There is something brewing in the environment – the disintegration of BC Hydro by this government – deliberately. This has been obvious to my partner Damien Gillis and me for 18 months. All signs point that way and the brilliant analysis by economist Erik Andersen which you can see at thecanadian.org lays it all out.
This is not rocket science, folks. Hydro is forced to pay for private at double its market value and the total bill is over $40 BILLION. This “buy high/sell low” policy can only have one result – bankruptcy. One tends to look at the immense dams and think of that as representing Hydro’s value but it doesn’t. The real value is in the water rights under the government’s control. The only way BC Hydro looks attractive – and does do that! – is if the right to use the water be it for power or use as a very sought after commodity, goes with the deal. the other obvious consequence is that Hydro rates will be set customers of the new company to get what the traffic will bear on the market or under contract – clearly, this means that rates to British Columbia industry and its citizens will skyrocket. Continue Reading »
Tags: BC Hydro
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I want to expand a bit on what I said on the Political Panel this morning (August 30) on the CBC.
Although it may seem ephemeral, a government’s attitude is important – very important indeed. The Liberal government hates social programs and it shows.
This morning my remarks were dealing with parks but they cover the entire system of government.
I don’t wish to be misunderstood here. Of course governments have as their principal duty the careful handling of public money. We have, however, long ago decided upon a welfare state in the best meaning of that term,
It started back in the very early years of WAC Bennett’s reign (and reign it certainly seemed to be) when he brought in a sales tax to pay for his Hospital Insurance scheme. British Columbia under WAC Bennett was also amongst the first in Canada to have a form of Medicare. These things don’t look very important now but in the 1950s they certainly did. Bennett didn’t do these things because he had to but because they were the right things to do.
This attitude of service to all British Columbians, not just your supporters, continued and was expanded by the Dave Barrett government of 1972-5 as it was later in Bill Bennett’s time. Continue Reading »
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Let’s take a trip down memory lane today – my memory lane anyway, for I suspect that a lot of you weren’t even gleams in your father’s eye in the 1950s.
In 1961 I was in my 30th year – it was the year I articled with the late Tommy Griffiths and was, on May 15th, called to the bar. It was also a year when an amazing performer from Oz. Rolf Harris was in town for a gig at the Arctic Club. In fact, earlier he had lived in Vancouver for nearly a year.
A word about the Arctic Club.
Cocktail lounges didn’t come to Vancouver until The Sylvia Hotel, built in 1912 as an apartment house, opened Vancouver’s first “cocktail bar” in 1954, Prior to that, the only public drinking holes were “Beer Parlours”, ghastly places now that I look back but, as they say, any old port in the storm. (Later, in 1978, as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, I ended these dumps with the creation of the Hotel “Pub” license). Continue Reading »
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Can Tiger come back now that his divorce is final, Elin had been paid off and the children suitably dealt with?
There is no question that his self confidence has been impaired if not shattered and that’s and his steely confidence has, until now, screwed up the heads of his opponents. The cock of the walk is now an ordinary bird, no longer with the flock deferring to him. He’s lost some huge sponsors and, I suspect, the only reason Nike hasn’t shown him the door is because they have too many golf balls and sportswear with his face on them.
The questions are these – has Tiger lost his swing? Has he lost the mental toughness that made opponents creep? Is he in financial trouble? Continue Reading »
Tags: Tiger Woods
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This week biologist Alexandra Morton announced that she has learned that the fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago are on leases that have long ago expired. In a move combining defiance and a wicked sense of humour Alex has applied for the leases which she will devote to returning the ocean bed “to their natural state to grow wild fish to the much greater benefit of British Columbians and the BC economy”.
This Crown Land is public land that the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL) leases to people and companies. MAL is also in charge of regulating the salmon feedlots. Even for this government the arrogance is breathtaking.
