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B.C.’s first major LNG facility, LNG Canada, is currently under development near Kitimat. At $40 billion, it’s the largest private-sector project in Canada’s history and intended to export Canadian natural gas to overseas markets. The NDP offered$6 billion in tax breaks for LNG Canada in 2018.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, seated beside Horgan at the closing news conference, chimed in with his support. It marked a rare moment of agreement between the two provinces, who have been engaged in a long fight over B.C.’s opposition to the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline project that will triple the flow of oil products from near Edmonton to Burnaby.

“Every extra unit of exported Canadian liquefied natural gas will reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Kenney. He described it as “the global game-changer on greenhouse-gas emissions that Canada can play in the foreseeable future is significantly increasing our natural-gas exports.”

Former Liberal premier Christy Clark also used to argue that B.C. should get credit for exporting LNG to displace China’s use of coal and Japan’s use of nuclear power.

“We are doing the world a favour,” she said in 2013.

The then-Opposition NDP sharply criticized Clark for that argument, calling it a “fantasy.”

“The assertions from the premier are that if we sell them gas, magically their emissions will go down,” Horgan said when leader of the opposition. “I’m not convinced that will happen.”