Squamish: A boomtown since 2006? That’s not something you would hear when the talk is about Woodfibre LNG. Their storyline is that by going back to the past; we will find the good life of the future.
We still have a lot of folks here who feel that Squamish has never recovered from the trauma of losing its heavy industry some eight years ago, a belief that is cleverly exploited by the proponents of Woodfibre LNG with their overtures of this project making up for that loss and finally causing the money to roll in the streets again. The environment? They know a few things about starting a proposal with unpalatable propositions and then moving towards the line where moderates, for whom the pocketbook is of no lesser importance, are won over and the deal sealed.
Has Squamish really been in distress since the closure of the pulp mill? Only if your view is so fixated on the past that mileposts have gone by unnoticed and you are unaware of a change in the landscape. Facts: The district population has increased by a whopping 30 per cent since 2005, from 15,000 to 20,000 in 2012. Tax revenues have increased from $12.6 million in 2005 to $21.4 million in 2013. Development activity and building permits of all categories have had explosive growth since 2005 until the worldwide slump of 2008, which we, too, survived far better than others. The forest industry is doing well and new businesses are finding Squamish one after another. Don’t take it from me. Go look up the stats on the district website!
Anywhere else this would be seen as a remarkable readjustment after a major economic amputation; some would even call it a boom and marvel at our town’s demographics, its resilience and diversity. As much as we know about Squamish, however, as little do we know about the economics of the proposed project and how it will relate to our town or to us as district and provincial taxpayers.
Woodfibre LNG’s Project Description dedicates very little space, and only generalities, to economics. The brochure we all got in our mailboxes waxes about increases in global demand for gas and wallows in the billions of expected revenues and taxes, which make the promoters of the Klondike Gold Rush look like quaint amateurs by comparison. The renowned Economist magazine sums it up differently in a recent article (“Bubbling Up”) about the present LNG boom and the development of an international gas market: “Buyers will gain more than sellers,” it says.
So, do you think Squamish should be negotiating with Woodfibre LNG and the province from a position of “cap in hand,” or conversely, take a much more robust attitude?
Squamish is a lot stronger than we are made to believe, is economically a lot healthier than we think and its future looks bright. Whether that would be so if it includes a future paradigm-defining LNG plant put in place on the basis of sketchy economics is another question, and this does not even touch the expected environmental tradeoffs.
Wolfgang Wittenburg
Squamish
