We are getting barrow after barrow of barnyard droppings dumped on our laps and we should know it.
Premier Clark promised us huge LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) revenues in a few years. We would be debt free and have $100 BILLION in the to be created “Prosperity Fund”. That was at the start of the election campaign. Then it became a year after the next election. Now, according to Mike Smyth of the Province, this is 15 years away.
It’s all bullshit. For LNG to become a major export industry 15 years from now requires a phenomenal outlay of capital and it isn’t going to happen. Of course companies will, cross their hearts and hope to die, promise great things but they will not happen. We have only begun to learn about the reserves of shale gas and oil around the world but, in all likelihood, they will be everywhere and in abundance. Premier Clark and Finance Minister de Jong are telling us not to worry but it will all happen.
Well, then, would the two of you please outline the timetable for all this?
As Mario Cuomo said, “you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.” These promises however, are dangerous and deliberate nonsense.
Within the mandate of this government, it will try to break up BC Hydro and sell off the parts. Just like BC Rail, the government will retain residual ownership, in 900 years, to take back the dams. At the rate we’re going, this will have to happen. BC Hydro is awash in debt in its normal operations and new projects and is now facing an ever-increasing debt as private power producers (IPPs) provide power to BC Hydro at double-plus the market price and 10x what it can generate for itself from heritage assets.
This is the elephant in the room no one will talk seriously about – not the Premier, not the Minister of Finance, certainly not a government MLA, not Vaughn Palmer or Mike Smyth – it just throws its weight around unchecked.
Now BC Hydro is committed to a $10 BILLION Site “C” dam to subsidize the government’s dusty-eyed plans to make us all rich with LNG.
BC Hydro has only one source of revenue – you and me, the taxpayer and ratepayer – and when the government comes clean, the rate increases will be beyond our ability to pay.
This all started with the Gordon Campbell government and my bet is that privatization talks have been ongoing since then.
The balanced budget of Mike de Jong is bullshit too. In the first place, you can hardly say with a straight face that you’ve balanced a budget when, to make ends meet, you’ve sold hard assets for your revenue side. This is precisely like you balancing your personal budget by taking on a new mortgage or selling the car.
The real debt of the province per capita, under the Liberals, has quintupled. It will continue to grow at a frightening rate.
There’s insufficient money for current social funding, let alone increasing it.
This government’s election platform was a tissue of lies, but so what? It kept the bad guys out and left the white hats in control, didn’t it?
The Liberals have a hell of a lot to answer for. So do the NDP, who ran a pitiful campaign.
So do the nearly 50% of voters who stayed home last May 14.
Thursday, 04 July 2013 18:12 posted by brian
Here is why this is not an issue for them… It is shocking that no one has figured this out, here it is, right in the law, the authorization… So, where is the money going to come from for all of this? How about reading the below. Of course, it has never, ever happened anywhere that the banks and government would collude with multinational mining corps to subsidize the rape of resources right?
Authorization to borrow from Canada Pension Plan
22 Despite anything in this Act, the authority may, in the resolution under section 21, authorize the Minister of Finance or, with the concurrence of the Minister of Finance, authorize the Minister of Finance of Canada to determine any matter required to be determined under section 21 for
(a) borrowing money from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Fund established under the Canada Pension Plan, and
(b) issuing and selling to the Receiver General and Minister of Finance of Canada for the credit of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Fund debentures as security for the loans.
Thursday, 04 July 2013 16:54 posted by Norine Wark
The selling off of BC Hydro began at the turn of this century. My sister used to work as a mid-level manager for BC Hydro for 27 years. One day she worked for BC Hydro; the next day her pay cheque was issued by Accenture Business Services, a company whose headquarters was located in Bermuda. Although the office building where she worked still sported the BC Hydro logo, BC Hydro’s management department and staff were owned by Accenture. (We may all remember Accenture as Arthur Anderson reinvented after the Anderson corporation was indicted in the Enron scandal of 2001. It was then that Arthur Anderson moved its corporate business headquarters to Bermuda, and re-labeled itself as Accenture Business Services.)
