This Plan took away BC Hydro’s right to create new energy and gave that job to the private sector. It also forced BC Hydro into making sweetheart “use or pay” contracts with private producers which gives the term “sweetheart deal” a whole new meaning.

Evidently the light has gone in the Premier’s office and he has, at long last, seen the consequences of this deal.

The consequence for BC Hydro is Grade I arithmetic. It can’t avoid for long the fact that either it will go bankrupt if it must pay to the private sector double what it can sell it for in the US or charge British Columbia usurious electricity rates.

Why does that happen?

Because the vast bulk of private power comes when we don’t need it! Private plants develop their power during he Spring run-off, the very time BC Hydro has full reservoirs with plenty of power to meet its demands. The BC government have been very silent on this matter and much of the blame falls upon the NDP who didn’t understand the this issue during the May election and didn’t press it. To this day only a handful of NDP MLAs have a clue about the Energy Policy.

The consequences of the Energy Policy are that either Hydro must go broke because it cannot pay the billions of dollars it has in obligations to private power or it must substantially raise its rates to BC industry and homeowners to cover off its losses. If the latter is the option, you and I will be subsidizing Hydro exports to the US – big time!

Both policies will hit British Columbians very hard indeed. The marvelous power creation we have in this province of ours, BC Hydro, faces the dilemma “do we bankrupt our company or do we bankrupt the public?

The BC Utilities Commission has stepped on Mr. Campbell’s corns and the premier is thrashing around to find an easy way out. But there isn’t one. BCUC has already found that the Campbell Energy Policy is “not in the province’s best interests”. For Premier Campbell to allow BCUC to continue to overturn rocks and find government crawlies is not on he’s shut it down.

The government has been lying about this issue from the outset. Two statements suffice to prove that. One Campbell has stated that BC needs this new energy which is utterly false. Then he says the private power companies ruining our rivers, clear-cutting for roads and transmission lines will make up this mythical need we have for more energy. This is horse buns for as noted above, we certainly wouldn’t be able to use private power which is of no help to British Columbians because of the time it’s produced.

Campbell has shut down the public’s sharp eye on power production and has turned that obligation over to himself and the nit wits that make up his government.

The chickens are indeed coming home to roost.

What the head rooster does now will be interesting – and very costly – to see.

This is not an unusual situation. The last Fishery Minister who knew his brief was John Fraser who, unhappily, did not stay in the ministry long enough to locate the private loo.

When I was Environment Minister for BC many moons ago I researched the history of Ottawa and the Pacific Fishery. This history is festooned with short term solutions that lasted only until the next crisis. There were reports and studies galore.

Just one example. At one point the fishery was being over fished. The Minister then decided that there were too many boats chasing too many fish so he organized a buy back of licenses. The minister didn’t reckon with the ingenuity of man for in no time flat the boats that remained increased their capacity and we were back where we started!

The political bottom line is this – we will either elect the Tories, who won’t change, or the Liberals who won’t change or the NDP which has no power to change.

Next stop – a dam on the Fraser north of Lytton because there are no fish values to be concerned about.

Coalitions are difficult to put together and even more difficult to keep together and wise environmentalists know that. The way to go is find common ground and common assets that can be to the benefit of all. I believe that opponents to fish farms and private power can do much in common with the Wilderness Committee which has done so much to help to help in the rivers cause and against fish farms over the past couple of years. I believe a new umbrella group called the Salmon Circle will play a great role as will the BC Wildlife Federation. If the Campbell autocracy believes the election decided the environmental issues he’s in for a very big surprise.

Oddly enough, in a backhanded way, the victory of the Liberals on May 12 last has made organizing opposition easier. Before May 12 Liberals who opposed fish farms and private power were loath to support the NDP and either held their noses and voted Liberal or stayed at home. This constitutes a large mass of potential support for our cause.

The issues are not complicated though the government wants you to think they are.

The sea lice from salmon farms are destroying Pink, Chum and Sockeye smolts. This is no longer a scientific issue and hasn’t been one for some years.

Private power destroys rivers, their fish and the general ecology they maintain; the power produced is mostly at a time we don’t need it thus will be sold to the US. Because of the sweetheart deals BC Hydro has been forced to make with private power companies they will have to export at a huge loss and therefore are condemned to bankruptcy; private power has virtually no impsct on BC’s power requirements.

