How it works in BC (#2)

The following was the BC Ferries edition, published on April 02, 2012, but can easily be applied to the new BC Hydro situation where the government is asking we, the taxpayers, to bear the burden of a 26% increase in our electricity rates.
BC Hydro, through the mismanagement of the BC Liberal Government, and the people chosen to run BC Hydro, are now paying $130 per kilowatt hour to the Private Power Producers that Gordon Campbell installed in sweetheart deals, when all experts say the price should be $20 per khr. And did you know that $17 of every hundred BC Hydro takes in goes for 'dividends' to the BC Liberal government! Surely it is a TAX increase!

 Reprinted from April 02, 2012 but easily applies to the present situation.This is Gordon Campbell's legacy and we are wondering, again, who got paid off to implement these P3 deals that are now sinking the once finest public utility in North America?

We expect, once more that the 26% is only a ploy and that they truly want, say 12%, and that Christy Clark will follow her mentor's ideas and step in to 'save' us. Thereby taking accolades for 'protecting' us poor BC taxpayers. 
A lot of people when considering these P3 power projects are saying, ' I told you so."
This is how it works in BC ...........
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Monday, 2 April 2012

Here's how it works in BC

The Victoria Parliament Buildings at midnight. A meeting in the janitor's closet between two men ... both are wearing grey fedoras and black trenchcoats, with Groucho Marx glasses and fake mustaches. They are whispering ....

BC Ferries guy - We need a price increase of about four percent to cover our next years bonuses and payouts to executives for great service to the people.
BC Liberal guy - Listen, we always gotta consider the backlash to fare increases. Uh, lose the cigar, would you?
BC Ferries guy - Backlash?  That was only because David was making a million a year and the ridership didn't like it? 
BC Liberal guy - David?  
BC Ferries guy - David Hahn.The last CEO of BC Ferries.
(BC Liberal guy slits open the door and peaks out. No sound from the eerie marble hallway) 
BC Liberal guy - Oh yeah. The guy who was in charge when that ferry sank.
BC Ferries guy - Um, we don't talk about that one, okay?
BC Liberal guy - Well, he took the spotlight off Gordo's salary and pensions.
BC Ferries guy - Gordo who?

BC Liberal guy - Gordon Campbell, the ex Premier who we hid in England.
BC Ferries guy - Oh, I heard about that. The Gordon's gin guy, we toast him with tumblers. What about our fare increase?
BC Liberal guy - No prob. What 'll we say you need it for? Gas? 
BC Ferries guy - Well diesel, that's what we use. The boats were made in Germany, you know, not BC.  Easier to disseminate the money off shore ... if you know what I mean.  (it is so black neither sees the other's wink) Hey, careful where you nudge, eh?
 

BC Liberal guy - Okay, sure, okay. (pause) Well this is how it works here in BC. You come out publicly and ask for, say a 15% increase, we'll have Christy step in and say she's looking after families and only give you like, 4.8%.
BC Ferries guy - What's the .8 percent for?
BC Liberal guy - You'll be in charge of the money, yeah?
(silence in the blackness)

BC Liberal guy - Win win for all of us.

BC Ferries guy - Lose lose for ferry riders though. (snicker) Say, who's this Christy anyways?
BC Liberal guy - New boss lady, Christy Campbell, er, I mean Clark. Oops, Freudian slip .... (a tremble in his voice) Sheez, I could get sent to East Vancouver for that.

BC Ferries guy - Oh yeah, I remember, Clark is the BC Rail woman.
BC Liberal guy - Shhh. We don't talk about that one and we don't remember stuff either. (he worriedly puts his ear to the slit and listens carefully) Psst! If anyone comes just grab a broom and start sweeping.
BC Ferries guy - You'll get this through before any elections or anything though, right?
BC Liberal guy - Done. Even before the secret RCMP contract. Say, you haven't seen BC Hydro guy, have you?

BC Ferries guy - I think I saw him in the gardener's tool shed siphoning gas out of a lawn mower. Hey, wanna grab a burger? I know an underground MacDonald's that stays open after midnight.
BC Liberal guy - Sheez, here in Victoria? Does everyone do illegal stuff now? Okay, but let's leave one at a time.
BC Ferries guy -You couldn't go as a British Harpo, could you?


