By David Akin, Global News
In the spring of 2013, B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix was well ahead in the polls with days to go before the province’s 40th general election and was poised to beat the incumbent Christy Clark and the BC Liberals.
But then Dix got nervous that the Green Party would siphon off New Democrat votes and allow the B.C. Liberals to win seats on vote splits. So Dix did what would become known as the “Kinder Morgan Flip Flop”. Kinder Morgan, which we now know as Trans Mountain, wanted to triple the capacity of the oil pipeline from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver. Dix had steadfastly refused to say yea or nay to this project, preferring to wait for an environmental assessment. But with the Green Party threatening, he decided, with three weeks to go in the campaign, to come out against the expansion of the pipeline.
He promptly lost an election that was his for the taking, as many voters agreed with fresh attacks by Clark that the NDP was anti-development, anti-business and cared little for resource industry workers.
Dix was succeeded by John Horgan who also fought against the pipeline expansion but did much to repair his party’s reputation with resource workers.
Horgan would eventually lock horns with another NDP premier, Alberta’s Rachel Notley, over that Trans Mountain pipeline. Notley — again, a New Democrat — wanted to push ahead with its expansion. Notley would win that debate — and the Government of Canada would end up buying the pipeline and completing its expansion — while Horgan and his NDP successor David Eby became enthusiastic proponents of shipping liquified natural gas out of B,C. ports. That is your Western Canada NDP: all-in on responsible development of oil and gas. That support has led to electoral success.
Now, though, comes the 2025 federal NDP leadership race where leading candidates are arguing for a rapid shift away from oil and gas development.
“We’ve got to be straight with Canadians. No more approvals for new pipelines, LNG terminals, offshore oil,” leadership candidate Avi Lewis said. “We need to build the 21st century economy, and it’s a massive opportunity.”
Lewis, last week, released what he’s calling his “Green New Deal”, the outlines of a plan to eventually shut down fossil fuel production while at the same time creating a million new jobs. He cautions that his plan is about a transition, not an abrupt shutdown of oil and gas extraction.
Other leadership hopefuls also believe in such a transition and, if there’s a debate among them, it’s about pace and scale of that transition.
Source: globalnews.ca/news