What sort of hold have these Norwegian fish farm companies got on this government? What is the explanation for this utter and absolute giveaway of Crown land to foreign companies to use virtually free while their operations wipe out wild salmon stocks year after year? No one, least of all I would accuse this government, its leader or any member of it of corruption but it must be said that if these circumstances prevailed somewhere else, in the absence of a rational explanation, one would have to suspect hanky panky of some sort. Continue Reading »
Tags: Alexandra Morton
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Five ‘vectors’ spell doom for once-solid Crown corporation. Blame Campbell’s energy policies.
Erik Andersen is a former Transport Canada economist with a long and interesting pedigree of examining the affairs of business and government. He has done a report for The Common Sense Canadian — I am a co-founder and regular contributor — on the state of BC Hydro.
The picture he paints is of a once rock solid Crown corporation placed on the road to fiscal ruin by the Campbell government. Read full article at The Tyee: Economist Calculates BC Hydro on Path to Ruin
Tags: BC Hydro, Erik Andersen
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For starters, and just for the record, here are Rafe’s three axioms of politics.
I. You make a serious mistake in assuming that people in charge know what the hell they’re doing.
II. You don’t have to be a 10 in politics, you can be a 3 if everyone else is a 2
III. Never deliberately create an unpopular issue that will still be there on the next election day
Let me get ahead of myself with an illustration of the operation of Axiom III from when I was in government.
The Bill Bennett government, of which I was a member, came to power on December 22, 1975. The Barrett government that we had replaced had created the Insurance Corporation of BC and in a year and a half, with a monopoly on car insurance, had managed to lose $186 million. The provincial cupboard was bare. Continue Reading »
Tags: HST
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The Republicans will slaughter the Democrats next November according to those who know about these things. And I’ve no doubt that they will. All the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate are up for grabs and the Democrats are in bad shape and could even lose control of the Senate.
I will take these prognostications and predict that in 2013 President Obama will win re-election handily.
How do I square that circle?
By 2013 the public will be able to see Obama in perspective.
I believe that Obama has done very well. Consider what he inherited in Afghanistan, Iraq and the US Economy.
It’s been well said “it’s the economy, stupid!” Let’s examine that. Continue Reading »
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Please tell me that I haven’t gone mad. Tell me that people in this province really do care for their environment; that they want to continue with public power through BC Hydro.
Thanks to the work of Economist Erik Andersen, we now know that Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell has set BC Hydro on the road to bankruptcy. We have had confirmed what Damien Gillis and I have been writing and saying for 2 ½ years; BC Hydro has been forced into giving Independent Power Producers (IPPS) sweetheart “take or pay” contracts requiring Hydro to buy power it doesn’t need thus must sell for ½ of what it paid. We’ve also seen that IPPS account for 16% of Hydro’s domestic power meaning Hydro has bought hugely expensive power that it can produce itself for a fraction of the cost. We also know that the substantial dividend Hydro used to pay the BC government each year is gone – unless they charge us higher rates so they can pay it back to us! Continue Reading »
Tags: BC Hydro, Erik Andersen
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Posted on thecanadian.org you will find a report on BC Hydro by economist Erik Andersen, Sinister financial vectors at BC Hydro, and it should shock all British Columbians. I must add that I feel vindicated since I’ve been saying these things for 2 ½ years based on inferred evidence fortified by the lack of rebuttal by BC Hydro, the private power interests or the Campbell government.
The situation Gordon “Pinocchio” Campbell has got us in is all but impossible to believe, but he’s done it.
Let me quickly lay out why we have a publicly owned power company.
Back in the late 50s and early 60s then Premier W.A.C. Bennett made three decisions – he decided that Black Ball Ferries, being privately owned, would never serve any communities unless it was profitable; he decided the same thing for the old PGE railway; and he held that BC needed an abundance of cheap power for both industry and the general public so he nationalized BC Railway in 1961. Thus we had BC Ferries, BC Rail, and BC Hydro and Power Authority. Continue Reading »
Tags: BC Hydro, Erik Andersen
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