Kitimat residents vote “No”: Reaction

Vancouver B.C. (13 Apr 2014) – CBC’s The National interviewed me on Friday morning to discuss the Kitimat plebiscite. In that interview, I shared our polling that indicated that residents of B.C.’s north are no different from the rest of B.C. when it comes to opposing the supertankers that would come with Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal.

But “North” in our polling covers a broad area that includes Kitimat.

How would Kitimat residents vote on Northern Gateway? I didn’t budge when Chris Brown asked for my prediction. We hadn’t polled exclusively in Kitimat. I did say that Kitimat residents would have to be completely different in attitudes from the rest of the North to see a vote in favour of Northern Gateway.

But I didn’t discount the possibility.

Kitimatians had a lot to consider despite this being a non-binding vote. Kitimat had to consider the enormous local impacts. Do they want to go down in history as the community that said yes to introducing supertankers to this region? Similarly, in a community reliant on the natural resource sector for their economy, they had to wonder whether this was the right time to turn down a meaningful local opportunity.

For the record, as of our February poll, 64% of British Columbians were opposed to Enbridge’s plan to bring supertankers to B.C.’s northern coastal waters. Among northern BCers, this number was 63%. These aren’t numbers for Kitimat, but I can’t say I’m surprised by the plebiscite’s 58% “No” vote.

Clips from my interview did not air.