The newly elected MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, Jeremy Valeriote, is divesting his shares in an oil and gas company after a news report in the online publication Tyee. The report revealed that MLA Valeriote owned shared shares worth $161.25 in PrairieSky Royalty Ltd., a company with interests in crude oil and natural gas.
“I don’t have exact timelines, but my six shares of Prairesky came from 300 CNRL shares I had in my RRSP account in 2016 and divested in 2017 or 2018. At one time I also owned some Suncor shares that I divested before 2018,” MLA Valeriote said. He said the six shares Prairiesky had were in his portfolio but didn’t appear from any action he took; they came through the sale of CNRL royalties in 2016.
“I divested it because it was recently brought to my attention that PSK is a pure-play oil and gas royalty company – I didn’t divest it earlier because I didn’t recognize the name of the company, and the amount was very small,” he said.
MLA Valeriote has been an outspoken critic of the fossil fuel industry and has repeatedly denounced Woodfibre LNG during his political campaign as a misguided project.
“Any way you slice this, it’s a misguided project,” he said in a press release in March 2024. “Continuing to expand fossil fuel infrastructure that puts human health at risk and exacerbates the climate crisis is the opposite of the leadership we need right now. I strongly believe that we owe it to our children and grandchildren to meet this generational challenge of climate change based on scientific evidence.”
According to the Tyee report, his portfolio includes Telus Corp., Bombardier Inc., TD Bank, and BlackBerry Ltd. Green Party has been critical of Telus Corp. In 2022, BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau called on Health Minister Adrian Dix to release a report by the B.C. Medical Services Commission on Telus Health’s private, fee-based healthcare programs.
“While almost a million British Columbians go without a family doctor, private corporations are swooping in to offer healthcare services for a cost,” Furstenau said in a press release. “British Columbians need to know that these private healthcare providers are not allowing queue-jumping or other practices that are illegal under our universal healthcare system. Minister Dix has had this report on Telus Health for almost six weeks, yet we’ve heard nothing from him.
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