Woodside Energy of Australia.    There are no dates for when they might make an investment decision or when it might be built.  Without some partners with deep pockets I can not see how this goes forward given the large cost overruns and delays of the Pluto LNG project.
• Kitsault Energy - The owners of Kitsault are looking for another use for their town site and I think are trying to interest one of the LNG projects to locate there.   This in my opinion is not a serious LNG proposal
• Steelhead LNG Corp - A partnership with one of the local First Nations.   It is very early stage for this project and there is no money to build anything.  No timelines exist for this project.  The capital costs of a pipeline to Vancouver Island makes it an uncompetitive location.
• Canada Stewart Energy Project - This is one of the newer projects and seems to be primarily connected to Chinese State enterprises.   The project timelines are fantasies.  They are suggesting building the pipeline and facility starting in 2015

Unknown - I can not find out enough about these projects to understand where they are at

• Douglas Channel Energy - This project is one of the smallest ones and one of the few that I thought was realistically going to be in operation.   It ran into major financial problems October 2013.  AltaGas was supposed to be stepping in but as of August this had not happened.  I do not know the current state of the project
• Triton LNG - This is a project between AltaGas and Idemitsu to build a floating LNG facility.   It would be a small plant but no site has been chosen
• Watson Island LNG - this is a small proposed to redevelop Watson Island as a LNG export terminal in Prince Rupert, but beyond that I know nothing about it

Another funding problem arising from the Teachers' strike

The government has already said they want the money back from the school districts for the first three weeks of the school year but I suspect that will rivaled in impact on finances from another factor, the loss of students to independent schools.   It seems a lot of parents chose to take their kids out of the public system and enrolled them in independent schools this year.  My best guess is that this will result in a loss of $30,000,000 to $60,000,000 in funding for public schools this year.

All school districts are funded based on total enrollment in the schools, if that number is down the funding for the school district will be down.   For many years now the enrollment in public schools has been falling while at the same time rising for independent schools.   Total enrollment in all schools should be about 635,000 this year of which I would have expected about 87.7% to be in public schools but I suspect the strike has impacted this.

I suspect that the move to independent schools will have been done by parents who have already been considering and the strike just pushed them over the edge.   So how many will that likely have been?My best guess is that 1-2% of public school students are likely to have shifted to independent schools.   This is about 5,000 to 10,000 and would be the biggest increase in enrollment for independent schools in any one year.  It will be hard to accurately quantify the drop in students because there are many factors and trends in school enrollment that impact the numbers.

 I think the 10,000 number is likely too high and something around 6,000 is the ballpark we are talking about.   The amount of money a district gets for each student is different because is based on many factors so we have use a provincial estimate and $7,000 per student is a good starting point.  Using these numbers gives us a value of $42,000,000 - which is only a ballpark to understand the possible impact.

Adding this on top of the other costs and lost funding for the school districts will cause more pain for the public education system.

If the BC government loses the PR war with the BCTF will Peter Fassbender be recalled?

Given how important education is to the public, it has always surprised me how unpopular the BCTF has been.   For the first time it this seems this is changing.  The one person that will carry the responsibility for this government PR loss will be the minister of education Peter Fassbender

In the last week, as the school year was supposed to be starting, it has been the government that has been very much on the media defensive.   The call by the BCTF for arbitration was a smart move because in refusing to take that option the government looks like they are not interested in settling.

I am seeing more and more people who are not long term BCTF supporters or allies speaking out on behalf of the teachers side of the strike.   For the first time I am seeing real grass roots support for the BCTF.  

What will a public relations loss mean for the government?   It is hard to say because it is 32 months till the next election which is a very long time in politics.  What is not a very far away is the ability to recall MLAs.  I think Peter Fassbender may by in trouble and could be recalled.

Recall in BC is not easy but it can be done.   You need to get 40% of the eligible voters sign a petition to recall the MLA.   We have had one successful recall in BC and two more that came reasonably close out of a total of about 12 serious attempts.  The two close attempts failed primarily because of bad organization.

