As Canada’s largest-ever private investment moves toward export of liquefied natural gas from northern B.C., Premier John Horgan’s government is spending heavily to wean domestic users away from gas heat to electricity.

Horgan and Energy Minister Bruce Ralston are walking a fine line between the $40 billion LNG Canada development and their aggressive greenhouse gas emissions program, dubbed CleanBC. Surplus electricity coming on line from B.C.’s last big hydroelectric dam is another card they have been forced to play.

With coal and gas-fired power production all but eliminated within B.C., the only remaining strategy is conversion of vehicles, industry and buildings away from carbon-based fuel use. And after bitterly opposing the Site C dam project on the Peace River while in opposition, since 2017 Horgan has watched its budget balloon from less than $10 billion to $16 billion for power that will soon need buyers.

B.C. Hydro has also extended the completion date, running up against geotechnical problems on the banks of the Peace River and coping with COVID-19 infections that have affected Site C as well as the Coastal GasLink and Trans Mountain pipeline projects and oil sands operations in northern Alberta.

Northern Health declared a COVID-19 outbreak at the massive Site C project in mid-August, and more than a month later there were 24 active cases being monitored. As of Sept. 22 there were 1,707 people at the camp near Fort St. John, with 33 in isolation at the camp and another 26 self-isolating at home. There are 232 people who have been cleared of infection of a total 255 confirmed cases at the project since the pandemic was declared in B.C. in March 2020.

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