Carney Lobs LNG H-Bomb In BC Election

This Week In Annexation II.3

Carney and Eby -- Image via David Eby on X

By Gabriel Haythornthwaite, The DNA Report

With 17 days to go until the Alberta pre-annexation referendum, The DNA Report continues a second round of This Week in Annexation thanks to heavy double-barrel electioneering from Canada CEO Mark Carney as he rolled out a mega-project announcement each day either side of the Reconciliation holiday. This post covers the first Carney intervention on September 29.

At a joint press conference in Vancouver with BC NDP Premier David Eby—coincidentally on the 8th day of a snap provincial election campaign—CEO Carney unveiled fast-track approval for a $33b Phase Two expansion of the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat which will double the country’s annual ‘natural’ gas exports from 14m to 28m tonnes. This corporate investment scheme is the second largest in Canadian history.

At the press podium, Carney intoned that “Canada is working, Canada is building big again.” Trying out this variant on the MAGA slogan, the banker-PM cited the material appeal of 4,000 jobs in Kitimat to make the pollution plunder case.

Hailing a projected 3% ownership of Phase Two by a consortium of First Nations economic development organizations, Carney was able to deflect from the full ownership details of so-called LNG Canada which includes Petronas (Malaysian government), PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan), Korea Gas Corp and Shell (British-Dutch); the last outfit infamous for both financing and supplying Nazi Germany before WW2 and its 1990s alliance with Nigerian military repression.

CEO Carney’s end to environmental assessment as we have known it over the last 30 years, has not stopped the corporate dogs-of-more barking about all the things that are still left to hand over to fossil fuel titans. Confronted with Carney’s green light to global capital for the world’s second largest LNG plant, Conservative Pierre Poilievre sneered, “we should have 18 LNG terminals right now.”

In grand Orwellian fashion, Carney sugared the Kitimat corporate carbon H-bomb with a $1.2b ‘ocean protection’ initiative. Apparently this new Elbows Up Canada is going to do everything. Supercharge the planet with CO2 pollution from the west coast. And save those west coast oceans which will soon host an uptick of oil tankers. What a marvelous land of Oz this is!

The politicking is entirely logical. CEO Carney’s ally, Premier Eby has gotten himself off to a rough start with an early election call which quickly united almost all the regressive opposition. Carney’s war room boffins must know that the BC Conservatives are MAGA-lite and the last thing the federal regime needs is a second Governor Smith to contend with. Carney is handing everything he can over to the UCP government as it is.

And, of course, there has been more annexation appeasement in the mix as well. On September 28, the feds gave the green light to a provincial proposal for a high-speed rail privatization boondoggle between Calgary and Edmonton. Again, coincidentally three weeks before the Smith MAGA ballot.

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Gabriel Haythornthwaite is a former labour-allied school board trustee in BC and currently advises First Nations around political and intergovernmental relations. He is also a leftwing writer and political organizer.