Since 2003, when the Crown corporation was quasi privatized, BC Ferries' fares have gone up by about 70 per cent on the major routes between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland and by 80 per cent on the minor routes, according to a chart on the ferry commissioner's own website.
As the ridership declines, BC Ferries considers charging more from the few remaining passengers. These are the elite brainy people who run our province for huge salaries. 


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Is this also a direct result of choosing to pay California 750 million dollars because they sued us and we backed down from a winning case?
Didn't you expect more from your politicians and management of YOUR resources?

You laugh or cry, either way, YOU are getting screwed by your corrupt government. 



 

Catch up time.

And I don't mean on your chips.I mean like your past catching up with you.
In the latest revelations of past doings going awry, the present BC Hydro chief questions the ability of the utility to support the IPPs and their high priced electricity. We have all suspected that these Independent Power Projects built on our rivers by foreigners would only siphon off dollars from BC Hydro. Those dollars of course belonging to you and me.

When Premier Gordon Campbell started these IPPs by handing out licences to entrepreneurs to build dams and power stations on our smaller rivers, many people questioned why BC Hyrdo didn't do it themselves if that power was needed. What would have been the reason to allow strangers into OUR environment to build high profit making power stations while ignoring other issues.
Some could only see the reason as personal gain.

Why would you sell off the production of power when we already had the crown jewel of public utilities in BC Hydro? Some of these IPPs paid a pittance for the licence. Well, at least on the surface. It was even suggested there might have been a secret side payment to those who could make these easy money schemes happen! If you were granted a licence to print money at the cost of the BC taxpayer, a million in cash slipped quietly as 'tip' money into an offshore bank account was little to pay when you would, in the future, be charging BC Hydro way above the going price for he power your IPP would be producing.
What a sweetheart deal!

Now even the CEO of BC Hydro is questioning those deals. Forced by the government to buy power at a premium price when BC Hydro doen't even need it, Putting our public corporation at the brink of bankruptcy because of it. What could be the next result of this grand scam? Perhaps the handing over of BC Hydro to foreign interests?

All that this deception on the BC taxpayers will result in is to dig deeper into our pockets while a certain few make billions on the scheme. And was that the plan all along when the BC Liberals, all quiet and looking the other way, allowed the premier of our once proud province to sell us out completely? Wasn't that the BC Rail result too? Are we on the same level as some hapless middle African country being exploited by a greedy dictatorial leader who runs off to the South of France with his unctuous money later. In this case the UK.
Seems that way.

Christy Clark will probably do her usual, "We don't like it but we can't do anything about it, they have contracts," rote comment.
Wasn't Mz Clark there when Gordon tore up legal union contracts?
Wouldn't it guarantee her re-election if she promised to expose the corruption in the BC Rail sale? And return it to its rightful owners? We the people of BC. Couldn't she tear up David Hahn's obscene contract and fire him too? Couldn`t she exproprate those IPPs operating with impunity on OUR rivers?

Yes, imagine the fallout. Lawsuits by the bushel. If I was premier I would simply say the sale of BC Rail was obtained through illegal means, therefore it is illegal and negated. I would challenge David Hahn to go after us in the courts, reminding him that he had a sunken BC Ferry on his watch, at the same time promising that he will be in for a 20 year ordeal. And those IPPs? I would suggest that the first one to come foreward with information of corruption on the part of anyone within the BC Government would get to keep their IPP, and make their profits. The rest would come under BC Hydro care and control.

But that's not going to happen. Is it? Simplistic. We can't. That's the operative word with BC Liberals. These current MLAs voted 84% to back Gordon Campbell the week before he stepped down in shame. How's that for an approval rating. Scoundrels backing a rogue. Circle the wagons, zip the lips.
Same old same old over there in Victoria, picking at the taxpayer's bones and what WE all owned as part of a thriving British Columbia.

One can only hope that this trail of corruption and disregard for the people of BC catches up with the perpetrators. Heavy on the word traitors.

No, that is not ketchup up on my chips, it's blood.

.

A concerned citizen's letter re BC Hydro

published in the April 15 edition of the Campbell River Courier-Islander.

