Hours after announcing his resignation as leader of the B.C. NDP, Adrian Dix was back at the podium and swinging at the Liberals.

During an address to delegates at the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention in Vancouver today (September 19), Dix described Christy Clark's government as "largely AWOL" since the May election.

As the NDP caucus watched his speech from the front of the room, Dix targeted the B.C. Liberal government’s cancellation of the fall legislative session, and emphasized the opposition’s agenda.

“We have in B.C. a government, which I believe was surprised to get re-elected, and has been largely AWOL—absent without leave from the key issues facing our province,” said Dix.

“Even if the government isn’t prepared to go to work, we have gone to work—and why is that? Because the issues facing our province today are significant and they will simply not be resolved by slogans and negative ads.”

Dix spoke of a need for action on issues including child poverty, skills training, and Internet access in rural communities.

“It seems to me, in this week of reconciliation, remarkable that in northern British Columbia, First Nations communities, 50 percent of them have no access to high-speed internet, at a time when that is central to education, central to health, and central to economic growth and development,” he said.

The party leader defended his no-personal-attacks approach during the election campaign earlier this year, and spoke about voter disengagement and cynicism regarding the political process.

“I strongly believe that people in this day and age are turned off by the nastiness and the rancor of politics, and that we need to do better, and that doesn’t mean that in one two-year cycle we can convince people,” he told reporters following the speech.

“But over time, by doing the right thing—by addressing issues, by treating all people with respect…I think people understand that we’re going to treat them with respect as well.”

Dix also took aim at the Liberal government’s liquefied natural gas plan.

“We don’t need a provincial government that says everyday yay LNG,” he stated during his speech. “We need a provincial government that addresses the issue of skills training…that addresses issues of climate change. These are inexorably linked.

“If people think that we can abandon our obligation to the future, then they are wrong,” he added. “You have to do LNG and meet your emission targets at the same time. And a failure to do that is a failure to our children and our grandchildren.”

B.C.’s LNG strategy was also met with criticism from B.C. Green party MLA Andrew Weaver, who addressed the convention later in the morning.

“To attempt to lay all of our eggs in this one basket in the hope, the desperate hope, that we will be the one exception, the one jurisdiction, that will defy history and economics, is to base our very future on very unstable ground,” he said.

“The numbers just don’t add up. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with LNG development are simply too high to allow us to meet our legislated targets. I believe our province is heading in the wrong direction, and it’s up to us to re-direct this course.”

Premier Christy Clark is scheduled to address the convention at 11 a.m. Friday morning.