Damien and I from Save Our Rivers along with Andy Ross of Cope 378 and Joe Foy from the Western Canada Wilderness Committee completed a highly successful tour of North West BC last month starting in Terrace, then going to Kitimat, and finishing in Prince Rupert. Admittedly these are not the toughest areas we’ll be going into but we were all agreeably impressed at the reception we got in all three places.
 
We received good media reception with one exception … a reporter from one of the radio stations interviewed me at great length before I left home. She came to me at the Terrace meeting and apologetically told me that her station had refused to run the interview because it would offend one of their big advertisers – no prize for guessing who but as a hint I’ll tell you that the name begins with “A” and ends with “n”.

Visiting this area was interesting for me. Because I had campaigned so hard against the Kemano Completion Project in the mid nineties I was the devil incarnate in this area. In fact, the Terrace City Council passed a resolution declaring that Terrace a “Rafe Mair Free Zone!" That attitude has changed 180 degrees as people have found out what I knew then, namely that Alcan consider themselves to be in the power business not in the Aluminum game.

We at Save Our Rivers Society are, in horseracing parlance, nicely out of the gate and running smoothly. I as the jockey (a bit overweight for the job I must admit) and my colleagues know it’s a long race and in politics as in life and horseracing, the unexpected must be expected. I must tell you though, the response has been extraordinary. I can also tell you for certain that we’re away to a very encouraging start indeed.
 
Last Saturday morning I gave the keynote speech at the opening of the BC Citizens for Public Power convention and while one could expect that to be a friendly group I’ve had a hell of a lot of experience sensing the feelings of an audience. This crowd of some 300 people from all walks of life wanted to hear our message. They wanted to know that there was a plan of attack, a concentrated plan of attack not just a long bitching session leading up to the next election. We at SORS speak frankly about the issues and are straight up with our prescription which is simple – if the government won’t change, we must change the government even if that means departing from our usual voting habits.
 
In the afternoon I flew to Parksville for an event with the Oceanside Coalition for Strong Communities and, along with the irrepressible Corky Evans MLA, spoke to another 300 people with the same feelings coming back from the audience.
 
What has become so clear is that people are seeing through the government claim that Independent Power (private power, that is, in straight English) is green, is environmentally benign and won’t spell the end of our great public power system provided by BC Hydro. The autocrat, Gordon Campbell, underestimates how much British Columbians love their environment and how determined they are to preserve our public power system. I am, to say the least, much encouraged by these two events.

 
We still have a long way to go but to the mind of this old punter, we have safely passed the first turn and are starting down the backstretch.

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I’ve received considerable feedback about a column I recently wrote for thetyee.ca wherein I advised that I would be voting NDP in next May’s election. My reasoning is simple – I put saving our environment at the very top of my political list.

The Autocrat Campbell’s environmental record is not just bad, it gives the strong impression of being deliberately bad. Let’s look at what’s happened. The year the Liberals took office they removed the moratorium on issuing new fish farm licenses. Independent scientist after independent scientist told the government that this was a big mistake from several points of view: escapes, disease, pollution and lice moving from the farmed fish to wild salmon smolts. The Autocrat and his henchmen not only paid no attention, their actions flew in the face of scientific evidence. The Autocrat not only refused to hold Alcan to their contract with the government, further formalized in legislation, that they would only produce power for “the works and the vicinity" but they helped Alcan sell more and more power and fixed usurious rates leaving citizens in the Northwest rightly fearing for the ultimate closing of the plant. The Autocrat actually deliberately put the health and life of citizens of Tsawwassen at risk by refusing to properly bury and shield potentially cancer-causing high voltage power lines. The Autocrat through foot soldier Kevin Falcon brought in the Gateway program of upgrading roads and bridges without showing the least concern about the increased pollution, the loss of habitat, the endangerment of Burns Bog while abusing the Agricultural Land Reserve. Of greatest concern to us Campbell's private energy plan, which will destroy our rivers and the existing ecology and will cripple and ultimately bankrupt BC Hydro. (Please roam through this website for documentary proof of what’s happening).

Here is how I see this playing out: If Campbell is re-elected the environment will be permanently trashed with more insults every day. If the NDP is elected this won’t happen, though we might, by some yardsticks, have an incompetent government which will damage our economy.

My answer is simple: whatever the NDP might do it can be repaired; what Campbell is certain to do will wreck our environment forever.

I can explain to my kids how I voted for an incompetent government but there is no explanation why I didn’t do everything in my power to save our super natural environment and affordable public energy system which we control.

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What is the environmental process in British Columbia? It’s an after the fact exercise where the Ministry of Environment judges what, if any, changes must be made by the proponent of a project. Who runs the show? A Director who is appointed by the Premier. This ought to be of considerable concern for us all. The man doing or deciding not to do an environmental assessment reports, effectively, to the Premier to whom he owes his job! Moreover his duties don’t start until after the cabinet has decided whether the project will should be done. While the Director may put a proponent to difficulties and red tape the enterprise is, effectively, a “done deal” before the assessment process is even commenced.

This is of critical importance when looking at the autocrat Campbell’s private river power policy. To the concerns raised by this organization and others that there are hundreds of BC streams and rivers at risk the government – and pay attention here! – the government replies “there are only a few licenses granted and all the others are merely applications.” What they don’t say is “because we have an environmental assessment policy that only kicks in after proponent has made his application, an application is tantamount to a license.”