"Now there's a profundity! Merely a month on the job and Hon. Rich Coleman is qualified to single-handedly determine the engineering, safety, and financial merits of BC Hydro projects. Does he think that Hydro would be proposing the project if it didn't need to be done? Some sort of a 'make work' project perhaps? In your article Mr. Coleman goes on to say "...But we also need to minimize costs and take care about the burden we're placing on families ... you also have to figure out how you an bring your costs in and cash-flow it through so that your rates will be kept down..."
To ensure that Mr. Coleman's prerequisites can be met, he has struck a panel of 'senior officials' to examine Hydro's financial performance, its operating and capital requirements, the reliability of its forecasting systems, administrative expenses, procurement processes, cost containment strategies, and opportunities for savings.
As a retired BC Hydro manager with 36 years service I feel both compelled and qualified to comment. The underlying implication of Mr. Coleman's comments and actions is that BC Hydro is inept and that somehow by the end of June his panel of 'senior officials' is going to identify the various errors of Hydro's ways and get them on track towards providing low cost, reliable, clean hydroelectric energy for the citizens and industry of British Columbia.
Whoa! Reality check!
The facts of the matter are that BC Hydro, through the watchful eye of the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) and the incredible foresight of the W.A.C. Bennett government has been providing the lowest cost, reliable, green, 100% renewable electrical energy in North America to the citizens and industry of B.C for the past 50 years. >
And, just as importantly, they would still be doing so if the provincial government (yes, the same Liberal government that Mr. Coleman is and has been a Minister for) had not decided to use (or more accurately abuse) BC Hydro as an enormous "cash cow" and steal hundreds of millions of dollars from them per year in "dividend payments" to the "shareholder" (the government on behalf of British Columbians).

The fact is that the government saw Hydro's large cash flows and capital and operational program funds as huge cash reserves that they could 'better use' to fund other government programs for which funding would otherwise have to be reduced or taxes would otherwise have to be increased. Our 'diligent' premier and his cabinet simply didn't care that their 'rob Peter to pay Paul' actions would require Hydro to cut and/or seriously curtail their requisite system operations and capital programs.
In fact, to add insult to injury, the Liberal government under Premier Gordon Campbell forced BC Hydro to take on billions of dollars in additional debt in the form of long term (30 -- 40 year) 'use or pay' contracts with private run-of-river and wind power developers. Furthermore, the contracted energy costs are two to three times higher than current electrical energy value.
So, back to Mr. Coleman's quandary. What will his panel of experts determine? What can we do to ensure that the citizens and industry of British Columbia are getting the best bang for their energy dollar?

How can we be sure that Hydro and its villainous team of engineers and technicians isn't out to screw us? Well, I would like to humbly suggest the following solutions: Get your grubby government hands out of BC Hydro's pockets. For the past 50 years the citizens and industry of British Columbia have enjoyed 'real' dividends from BC Hydro in the form of the lowest cost, clean, reliable electrical energy in North America (possibly the world). This didn't happen by accident and it certainly isn't indicative of a poorly run energy corporation.
Let BC Hydro work to its mandate and let BCUC do its job of overseeing Hydro's operations.
Make the government the 'fall guy' rather than BC Hydro and explain why Hydro is in the mess it's in. The government created the mess so they should at least have the intestinal fortitude and integrity to admit it.
Unfortunately we are all going to have to pay to get ourselves out of this mess but at least we should know the real cause so that future generations don't repeat this sham.
M.J. (Marv) Everett, Retired,
Campbell River

(bolds are mine)

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There are many people in British Columbia who harbor suspicions about the motives of the current Liberal government to undermine the work of BC Hydro in the first place, and the reasons for private power Run of the River projects.
Some believe that, (using the BC Rail trial jargon) that 'Tips' might have been provided to certain officials. Most of these power projects have a limited liability to even provide power for the people of BC and after their initial contracts run out, said to be for only five years, they are free to use the resources of BC rivers for their power to supply out of country electricity, to California air conditioners and Nevada neon etc without having to provide one milliwatt to British Columbians!
BC Hydro has, as Mr. Everett said, been trusted for fifty years by British Columbians, to look after OUR needs, and he is careful to acknowledge the foresight of WAC Bennett to build this into the corporation. Alas, governments with benefits for BCers in mind are sadly gone.
We notice Mr. Colman's clever use of Christy Clark's new election buzzword, 'families', and we wonder how many journals, radio, newspapers, TV stations and other media will bring up even ONE question in the coming provincial election to a Liberal candidate regarding the destruction of the jewel of Crown Corporations in BC and it's effect on the families of British Columbians?