British Columbia’s regulatory accounts have been receiving a lot of attention lately. Business Vancouver compared them to a shell game, in which expenses are deferred to the future so that the government can report “profits.” Vaughn Palmer writes that the province has “cumulative long-term obligations amount to $102 billion, with Hydro accounting for the bulk of them.” The item that really caught my eye was $50 billion for electricity BC does not need.
The controversial Site C Dam project was rejected twice (back in the 1980s and 90s), before Premier Christy Clark’s government decided to go over the heads of provincial agencies like the BC utilities Commission and Agricultural Land Commission. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government issued the necessary permits to start construction during the last Federal election. As Treaty 8 gave local First Nations use of the land this project will submerge, it seems likely that a treaty is being broken. Despite all of this, BC Hydro began what many view as the environmental destruction of the Site C Peace River Valley. Since then a new Canadian government has been elected. They spoke of the need for social license and promised a new era of respect for indigenous peoples. Will The Feds Intervene On Site C?