But, you ask, can’t the project be refused? Not by the Director of the process, only by the minister – and so far this has never happened! Nor is it likely under this government.

Let me make this point: there is a great similarity between preserving our farm land and protecting our environment. In the former case, land taken out of the ALR is, for all intents and purposes, lost. In the case of the environment, its desecration is forever. We only let land out of the ALR when a commission of independent citizens permits it. Why shouldn’t the same principle apply to the environment, and then some?

I propose this: have a director, with the power to assess projects and, if appropriate, turn them down, appointed not by the Premier but the legislature in the same manner the Auditor General is which is to say only upon 100% approval of the Legislative committee set up to evaluate the candidates, then passed only if 75% of the Legislature concur. Members of the Commission should be selected by the Director.

This system won’t end controversy – nothing will. What it does is two things: it takes away political domination of the process and it permits the public to have access to all the facts and factors in an application and thus be fully informed. And in the case of power projects, these must all be publicly owned and controlled.

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Unfortunately, the lesson of Betty’s sacrifices is lost on the Campbell autocracy and perhaps some of us environmentalists as well. Thanks to her courage we have exposed the shameful hypocrisy of environmental assessment in British Columbia. What comes so clearly into focus is the sham of the government’s environmental exercises.

For an environmental assessment to mean anything it must be conducted before the proposed activity, not as a pro forma excess in play acting after the decision has been made. How well those of us along the Sea-to-Sky highway remember the Ministry of Environment people coming to meetings avoiding all serious questions because, they said, that this wasn’t their mandate. Their mandate was to be able, with a furrowed brow, to write down questions, and then promise that their superiors would certainly hear of them. Ask the folks who protested the ravaging of Eagleridge about their relationship with the environment assessment folks. Ask the people of Delta about their consultation about the dangers posed to wildlife and agriculture because of the South Fraser Perimeter Road; ask the good people of Tsawwassen about how they were consulted about the deadly transmission lines put over their heads.

Next time, what an environmental assessment process ought to look like...

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Let's look today at BC Hydro, the Crown Corporation the Campbell autocracy vowed it would protect. The fact is that BC Hydro has already been emasculated, left bleeding and without noticeable life support, waiting for a slow but certain death--and it must be noted that this is no accident.

In early 2003 the Campbell bunch in essence sold the management of BC Hydro to a company called Accenture whose appalling ancestry not even the endorsement of Tiger Woods can erase. This bunch used to be Andersen Consulting, whose parent company was Arthur Andersen Accounting - remember them? They were the infamous company who went down with their client Enron. When Enron hit the fan, Arthur Andersen Consulting re-branded itself as Accenture, the company your government chose to take over the bureaucracy of BC's jewel in the crown, BC Hydro.

Next, shortly afterwards, at the behest and one might say consistent pestering of the Independent Power producers (they are the nice little old Moms and Pops that are screwing up our watersheds), Campbell & Co. stripped BC Hydro of its transmission lines and put them into a new crown corporation known as the BC Transmission Corporation - the very same people who spied on the good burghers of Tsawwassen who dared opposed the cancerfication of their kids. The reason for this move seems to be that private power companies would feel awkward dealing directly with BC Hydro. You can depend upon this - if the Autocrat wins the next election expect BCTC to be privatized, it's ripe for the plucking. As we saw, BC Hydro's revenues will now be going into the pockets of, mostly, American shareholders. But what now?

It's not rocket science to see that Hydro will be left with its dams and Burrard Thermal and the obligation to pay vastly over cost prices to Big Daddy and Big Mommy with little or no profit to them. They will be expected to man and maintain their facilities and service their huge debt without the cash flow to do so. Like all large corporations BC Hydro has plenty of incidental debts but the main ones total just under $7 billion in direct debt and get this, every cent is either owed to the BC government or guaranteed by it.

Given the Autocrat's track record with BC Rail, BC Gas and BC Ferries (waiting for a buyer) what do you suppose he'll do when, not if, BC Hydro defaults? You get a gold star if you said "after shedding crocodile tears over how much he hates to do it, he sells the dams and Burrard Thermal to the highest bidder!"

Thus endeth the dream of W.A.C. Bennett of secure reasonably priced public power. And let me close with this: I have never voted NDP and in fact served in Bill Bennett's cabinet for five years. I've no desire to have another NDP government. But the plain truth is that while new governments can repair monetary and social problems, no government can repair our environment or get us out of expanding private power companies ravaging our environment for their gain.

This must be crystal clear to all British Columbians who care for our environment, the soul of the province: If the government won't change, we'll be forced to change the government.

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We'll start with the takeover of Blackball Ferries in 1961 renaming it BC Ferries. Why would he do this? Because he was a raging socialist? Hardly. Bennett knew that a Province like BC, with its massive coastline and pockets of population, needed a Ferry system that was prepared to lose money servicing small communities in the same way that, if you costed it out, highways to smaller communities cost much more per capita than ones to large towns and cities. BC Rail, formerly the Pacific Great Eastern, was bought so that the government, where necessary, could build spur lines to developing areas in the knowledge that it would be a financial loss at first, would pay for itself down the road. No private carrier would take that sort of risk. Bennett put together BC Hydro in part so that the government could use this corporation to advance government policy.

The Campbell autocracy, marching step by step with Thatcher, Reagan, Milton Friedman and their right wing gurus The Fraser Institute, hating Crown Corporations, have all but undone the legacy of W.A.C. Bennett.

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