Mines Are Sparkle Ponies Too?....Who Knew?

Issues?
WeDon'tNeedNoStinkingIssues!Ville


It was the fall of 2012 and Christy Clark was doomed.

But then she went to Calgary and started saying anything.

About pipelines and, of course, sparkle ponies.

Sparkly stuff like this:

..."We have had the fastest job growth of any province in the country over the last year. We're investing in skills development, recognizing that with the creation of all those jobs there will be a shortage of people to work in them. So we just invested $75 million in making sure people are, among other things, ready to take on a trade. Most importantly, we are enabling the creation of a brand new industry for our province, and that's liquefied natural gas.

"Today, we're looking at perhaps five big liquefied natural gas proposals that, if built, could add over a trillion dollars to our GDP in direct upstream and downstream benefits over the course of 30 years...


Of course, the non-Lotuslandian proMedia was skeptical.

But the local club members pretty much ate this stuff up.

But here's something that even we, the purveyors of all that is neither established nor credible, missed from Ms. Clark's October 2012 'Calgary Speech':

..."Mining is an area where we have set some pretty ambitious targets. We're planning to build 17 new and expanded mines by 2015. Mining revenues have grown by 20 per cent to $8.6 billion since we introduced our Jobs Plan last year, and we've done it with the highest standard of sustainable mining in the world.

"So I'll give you one example. Murray Edwards, who is a great Calgarian, owns 45 per cent of the Red Chris mine. It's in the northwest of British Columbia. It's one of the top mining deposits anywhere in the world. When I became Premier, I said I wanted people all around the world to know that you can do business successfully in British Columbia. You can work your way through the public policy issues, the First Nations issues and that you can make a profit if you come to our province"...


And, as far as 'issues' with things like rules and regulations?

Well, the Snooklandians, like the Knotty Gordians before them, can take care of those too.

Right?



________
Of course, not long after the speech quoted from above, the good Mr. Edwards raised a million for Ms. Clark....'Tis a wonderful world, that world of the Sparkle Ponies, eh?
In case you missed it, here's the link to a very good sum-up piece by Peter Moskowitz in The Guardian on resource extraction-friendly British Columbia.


.