From: Rafe Mair
To: barry.penner@bcliberals.com
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 9:04 AM
Subject: Rafe
Minister Penner - Isn't it just like you bastards to circulate the "NAFTA" criticism of me and the Save Our Rivers Society by the so-called BC Citizens for Green Energy but NOT circulate our reply!
How can your government deny that private power is overwhelmingly for export when it can only be produced in any quantity during Spring run-off when Hydro's reservoirs are full?
How can your government force BC Hydro to give private companies sweetheart deals while only able to get 50% or less of it back when exported?
How do you expect BC Hydro to stay in business when it has obligations to private producers for over $30 BILLION for which they'll be lucky to recover 1/2? And this is only for the private projects now approved. You've taken away BC Hydro's transmission lines, saddled them with spiraling costs for ever increasing private projects, privatized 1/3 of their employees in a secret deal with Accenture, the bastard child of Enron, taken away their right to bring on new sources of power and left them with their ongoing capital debt of $7 BILLION?
Why don't you admit that you and the private pirates are lying about our energy needs saying BC imports power using only figures from BC Hydro; the truth (a stranger to your government) being that if you include Alcan, Teck Cominco and Fortis, all of which produce power domestically, for export or both, BC is a net exporter? And when are you going to stop peddling the nonsense that we must import from Alberta when you know that BC Hydro buys from Alberta in off peak times and "flips" it to the US for high peak prices?
Why do you continue the untrue nonsense that with private power we will be energy sufficient in 2016 when you know that, for the reasons above, private producers can never produce power when we need it? If we will get there by conservation, upgrading Hydro generators, putting in new generators and taking back power under the Columbia River Treaty without private power - and we can - what's your excuse for decimating our rivers and streams to make shareholders in private companies like Warren Buffett of General Electric, richer?
Why don't you level with BC citizens and tell them that they will, if God forbid you get re-elected, be paying the North American market price for energy meaning 3 to 4 times what they pay now?
Why has your government brought in this "Energy Plan" without any input from citizens, Don't try to tell us that these environmental assessment hearings are consultations on the merits of private power because they're not. I've been to them and any attempt to ask questions on the merits is ruled out of order.
Why did you pass Bill 30 taking away the rights of local government to zone for these projects or not?
I'll tell you minister what your game is. Bankrupt BC Hydro, sell off the dams, privatize the dams and Powerex thus keeping your pledge to the Fraser Institute to be rid of publicly owned companies. At the end of your next term - if God forbid you get one - your government will have succeeded in destroying the great instruments of public policy - BC Ferries, BC rail, BC gas and BC Hydro. What a ghastly legacy!
Rafe Mair
Official Spokesperson for Save Our Rivers Society, a former Environment Minister who cared
Must-See Interview with Corky Evans on Taking Back Our Rivers and Province
Save Our Rivers Society is pleased to present this five minute interview - at the public Brilliant Dam in the Kootenays - with one of BC's most engaging political figures - veteran Kootenay NDP MLA Corky Evans. As he steps down from the Nelson-Creston seat he has held for three election terms, Evans reflects on threats to the public trust and the very social fabric of his beloved province from the Gordon Campbell government. Discussing our rivers, forests, democracy, and heritage, Evans...
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Citizens for Public Power - is a grassroots, advocacy organization established to give voice to British Columbians' demand that the province's power generation system remain in public hands.
BC’S HEALTH AND ENERGY MINISTERS REFUSE INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC FORUM ON KEY ELECTION ISSUES, SAY BC CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC POWER AND BC HEALTH COALITION
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Recent column of Rafe Mair in TheTyee.ca
Campbell's Hypocrisy Habit
Libs' top cop has license yanked, stays in race. Too typical.
April 27, 2009.
Solicitor-General John van Dongen has his license suspended. This is the same van Dongen who was fired out of cabinet for warning fish farmers when the inspectors were coming. He pays no forfeit and stays in cabinet even after waiting for a week to tell the premier that he, the top cop in the province, has a massive load of trouble with the cops.
Here's what my colleague Will McMartin had to say here in The Tyee on Feb. 4 of this year: "To the surprise of nearly every British Columbian, the provincial deficit was eliminated [by the NDP].... Thanks to a sharp spike in revenues (primarily from personal income taxes and energy exports), B.C. recorded a tiny surfeit in 1999/2000, and then a gargantuan $1.4 billion surplus in 2000/01."
Boondoggles pile up
On the question of fiscal responsibility, Campbell is quick to point to the "fast ferries" scandal, yet is not held accountable for the more than $200 million overrun on the Vancouver Convention Centre. When you add up the convention centre boondoggle, the failed public/private (P3) deal on the Port Mann Bridge, and throw in Olympic overruns, it makes the previous NDP government look like a fiscal paragon by comparison.
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