The BC Liberal record on the environment has been abysmal. Under the guise of cutting red tape, they slashed government oversight through deregulation. Basically, industry provided millions of dollars to the BC Liberal party and in return, corporations were given nearly free rein to irresponsibly overcut public forests and pollute the land and water.
The link between allocation of timber and sawmill jobs was cut and raw log exports were increased resulting in the loss of some 30,000 forestry jobs. Meanwhile, consolidation occurred with a few large corporations now controlling most of the timber and some companies have taken their profits and purchased mills in the United States.
The park system has been grossly underfunded and new legislation now allows roads and pipelines in parks. Thanks to big donations from hunter organizations, the grizzly bear trophy hunt continues. A pesticide ban was promised, but never delivered, despite its success in most other provinces. Kinder Morgan donated $771,000 to the party and their pipeline was approved. Fracking continues unabated with little oversight despite groundwater pollution, massive amounts of wasted water, and earthquake. Most of the gas goes to Alberta to produce bitumen.
Farmland destruction continues as Site C was pushed ahead without proper review to produce power that will not be needed. BC still does not have endangered species legislation and mountain caribou will soon be gone despite the misguided killing of wolves. Climate change targets will never be achieved, and carbon output will rise dramatically if LNG goes ahead.
The BC Liberal government is not prosecuting Imperial Metals for the massive Mt. Polley disaster and taxpayers will end up paying for cleanup. And now the mine has approval to dump more wastes into Quesnel Lake. The province’s environment cannot withstand another four years of the BC Liberals. Please vote for change on May 9.
Jim Cooperman