When I first heard that the mayor and council of Dawson Creek had offered a fracking faculties tour, I was a bit confused. I had to ask myself: Why does Squamish matter to Dawson Creek?
This was really eating away at me, so I decided I had to do some web research to learn a little more about Dawson Creek. It has been an eye-opener.
Where the heck is Dawson Creek? I knew they had made a popular (unrelated) TV show called Dawson’s Creek but not much else. So I did some digging around and discovered Dawson Creek is located near the border of Alberta, 1,008 kilometres north of Squamish and as of 2013, its population was 12,653.
The economy of Dawson Creek is based on four major industries: agriculture, retail, tourism, and oil and gas, according to my web research. Through the last Fair Share deal, the province collected roughly $219 million from oil and gas companies and distributed it to the Peace Region cities, towns and rural areas. In Dawson Creek, the deal accounts for more than a third of the city’s revenue, according to an Alaska Highway News article.
Communities like Dawson Creek in the Peace River region had experienced some of the largest shale gas fracking and exploration in history. Communities were growing rapidly and there seemed to be no end in sight.
Now, major LNG investors in the Dawson Creek area are pulling out of previous commitments. The bust is rearing its ugly head. Two years ago, Dawson Creek was one of the fastest growing communities in B.C. with major investors lining up. Now, the population is in decline and investors are dropping like flies.
Since Chevron put the brakes on the Kitimat LNG project, what seemed like a sure thing a year ago now seems quite uncertain. So where will Dawson Creek ship its fracked natural gas now? Squamish is the next most likely choice.
Coastal GasLink Pipeline Limited proposes to build an approximately 670-kilometre pipeline from the Dawson Creek area to the west coast of B.C. The pipeline will transport natural gas to the proposed LNG Canada facility near Kitimat. Initally this could transport 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. With further expansion, it could deliver up to 5 billion cubic feet per day. This gas link is being heavily protested by Unist’ot’en First Nations and combined with dropping LNG global demand, it is looking less and less likely.
What I’m learning is that the folks up in Dawson Creek do indeed have some valuable lessons for us here in Squamish; they would direly, almost desperately, like to change our mindsets about the evils of fracking and present a much cleaner, more futuristic and technological vision. However, the real lesson we are getting from them is what happens when you put all of your eggs into the one basket of B.C. LNG. The boom and bust is having dire effects up north and they are desperately trying to find a way to get to market.
While I do feel for them, I believe it is our responsibility here on Howe Sound to continue to chart our own course based on our own needs and our own vision. What’s happening in Northern B.C. can indeed be a valuable lesson for us, but we need not take a trip up to Dawson Creek to learn those lessons. Dawson Creek is just the start of a large influx of attempted outside influence that will be coming our way as Northern B.C. tries to get what’s left of its shale gas extractions as other proposed LNG export terminals are delayed or cancelled.
Les McDonald
Squamish
