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Hypocrisy: it’s spelled NDP

Hypocrisy, thy name is the British Columbia New Democratic Party.

Hypocrisy, thy name is the British Columbia New Democratic Party.

Just two weeks ago, the press secretary for John Horgan and our own Jennifer Rice were  jumping all over yours truly for putting forward an opinion without contacting them. Despite the fact that the opinion was based on Horgan’s own comments, the hypocrisy of their claims now is evident.

This week, showing hypocrisy knows no bounds, the NDP put forward a negative opinion about Pacifc NorthWest LNG based on a Globe and Mail article, a company spokesperson felt was lacking context without first calling Pacific NorthWest LNG.

Sweet, sweet irony.

You see this week NDP natural gas development spokesperson Bruce Ralston — who doesn’t live anywhere near Prince Rupert, Port Edward or Lelu Island — jumped all over a portion of the company’s environmental assessment filing that indicates up to 40 per cent foreign workers would be used in constructing the project and that number could jump up to 70 per cent in the last three years of construction. This, he claims, is the reason the premier must “reject the Petronas plan” to construct “an unsupportable project” — a direct quote despite assurances from Rice that he was referring to the practice of hiring foreign workers as opposed to the project itself.

Ignoring the fact that calling the terminal “an unsupportable project” flies right in the face of John Horgan’s assertion in this very paper that he’d “like to see all their projects built in Prince Rupert and Kitimat”, a simple call or email to Pacific NorthWest LNG would have brought the following comment: “Our first priority is to hire as many local workers as possible ... the numbers included in the BC EAO submission are conservative models assuming multiple projects are under construction at the same time as our project”.

It truly was that simple, but the natural gas spokesperson for the NDP — who doesn’t live anywhere near any LNG proposal — couldn’t follow his party’s own advice and instead put this scam of a statement out to provincial media.

That, quite frankly, is truly unsupportable.