In both cases the government, its ministers and the premier are lying through their teeth and that is very easy to prove.

On the power side the government and their Charlie McCarthy’s make out that increasing the capacity of the gas powered Burrard Thermal will damage the environment. If anyone were suggesting that Burrard Thermal in fact produce more power that would be another matter. But no one, including the BC Utilities is considering increasing the output of Burrard Thermal. This is how the government deceives us. Campbell says BCUC wants Burrard Thermal to expand so we’re going to get rid of it making it appear that they’re good little boys and girls fighting for the climate.

It’s essential to know what Burrard Thermal does. Where I live, Lions Bay, we often have power outages for several days so many have bought a small gas fired generator to give them power when they can’t get it from their power switch. Isn’t that just prudence? Would Mr. Campbell say that we simply freeze to death (these power outages nearly always follow foul weather). The generators aren’t used when the power switch works and similarly as a province we use Burrard Thermal when normal power isn’t fully available. The government’s position and that of its lackeys want to deceive the public.

It’s the same with the fish farmers. One of the raw lies put out by industry and government alike is that the lice attacking the wild salmon are not the same kind as in fish farms.

Here’s what Alexandra Morton says about this allegation  …

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s statements regarding sea lice, sockeye and fish farms are increasingly misguiding.  … the statement is not only untrue it is just plain stupid given that Marine Harvest posts their sea lice data on the web.

Yes, there are two species of sea lice predominately infecting salmon on this coast, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, the salmon louse which is the largest, and Caligus clemensi, a species that can exist on species of fish other than salmon which makes Caligus a little harder to track.  We have found that young sockeye are most often infected with Caligus, although we see Lepeophtheirus on them as well.

Both Caligus and Lepeophtheirus are recorded in Marine Harvest’s sea lice counts and posted on their website …if you go to its site you can click on each far site and get pdfs such as I have attached.  It becomes immediately apparent that farm fish have both species of lice.”

With more and more people examining these issues not from a party political point of but with the eyes of British Columbians wanting to preserve our heritage, government and industry deceit becomes more and more obvious.

In 1983 a freshly elected Socred Government ran on a restraint program winning a near landslide. When they brought in “restraint” legislation a large portion of the population objected to such an extent that the government had to back down.

In 2009 the issues are far, far graver than in 1983 and when the public rises in anger, as it will, I predict there will very substantial changes indeed.

It doesn’t take the brains of a Mensa to see that the environmental movement is split into many ways. I’m not talking of the shameful departure of Dr David Suzuki but of the splits within the movement that have long existed.

Those splits, often encouraged by governments, are not bad things in themselves. There are countless points of contact between environmentalists and issues to be concerned about. I must admit that until recent months I thought we should be trying to put together a coalition but I see now it can’t work.

We at Save Our Rivers Society were blessed indeed to have as allies in the recent fight, the Wilderness Committee and their spokespersons, Joe Foy and Gwen Barlee with whom I shared many a speaker’s podium. But WC has a broad mandate and it might have been that other priorities would have made it impossible for them to fight our fight as comrades. Similarly, with our mandate at SORS we might find that our resources were stretched too thin to help WC in a particular issue. But this makes this point – what if environmental activists simply got one coordinating point so that, for example, when WC would like support, the coordinator could canvas other groups and see what help they could spare.

Here’s a hypothetical way it might work. Suppose the Wilderness Committee was unable to commit as a group to SORS fight because they had too many irons in the fire. A coordinator would be able to call WC and say – “here are rallies we’ve put together. Can you spare Joe or Gwen Barlee for a speech on such and such a day?” In other words, a coordinator would not in any way interfere with the mandates of other organizations or connote a coalition or amalgamation – integration might be the better word – but would provide sort of a clearing house so that we can all help each other out when we’re able to and to the extaent we can and still satisfy our respective mandates.

The next four years will be the roughest in my memory. All of us in the environmental field will be fighting both governments on a number of battlegrounds. What a plus for us if every army in the field could get a bit of help here and there.

This does in fact happen but not, in my view, on a wide enough basis.

An idea whose time has come?

Or another dud?

At the very least it’s worth looking at.

Campbell was lucky as hell that in the last election the NDP were unable to make this their issue with the result that only in a few constituencies was it an issue at all. That may have changed already.

