Christy Clark, B.C.鈥檚 premier, threw down the gauntlet several months ago, saying, among other things, that she would only support the Northern Gateway pipeline if her province receives a fair share of the economic benefits.
She received a down payment on that demand this month, when it was revealed that real estate values in Kitimat, the terminus for Enbridge鈥檚 1,177-kilometre pipeline for Alberta bitumen destined for Asian markets, have risen 26.7 per cent.
The average value of a single-family home has skyrocketed to $228,000 from $180,000 in just one year, according to the B.C. Assessment Authority.
鈥淚鈥檝e got a pool of buyers that I can鈥檛 find homes for,鈥� said Kitimat realtor Shannon Dos Santos.
鈥淎s soon as [listings] come on, we do our rounds, call our people, and if they jump, they get it. If they wait a day or two, they鈥檝e pretty much lost the property.鈥�
Enbridge itself claims the pipeline will deliver $1.2 billion in tax revenue, and $9 billion in government revenue over 30 years to British Columbia. Then there are 3,000 construction jobs and 560 long-term jobs, according to the company, and the purchase of $800 million in goods and services in northern B.C.
Clearly, the Northern Gateway pipeline isn鈥檛 the only game in town. Kitimat is also home to a handful of liquefied natural gas plant proposals, among other initiatives, that have buoyed the community鈥檚 prospects. Nonetheless, the real-estate assessment figures are proof that the likelihood of more jobs is never a bad thing, and Northern Gateway is an important part of the mix.
Cameron Muir, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, said he believes there is capacity for values to keep rising in Kitimat, 鈥渆ven if a fraction of the planned pipelines go ahead.鈥�
Such a fact should help further soften Clark鈥檚 resistance to Northern Gateway, even while it necessarily irritates others who would rather send their offspring to work in Alberta and Saskatchewan than tinker with the eclectic mix of coffee-shop attendants, government workers, down-and-outs, tourists and retirees from other parts of the nation.
Contrast Kitimat鈥檚 real estate assessments with those of communities on 91原创 Island. Values are down by a whopping 7.9 per cent in Ucluelet.
In Duncan, my old stomping grounds, they鈥檝e lost more than four per cent, and even in balmy Victoria, assessments wilted 2.7 per cent.
That is great news for non-British Columbians looking to retire somewhere that offers warmer weather, but it doesn鈥檛 speak well of a different kind of climate, the economic variety.
An online survey of a representative sample of British Columbians conducted in November by Insights West found support for Northern Gateway sits at 42 per cent, a seven-point increase from February.
Conversely, opposition to the project has dropped by 14 points, from 61 per cent in early 2013 to 47 per cent in November.
One would assume the approval of the project by the National Energy Board in December, subject to many conditions, will build further support for the project.
It鈥檚 debatable what role Clark will appropriately play in determining Northern Gateway鈥檚 fate, but her other conditions 鈥� which address spill prevention and recovery on land and water, and acknowledgment of First Nations鈥� interests 鈥� are well represented in the 209 conditions set out by the National Energy Board.
It will be up to the federal cabinet to make a final ruling on Enbridge鈥檚 application, but you can be sure that no matter what provisions are put in place and what guarantees are made, there will be some elements in B.C. that will never be persuaded of the advantages of economic growth.
When it comes to Clark鈥檚 insistence that the province receive a fair share of economic benefits, however, she need only look at those climbing property values in Kitimat.
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David Marsden is a member of the Calgary Herald editorial board.
