There are a couple of reasons why the B.C. Liberals are so heavily invested in the long-range potential of liquefied natural gas.
One is because it's genuinely exciting, and the numbers are so mammoth.
But the other is because the party really doesn't have much else to talk about. Premier Christy Clark has not spent a lot of time dwelling on her or her party's record of achievement over the past term.
That topic is a staple for most incumbents -- a long list of accomplishments over the most recent term is a fixture in re-election campaigns.
But not so much for the B.C. Liberals in 2013. They're a lot more interested in brashly looking ahead than fondly recalling the recent past. Partly it's because Clark has only been on the job for two years. And she came on the strength of an emergency of sorts -- the HST uprising obviously prompted her predecessor Gordon Campbell to quit.
Much of her term has been a matter of just keeping the plane in the air, rather than steering it in any particular direction. And looking at the four-year term as a whole, shared almost equally between Campbell and Clark, there's not much to point to as a solid record of achievement.
The Liberals' first term was about a revolutionary remake of government. The second was about riding a spectacular boom that came to a crashing end. The third one was more or less lost.
Its first throne speech set the tone. It noted B.C. was in the worst recession in 27 years. "We've been hit by seismic economic shifts that were unpredictable and brutally deceiving in their speed and force. They rocked our province, hurt our industries and have left thousands of workers worried or unemployed."
There was also an extended justification for the HST decision that convinced no one. Whatever agenda the Liberals imagined, it was hijacked by the HST debacle. B.C.'s 39th parliament was mostly about one thing: an abrupt tax change brought in with zero consultation, that sparked a protracted revolt that unseated the premier, forced a reversal and stalled the Liberals out for most of the four years.
The one achievement that Clark does cite is the balanced budget. But it's a nebulous claim. The budget introduced in February is balanced, but it's only a plan to balance revenue and spending for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.
It's not truly balanced until the audited books are closed, and that won't be until the summer of 2014. Anyone can introduce a theoretically balanced budget plan. It's holding to that plan that's tough.
The other thing that worked against the Liberals was the restraint needed to get to even a hypothetically balanced budget. They have been grinding away at spending in each of the past four budgets. So there isn't a lot of money around to build a flashy checklist of achievements.
Spending restraint is an accomplishment in itself. But it's hard to get recognized for it, because it means saying no to the never-ending series of asks.
In the past four years, the B.C. Liberal government got the Evergreen transit line started, opened a few more schools and hospitals, hosted a successful Olympics, expanded trade with China and raised the minimum wage.
It would be a lot longer list if they hadn't been so preoccupied with lunging at the HST, mounting a futile defence of it, and then engineering their way out of it after voters rose up against it.
NDP leader Adrian Dix asked Clark during the leaders debate why the Liberals should be rewarded for the HST policy failure.
She pointed out she had nothing to do with it, then said: "I put it to referendum." (Like she had a choice.)
Then she changed the subject.
