XPost: bc.politics, van.general, vic.general   
   From: Çons@31.5%   
      
   March 9, 2012   
      
   B.C. Premier Christy Clark courts the conservatives   
      
   She stresses her support for liquefied natural gas projects and the pipelines   
   needed to   
   distribute the project across northern B.C.   
      
      
   OTTAWA - B.C. Premier Christy Clark, dubbed Friday by Preston Manning as   
   Canada’s “iron   
   snowbird,” made another aggressive attempt to win the confidence of Canada’s   
   conservative   
   movement.   
   Clark, who has recently recruited several former advisers to Prime Minister   
   Stephen Harper, was   
   speaking at the Reform party founder’s annual conference of politicians,   
   strategists and   
   thinkers under the banner: “A Conservative family reunion.”   
      
   She boasted of her government’s commitment to family values, which she defined   
   on economic   
   terms, and stressed her support for liquefied natural gas projects and the   
   pipelines needed to   
   distribute the project across northern B.C.   
      
   “We support pipelines in British Columbia,” she told her audience in a veiled   
   reference to   
   criticism in Alberta over her on-the-fence position on the proposed Northern   
   Gateway oilsands   
   pipeline to Kitimat, B.C.   
      
   Alberta Premier Alison Redford urged Clark last year to embrace Gateway as a   
   project in the   
   national interest.   
      
   But Clark, in response to a question from the oilsands capital city of Fort   
   McMurray, said   
   British Columbians still need to see evidence that the economic benefits   
   outweigh the   
   environmental risks.   
      
   That case still hasn’t been made, she said, which is why the government is   
   awaiting a National   
   Energy Board decision expected several months after the May 2013 B.C. election.   
      
   But she stressed that B.C. can still be a gateway for Canadian natural   
   resources to booming   
   Asian markets and cited as evidence her government’s support for liquid   
   natural gas, which is   
   far less of an environmental risk because the gas would dissipate quickly   
   after a spill.   
      
   “We have a duty to Canada” to ease the flow of products to Asia, she told her   
   audience.   
      
   Clark is in the fight of her political life in B.C. due to the challenge from   
   a number of   
   Manning’s former Reform MPs who have moved into provincial politics under   
   ex-MP John Cummins,   
   the B.C. Conservative leader.   
      
   She has enlisted Manning and two of the Reform founder’s top MPs, including   
   ex-Harper ministers   
   Chuck Strahl and Jay Hill, to blunt the attack from the right.   
      
   But so far that hasn’t paid off. Manning said publicly in October that he   
   supports Clark, not   
   Cummins, as the best bet to keep the NDP from taking power.   
      
   But polls consistently show the B.C. Liberals are well behind the NDP due in   
   part to the   
   erosion of its base caused by Cummins’ support.   
      
   [- - - ]   
      
   *******************************************************   
   "We CAN look after each other better than we do today.   
   We CAN have a fiscally responsible government.   
   We CAN have a strong economy; greater equality; a clean environment.   
   We CAN be a force for peace in the world."                      - Jack Layton   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)