The last time recall was used in BC was in relation to the HST,  I thought the whole approach that time made little or no sense because the MLAs targeted were not the core people behind the HST.  The decision to go after Ida Chong was not a smart one.   People argued that because the 2009 election result was close she would be easier to recall, I did not think that would matter.   The recalls failed because the targets were not the culpable ring leaders of the HST.  They also failed because there was going to be a referendum on the HST, they had achieved what they wanted so the recalls looked petty.

In 2014/15 I do think a recall against Peter Fassbender could succeed.   The way the government has handled the strike with the BCTF has been less than stellar and much of that will fall on Christy Clark as premier and Peter Fassbender as minister of education.   The obvious recall target is the minister of education.

Surrey Fleetwood, Peter Fassbender's riding, was a close race in 2013, he won by 200 votes over Jagrup Brar.  This means it is not a hardcore right wing anti-union area.   Peter Fassbender starts any recall campaign as a less popular Liberal MLA than most.  If he were the target of a purely partisan anti-Liberal recall I do not think he would be in trouble, but in the wake of the strike this would not be the case.

Surrey Fleetwood had 35,692 registered voters in the last election.   If we assume some growth since then there are likely around 36,500 registered voters now.  To recall Peter Fassbender there would have to be 14,600 valid signatures, about 165 per day during a recall campaign.  This is achievable given a legitimate reason to target him and the demographics of the riding.

One factor that will have an impact on any recall against Fassbender is that a lot of youth will be motivated to be active and sign any recall petition.   In Surrey Fleetwood the youth that were in Grade 12 last year and are in Grade 12 this year are enough to be more than 10% of the signatures required to recall the MLA.    As the year goes along more and youth in Grade 12 this year will be eligible to sign the petition.

It is not just the youth that would now be old enough sign the petition that would make the recall of the minister education easier in Surrey Fleetwood.  Overall the riding has a significantly higher percentage of children at home than the provincial average.  36.7% of the riding population are kids living with their parents, province wide this figure is 29.6%     This means more people are directly affected by the strike.   Finding people willing to sign the petition should be easier than elsewhere in this specific case..

The only thing that works in Fassbender's favour is a mythology in this province that recall is impossible.   As long as a lot of people believe that he should be safe, but if people look at the real stats and understand the unique situation of Surrey Fleetwod, the recall of the minister of education  becomes probable.

What Peter Fassbender and the government need to protect him from any serious recall attempt is to settle with the BCTF soon and have the union happy.   This does not seem likely to me.

Some Facts about the Mount Polley Mine

I have been aware of and following the Mount Polley mine for close to 20 years.   Because of a lot uninformed discussion about the mine I thought I would try to outline some basic facts

The Tailings Pond Spill

• Water is used in the process to concentrate the ore from the mine, the tailings pond is where the waste water goes to allow waste materials to settle out.
• The tailings pond will include not only the waste material suspended in the water but any additional  material used in the mine mill to extract the ore.   It is not a dump for whatever, it does not contain such things as used oil.    The sediment is like a very fine wet clay, when saturated it can run like a slurry, which is what seems to have happened on Monday
• Mount Polley has a good record in reuse of the water for the mine with much of it coming from the tailings pond.  For them to reuse the water it has to be relatively clean.
• The water is a milky green in the tailings pond because of the suspended fine particles, it is the same reason many fast flowing glacial mountain creeks have the same colour 
• The sediment from the tailings pond is likely to contain various heavy metals but at this time I do not know of any factual information about the actual contents of the sediment.  
• The sediment with the probable heavy metals will have settled out early in the flood, most of it will have ended up in Polley Lake or the upper parts of Hazeltine Creek, some if it may have managed to go all the way down to Quesnel Lake but no further than just into the edge of the lake.  Beyond that point the only issue is the quality of the water
• About 10 kilometer of Hazeltine Creek have been completed destroyed through the flood of the water, by destroyed I mean going from a one to two meter wide creek bed to one close to 50 meters wide.   Hazeltine Creek was used by coho to spawn
• The surface area of the tailings pond was about 170 hectares .  Looking at the pictures of the breach, the depth of the water and sediment  was something around 25 to 30 meters which would mean a total capacity of 50,000,000 cubic meters - reports are that a combined 14,500,000 cubic meters of water and sediment were lost.

