In the past 10 years, the B.C. government has increasingly looked to natural gas development as a source of provincial revenue. At the same time, the government has introduced many royalty rate reductions and increased spending to attract investment in natural gas developments and increase production.
While the industry does play an important role in the province's economy — in 2008/2009, it contributed just over $2 billion in royalty and lease sale revenue to provincial coffers, accounting for 6% of total provincial revenue — support for natural gas development comes with a price.