This is a policy that has no good side to it. If it weren’t so serious one might laugh at Guy Dauncey of BCSEA’s silly little word games and consoling thought that even if this power isn’t staying home that at least it will help Americans meet their environmental standards.

Often one says “shorn of all else” but I can’t say that because “all else” is fatal piece by piece. Perhaps I can say that the most galling part for British Columbians is that a decision they had no hand in making is going to create power almost exclusively for export. It’s here the Campbell government – and yes the Premier especially – have lied through their teeth. Creating the false impression that BC was an importer of power and needed to do something to become self sufficient by 2016 Campbell told people that this power would fix it all up for us. We are not net importers and even if we needed power, private power is scarcely going to be helpful. Think on that friends – Premier Campbell told us that these private power deals were going to create all the energy we need when in fact nearly all of it’s going to the US so they don’t have to screw up their rivers and streams. Our money, our environment, our power company along with the private power are all going south!

Just as he assured us he’s never sell BC Rail he told us private power would be for British Columbians. Perhaps as Churchill did to avoid calling a prime minister something unparliamentary I will content myself by observing that Campbell’s statements are terminological inexactitudes!

I’ve been asked given the Liberals won the last election giving them four more years to do as they wish, we don’t just fold our tent and walk away? The answer is that we can’t – and neither can you! We will fight every inch of the way to fight every private power exercise that comes along.

This will not be easy. I don’t believe that Campbell will stay his term. With the Winter Olympics behind him I believe he’ll resign. If I’m right, since Campbell won’t need the Liberal Party any more it won’t bother him if they hit the ditch in 2013.

Is that being fair? Campbell hasn’t given any inkling that he wants to leave politics has he?

I think he has in several ways.

He clearly doesn’t care that with his policies, BC Hydro will be ruined before 2013 because he won’t be where it matters. He clearly doesn’t care about our environment because he won’t be around when his party is called to account.

He doesn’t give a damn about BC getting screwed by an energy policy that brings no new power to speak of to BC but makes us into a perpetual goblet of energy to be drunk by Americans for two reasons – he never has had concerns about BC and – here’s pure speculation – he expects to become rich out of energy as former Alberta premier Ralph Klein has become.

In a way, this makes the task of fighting the rivers issue more difficult. After all, if Campbell doesn’t give a damn about it why would anyone else in the Liberal Party care?

The answer is that the candidates for his position will know that they face a serious problem in 2013 and will want to forge their own paths. Rita Johnson and Kim Campbell know what it’s like to take over a party that’s hated by the voters.

But this isn’t really relevant to our fight because we must stop these projects without concern for political events. We must oppose with every fiber in our body. We have to prepare, with many participants, to blockade projects and defy the law taking the consequences that follow. This will require solidarity of all of us who are in the fight.

I have found in the issues in which I’ve been involved you never know you’ve won until you’ve won. Up until that moment you nearly always feel you’re losing.

We have a moral obligation to all who come after us to fight Campbell and his toadies every inch of the way. As the great Scottish minstrel, Sir Harry Lauder used to sing – “Keep right on to the end of the road, Keep right on to the end …”

If you took Wednesday’s Toronto Globe and Mail – the National Edition – and looked at the front page, left column you would have seen this headline – “Green Premier’s Agenda hits snag as energy plan rejected” with the sub headline “Commission says Campbell’s initiative not public interest”. This was followed by a full article by the eminent Mark Hume outlining how the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) has roundly criticized the private rivers scheme of the Campbell government.

I’m not going to deal with the issues themselves today – the Save Our Rivers Society will issue a press release in the next few days.

This story is a block buster with shares of Plutonic, one of the major players in the private energy scam, taking a sizeable plunge. The Globe and Mail knows it’s a major story so let’s see what the local CanWest papers had to say.

The Province told us about hoods on bail (this story has taken on the status of regular feature with this paper), the sale of the “fast ferries”, a story about Translink and the Ferries and the perils of driving while using a cell phone, There was the start of a housing project, two full pages about the heat wave, a Canadian killed in Puerto Rico and how you should take your garbage with you (including unopened CanWest papers one assumes). We have now reached the op-ed page and nary a word about the BCUC ruling!

As we move on, we have HST and restaurants, guilty letter carriers and Hutterites and photo ID. On and on it goes, a big story on tanning beds on A 20 and we’re through the News section. Knowing this paper’s penchant for burying stories I even checked out the Sports section.