Once Accenture took over BC Hydro management services, most of the work was outsourced. My sister was one of countless BC Hydro employees who were handed a pink slip due to outsourcing. So much for our politicians wanting to employ British Columbians!
How much of BC Hydro is still a public asset? I am not sure. But I do know that BC Hydro’s management and meter-reading services are owned by Accenture… I don’t recall our politicians sharing this decision with us, do you?
Tuesday, 02 July 2013 12:28 posted by Kevin
Well Barry, it takes about 25% of the natural gas pumped out of the ground to compress the remainder for shipping to Asia. Site C will only be able to produce enough power to operate one large LNG plant. A complete waste of energy for sure. Keep the gas here to run our province, some things are just a no-brainer, aren’t they? The guys I have coffee with can see this, common sense still exists with the common folk. We could be exporting our greatest source of natural gas starting tomorrow and that would be the emissions from a Lieberal caucus meeting!
Monday, 01 July 2013 22:25 posted by Johns Aghast
I’m no economist but it seems to me if saved the cost of piping it, compressing it, shipping it and expanding it and used it locally to power our transportation facilities (railroad locomotives, ferries and heavy transport trucks) we could keep the cost of our local commodities down. And if we match the ridiculously low Royalty we would be forced to accept in order to flog the stuff off-shore for internal consumption (instead of charging the ‘little’ people three times the rate for BC Hyro rate that the big guys pay) we could heat our houses for a reasonable cost.
Manufactures would benefit. Mines would benefit. And we’d be less likely to run out and have to buy it back thirty years from now.
John’s Aghast
Monday, 01 July 2013 10:15 posted by G. Barry Stewart
Thank you,Rafe, for continuing to speak out against BC Liberal lies.
If Site C is not built — and our natural gas is used to power the LNG compressors… do we know how much of the gas is going up in smoke in the process? (And who is paying for that gas?)
It seems to be a very wasteful proposition. Why not just leave the gas in the ground until we need it for our own (unliquified) uses?
Monday, 01 July 2013 10:14 posted by G. Barry Stewart
Thank you,Rafe, for continuing to speak out against BC Liberal lies.
If Site C is not built — and our natural gas is used to power the LNG compressors… do we know how much of the gas is going up in smoke in the process? (And who is paying for that gas?)
It seems to be a very wasteful proposition. Why not just leave the gas in the ground until we need it for our own (unliquified) uses?
Sunday, 30 June 2013 12:15 posted by Hugh
Let’s start exporting LNG ASAP.
I want to be rich NOW!
$$$
Sunday, 30 June 2013 07:44 posted by psosp
People fail to realize that when their hydro rates increase, it’s not just the cost of their own household’s service that is affected, but all the businesses, the grocery store, the hairdresser, the mechanic, the dentist – all affected too, and they must pass on the increased cost of business to the consumer. Our public services will see increases too, hospitals, schools, the like. An then we will be told we must pay more in taxes to keep up. Then the inevitable time of use billing! Welcome to BC – Western Canada’s Biggest Ghetto! The impact to the cost of living will be outrageous! Oh, sorry, the core infaltion will still be only a measly 0.1 per cent, right? I forget that “volatiles” like housing, energy and food are stripped out, leaving us with frisbees and dreams.
BC’s LNG will become this decade’s Polar 8. By the way, what is happening to the shipbuilding announced a couple years ago for North Van?
I still have my old hydro meter! Will resist to the bitter end the dumb meters!
Sunday, 30 June 2013 00:40 posted by Roger Kemble
Well said Rafe. The Liberals have shown themselves to be untrustworthy: the NDP unfit to govern.
But what about the voter? Clearly we reap what we sow: the arrogance of complacency, ignorance and inertia.
Interesting four years ahead!