The Mount Polley Mine

• The Mount Polley mine is located just west of Quesnel Lake
• The mine is an open pit copper-gold mine
• The deposit was first discovered in the late 1960s
• Imperial Metals received a mine development certificate in 1992 - this is approval process in place before the start of the BC environmental assessment
• Each year the  mine produces about 40,000,000 pounds of copper and 50,000 ounces of gold
• The mine employs about 300 people
• The mine opened in 1997 and operated for four years before closing because of low copper prices.
• It re-opened in September 2005 in part because another ore body was discovered and in part because the price of copper rose significantly
• The mine is currently expected to operate for another 11 years.
• The tax revenues from the latest expansion of the mine are shared between the province and two First Nations.  The William's Lake band get s 18.5%, Xatsull gets 16.5% and BC 65%

Imperial Metals

• Mount Polley  is owned by Imperial Metals who are a small scale BC mining company - this is not some large multinational company
• The largest share holder is N. Murray Edwards, the co-owner of the Calgary Flames, with a 36.1% stake in the company.  Another 16.9% is owned by the US based Fairholme Capital Management of Maimi Florida.  These two holdings have a majority control of the company.
• Imperial Metals had a value of around $1,000,000,000 up until recently
• The stock price has dropped 40% yesterday with about 100 times the number of shares being sold than normally
• The net income of the company has been around $40,000,000 per year
• As opposed to most mineral exploration juniors in BC, Imperial Metals decided to develop their properties instead of selling them to one of the big multi-nationals.
• They own a 100% stake in the Mount Polley mine and in the Sterling mine, a very small gold mine in Nevada.
• In north western BC they own a 50% stake in the Huckleberry mine which is a copper mine of the same scale as Mount Polley though without the significant gold portion pf the operations . 
• They own 100% of the Red Chris mine 800 kilometers south of Dease Lake.   The mine is scheduled to open later this year 
• They own a 50% stake in the Ruddock Creek property which is 50 km north of Shuswap Lake 
• They own 100% of the Catface property in Clayoqout Sound though very little is being done with this property, realistically the possible development of a mine is at best a decade away.  They got this property in 2009 in a merger with Selkirk Metals
• Imperial Metals have a number of other claims in BC but none of them are at all close to mine development

Questions about the $40 a day payment for each student under 13

It is now more than 24 hours since the government announced their idea that parents of kids younger than 13 registered in public schools would eligible for $40 per day for each day the strike continues.    There is nothing on the government website saying how this will work.  

This is serious scale financial program that feels like it has been made up at the spur of the moment.   To make it work something like this work would normally take a lot of planning and testing to make sure everything works well.  Given that is was announced without any details and no way for the public to learn about it seems rather stupid.  Should the government not have made sure everything was working before announcing this?  

What I do know:

• If you do not register for the money you will not get the money
• You will be issued a cheque for the money sometime after the strike is over
• Based on last year's enrollment about 314,000 kids will be eligible - the government number of 300,000 is I have no idea how they came up with that figure.
• Given that government was about 5% low on eligible students, and this is something they could answer from their own data in minutes, means no one has given any serious thought on how this program will work.  No one is ready to implement this.   On a good day fast action by government takes a long time.
• There are 21 school days in September
• For each eligible child that would be $840 for September
• If everyone claimed the money they could this would be $12,560,000 per day or $263,760,000 for September if the schools are closed for that whole time.  If the government saves $12,000,000 a day from the strike, this program could end up costing more than that per day.

