Article content continued

Clark spent much of her premiership working to develop LNG regulations and encourage companies like Shell and Petronas to invest in B.C., but was defeated in 2017 before any projects were actually approved.

“My greatest disappointment of the election was coming home and thinking LNG is not going to happen because the NDP have voted against our LNG bills,” she said.

Photo by Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS

However, instead of scrapping her LNG plan, the NDP built upon it by adding $5.4 billion in additional tax breaks. Horgan has also pushed back against his power-sharing B.C. Greens partners by insisting B.C.’s climate change targets can still be met even with LNG’s added pollution.

“They could have changed the climate plan, or had a moratorium on fracking, there were a 100 different things they could have done to stop it, and they didn’t,” said Clark. “The NDP defined my reasonable and legitimate expectations about it, that it was dead. So thanks to them for letting it go ahead. That’s a real thing. I’m sure lots of their supporters are not happy about this.”

Clark said she doesn’t regret promising in the 2013 election that LNG could generate enough revenue to wipe out B.C.’s debt. Nor, she said, is she upset that LNG Canada came online under the NDP because the end goal is to improve the economic prospects for Aboriginal and northern communities.

“I don’t feel any shred of regret today because the thing is when you are done your political career — and I’m totally done — you look back at the legacies you left and the things that you did that made the biggest difference,” she said.