The Vancouver (seriously West Coast) Sun is the same except that Vaughn Palmer, who usually comments upon the news and doesn’t report it, uses the story for his column and obviously is checking back tears as he relates this tragic condemnation of his Liberal government.

So here we have it – The Globe and Mail, on the front page, not in the BC section, fully reports this blockbuster story while it doesn’t outrank lost dogs and losing BC Lions quarterbacks with “seriously west coast” CanWest.

I said I won’t deal with the finer points because Save Our Rivers Society (www.saveourrivers.ca – check out its Board of Advisors) – has people much more knowledgeable that I to do this. I will, however, give you a political opinion.

The Campbell government has based its very existence on the its rivers policy which is a shameful sham. It encourages the destruction of our rivers beyond repair so that large international companies can produce power which MUST be purchased by BC Hydro at prices 2 to 3 times the value on the spot market. Because this power is mostly produced during the spring run off when BC Hydro had fill reservoirs and lots of power, private power it’s all but useless for British Columbia customers and will be exported at a huge loss by BC Hydro. The policy is madness and if you doubt me, read Dr. John Calvert’s book, Liquid Gold. (Dr. Calvert is on the SORS Board of Advisors.) Given these facts no intelligent observers, as are the members of BCUC, could fail to see that the Government’s rivers policy was a colossal mistake.

Now here’s what happens. Because BCUC offered some positive words about the Burrard Thermal Plant and Site “C” the government will hop on these to justify legislating the BCUC decision out of existence. I need hardly tell you how irresponsible this will be. Whatever other things the BCUC said, the condemnation of the private power scheme stands on its own. The government knows that BC Hydro can indeed phase out Burrard Thermal (which is only used in an emergency) and make up power needs by conservation, upgrades of current generators, new generators and, by exercising our powers under the Columbia River Treaty, repatriating power we send for to the US.

This issue is a political one and it involves a government and a premier with an overweening sense of infallibility which allows them holding their noses but with otherwise straight faces, protecting not the citizens but its corporate paymasters. Rather than do what is right Campbell will not permit BCUC to embarrass him. To him and his crowd, loss of face ranks far ahead of the public good.

It’s a marvelous victory for all who laboured so hard to expose and end an atrocious policy but it won’t last because – and you can bet on this – Campbell will legislate his power policy so that Plutonic’s shares will rise again at the expense of us the voters.

To this government good policy is trumped by his policy even if it’s disastrous – which this is.

This lack of acquaintance with the truth goes back to the beginning when Campbell took the moratorium off fish farms in 2001, Since that time he has consistently denied the evidence that open cage fish farms are a menace to our wild fishery. As each independent study came out, from the best scientists in the business, Campbell would peddle deceit saying that scientists supported his policy which is a terminological inexactitude, as Churchill called such things when Parliamentary practice forbade him to use the word “lie”.

The entire energy policy has been the very opposite of what he’s said and the video statement by Colin Hansen I spoke of last week lays the falsehoods out for all to see. (I must apologize for spelling Hansen’s name the English way; I was trying to avoid embarrassing Scandinavians).

There is a sense of helplessness in the air. What can we do with the government having another four years to wreck the environment and fill the pockets of their friends and paymasters?

We can quit, of course. We can blame those 50% who didn’t vote. We can blame the NDP for running an appalling campaign – which they did. We can spend the next four years cursing and crying.

That’s certainly not what I’m going to do. It’s not the course I suggest for you. For while Campbell has the legislature seats we know they’re based on 23% of eligible voter and that he has no moral basis for what he’s doing. This means, in my mind, that we have a moral duty to oppose with every means at our disposal and to keep opposing until we have another election.

It means that we must process and, where appropriate, use civil disobedience. The injunction process used to send decent people to jail works like this. The company, cheered on by the government, has protesters charged for interfering with a legal contract of similar offence with an application before the courts to order protesters to stop. When they don’t, they’re charged with contempt and sent to jail. We have to be ready to take this route, odious as it is. When this happens the public see that as a reward for destroying our environment and bankrupting BC Hydro huge offshore companies can throw decent, caring people in jail.

The difficulty will be keeping on the pressure. But we have a lesson before us in the Kemano II project that the public stopped in the 90s.

In a way we’re like an occupied country with malicious masters. And as Churchill advised people in occupied countries during the war – we must make their policies as hard to implement as we can.