What I do not know:

• When did the government come up with this idea?   If it really was in the last week, my question becomes does the government have any sort of coherent strategy for the negotiations?
• When will the registration system be up and online?  I think it has to be fully operational by August 25 at the latest and ideally August 18th.   That is a very short time to have this all in place.
• In August the provincial government tends to have many key staff on holidays so it is not clear to me how it is going to roll out one of the more complex government rebate programs in less than a few weeks.  Will a bunch of senior staff have to drop everything or interrupt their holidays to get his underway?
• Who will build this software interface and make sure it works especially when you have thousands of people all at once trying to use it?
• How much will it cost to create this software and where will you find the competent people to create it?   This is August, this is the month people go on holidays.   I can not see any IT firm being ready to take this on right away.  Anyone the government can get will charge extra to rush the job.
• How will the government make sure that in a rush like this everyone's privacy is protected?
• How will the government inform the public about the program?   I assume they will have to do a direct mailing and advertising to get the message out.
• From where in the provincial government will the money come to pay to create this system?   It has to completely ready and done well before the school year starts which means the government will have to spend 100% of the cost to set up the system even if they settle with the BCTF
• Since the telling the public about the program and designing the system will happen at the same time, a lot of money will have to spend on promotion before
• How will people get proof of registration within the school system?   The strike is still on and the schools have minimal staff and will likely not be able to meet any requests for proof of registrations.  Getting something at the school would be most effective but that would involve 
• What happens if you have just moved to BC?  How do you prove registration?
• Foster kids - who can claim the money?
• What happens for couples with joint custody?  What if both of them claim?   
• What happens if the system is not operating well and it takes you until September to register, can you claim all the way back to the start if it is the fault of the system?
• How will government be able to check the birth dates of the kids?   

My prediction

• The online registration system will not work in time and in fact the government will admit in a week or two that it is not going to be how they do it.
• Government will spend $100,000 to $200,000 on outside IT consultants to find out it can not be done.
• Government will spend a bunch of money on advertising the program before changing it.
• Government will spend a bunch of money on a direct mailing before changing the program.
• Government will change it so that everyone can claim the benefit retroactively and will see the money sometime in early 2015 if the strike ends early in the fall which means the government will likely end up being out of pocket by $560,000 per day of the strike

My guess at a timeline

This program was driven by the political end of government which means the civil service is not ready for it at all.  This means for at least a few days senior civil service staff will have to figure out how to even start

• August 5th - Senior civil servants meet to figure out who is doing what and broadly how to make this work
• August 6th-9th - mid level civil servants work out how the program could be made to work.
• August 11th-13th -  Senior civil servants meet with IT companies and figure out if there is anyone that can take on the contract
• August 11th - 15th - Civil servants prepare informational website and prepare a household mailer - many will have to come in off of holidays or work many hours of overtime
• August 14th -15th  Government finds an IT firm to direct award the contract to, maybe.  
• August 16th - 24th - IT company creates the interface - I know, I am dreaming on that timeline, but lets assume it is possible.  I can not even see how you could test it properly in that short a time.
• August 19th - Household mailer is mailed
• August 21st - 22nd - Household mailer arrives
• August 25th - system goes live but crashes due to too many people trying to register at once
• August 25th - 29th - Schools are flooded with parents needed proof of registration details.   Remember, since it is summer my child is not currently in school.   The existing registration details are for last year and this changes with the start of the school year.   Here in Victoria a kid in going into grade 6 is going into a new school and as a parent you are unlikely to have ever seen anything from them.   

Average Size of BC Wild Fires is going up over 1991-2014

Another graph using the Ministry of Forests data on wild fires in BC.   I will get around to doing one that shows the 10 year running average for the size of fires.

The other graphs I have done today:

Ten Year Averages for area burned in BC

Area Burned per Year 1991-2014 and Spending on Wild Fires 1991-2013

An academic paper from 2004 Detecting the effect of climate change on Canadian forest fires

Graphs of Area Burned in BC and Annual Wild Fire Spending from 1991 to 2013

I thought these two graphs would be interesting to see

In area burned four years really stand out but I think more telling are the minimums.  the 2008 and 2012 low fire years are much higher than the lows in the 1990s.

 I have not corrected this data for inflation

1195 days - one more day than Dave Barrett

As of today Christy Clark has been premier of BC for 1195 days which is one day longer than NDP permier Dave Barrett.   Many, including myself, gave her no chance of winning the 2013 BC election which meant she was going to languish on the list of BC premiers as one with a shorter tenure in office.

In three months from today she will have been premier longer than Glen Clark and in just over a year she will have served as premier longer than Mike Harcourt.  

One Year Since the 2013 Election and we have a new poll

Insights West has released the third poll of BC politics since the last provincial election and their second one.
           All of BC     Metro Van    Van Island           
Party     May 14 Dec 17 May 14 Dec 17 May 14 Dec 17 
Liberals  38%(-1) 40%   39%(-1) 40%   24%(-10)34%
NDP       39%(+3) 36%   38%(+1) 37%   43%(+4) 39%
Greens    14%     14%   11%(-2) 13%   27%(+4) 23%
BCCP       8%(+2)  6%   10%(+3)  7%    4%(+2)  2%

The results have not changed much since December other than one regional result.  On Vancouver Island the BC Liberals are now in third behind the Greens.

What can we take from this poll?  Not a lot at the moment other than the government and NDP are not far apart in support.  It also shows us that the Green Party does have a concentration of support on Vancouver Island and knowing where the strength of the Greens is on the island, I suspect the Greens and the NDP are not far apart in support in Victoria.

The poll is online panel with 824 respondents to this survey.

Detailed results from the 2014 BC Conservative Party leadership election

Here is a link to the PDF of the detailed results of the 2014 BC Conservative Leadership vote.

I will do my own analysis of these numbers later.  For now this is here for anyone interested to review the details

Kitimat Enbrdige Vote - the large No vote and a high turnout makes supporting Enbridge politically toxic.

Kitimat had a plebiscite on the Enbrdige pipeline on Saturday and the No to the pipeline side won a big victory, 58.4% to 41.6%.  A no vote in the community in BC that would benefit the most from the pipeline is stunning.  The legitimacy of the vote is further enhanced because of the high voter turnout.   

Kitimat has no jurisdiction as such over the pipeline so the vote the does not formally change anything.    With that in mind, the results were interesting

Here is the question asked:

Do you support the final report recommendations of the Joint Review Panel (JRP) of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and National Energy Board, that the Enbridge Northern Gateway project be approved, subject to 209 conditions set out in Volume 2 of the JRP's final report?

Results
Yes    1,278 41.6%
No     1,793 58.4%
total  3,071
Turnout 62%

The turnout is impressive.   Compare to the 2011 municipal elections when 2,426 people voted, this is a significant increase in voters.   A total of 761 new people registered to vote in the plebiscite.   That is a a 18% increase in voters.   In 2011 the new registrations were only 5% of the eligible voters. 

Pipelines offer very few ongoing jobs so the biggest benefit to BC communities from Enbridge would be in the form of property taxes.   The one community that would have any measurable increase in jobs would be Kitimat because they would be home to the terminal.   The oil shipment terminal and work related to ship movements will provide more jobs than the pipeline but still Kitimat voted no.

The last 20 years have been an ongoing hard time for rural resource towns in BC.   In a lot of these towns there is an attitude of anything goes as long as it bring jobs among large sections of the opinion leaders.   The fact that there was such a strong no vote is shocking.

The vote could be dismissed if no one voted, but the turnout was high.   Not only high, but higher than the last municipal elections.

Kitimat may not have jurisdiction over the pipeline decision, but the vote is a very important political signal.   If the pipeline can not be sold in Kitimat it is a political loser for any party that backs Enbridge.    Realistically the BC NDP and BC Liberals will not lift a finger for this pipeline.