For all of us there are hugely important issues at stake. Are we going to stand idly by as fish farms decimate our precious wild salmon? Are we going to stand on the sidelines as large corporations murder our rivers and streams? Are we going to just sigh and accept the destruction of BC Hydro?

These are not the ordinary issues of ordinary politics but go to the very root of the relationship of the governors and the governed. We the people have never been consulted on the energy policy the Campbell government is implementing.

Now, when there are public hearings the people are not permitted to deal with the merits.

Our options, then, are to watch in sullen silence or do everything we can, short of violence, to stop them.

Just prior to the last election, Mr. Hansen did a short interview, on camera. Let me tell you what he said and I was taught by one of the best libel lawyers never to call I’ll ask you how I can describe this in a manner that won’t get me using the “L” word.

Mr. Hansen says “BC is a net importer of electricity.”

This simply is not true. Both the National Energy Board and Stats Canada, the most reliable sources we have, tell a different story: Over the past decade BC, our public power province, has typically been a net exporter of power. Mr. Hansen makes his statement based upon BC Hydro figures which don’t count energy created and exported by Alcan, Teck-Cominco and Fortis – all of which form part of our larger public power system, and are considered by the National Energy Board as part of BC’s energy imports and exports. We grant these companies access to our public resources to produce and distribute power, in exchange for job creation and access to purchasing excess power they create at an affordable rate.  For instance, BC Hydro just bought a share of the power from one of Teck Cominco’s dams, which further reduces our need for new private river power, yet Mr. Hansen’s government makes no policy change in private power development to reflect this.  Perhaps I just call Minister Hanson disingenuous which means, according to Merriam dictionary, “giving a false appearance of simple frankness”.

Disingenuous statement #1

Mr. Hansen says that these are small scale projects. This demonstrably is not so. If you check out www.saveourrivers.ca and look at the Powerplay videos you will see what these things look like. Far from being “small” the Bute Inlet project which will divert or dams 17 rivers and the operating Upper Toba project are both controlled by General Electric, one of the biggest companies in the world. The Ashlu project is Ledcor, a construction giant, while the Glacier-Howser is proposed by the immensely rich Dupont family.

Disingenuous statement #2

Mr. Hansen says that the private river power project proposals to date represent just “.03% of the rivers in BC that could sustain any kind of hydro electric activity.”  Mr. Hansen knows this is simply untrue, as very few rivers and streams in BC have large enough flows to make the development of them economical – nevertheless, this industry has so far been able to find 700 of them!  The web of transmission lines and roads needed for these projects would indelibly impact virtually every major watershed in the province – to the contrary of what Mr. Hansen says.  Just go to www.saveourivers.ca and look at the google map there depicting all the proposed projects around the province and you’ll see what I mean.
Again, in deference to my legal advice, let’s call Mr. Hansen’s nonsense as “disingenuous”.

Disingenuous statement #3

Mr. Hansen says that these are “run of the river” projects which allow rivers to have their “normal stream”. Again, please look at the videos at www.saveourrivers.ca and see for yourself the massive diversions of rivers running for many kilometers and involving hundreds of kilometers of industrial roads and transmission lines through our wild places. The Glacier-Howser project in the Kootenays proposes to take the majority of waters from five different rivers, diverting them through 16 km worth of huge tunnels, then dumping them into a lake so that they never return to the riverbed.

Perhaps, out of an abundance of caution, we will once more characterize Mr. Hansen as disingenuous.

Disingenuous statement #4

Mr. Hansen says that BC needs “its own secure source of energy.” This has two aspects to it: Do we need more power and, if we do, will private power companies do the job?

On the first point, all the independent experts tell us that if we practice some conservation, upgrade current Hydro generators, build generators on flood control dams and take back from the US the power we are entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty we have all the power we need for decades to come.

Disingenuous statement #5

On the second point, if we did need power we would never get it from these private river power projects because for the most part their power making ability is confined to the few months of the Spring run off which is when BC Hydro, will full reservoirs doesn’t need it. This power is for export as the head of the Plutonic/General Electric Don McInnis admits. In fact he says that anyone who doesn’t know this “would have to be in a coma”. This is a very important point and the public is entitled to have the same candor from Mr. Hanson. Why aren’t they getting it?

Disingenuous statement #6

We can, I think, assume that Mr. Hanson has the Bute Inlet project in mind since that was the major issue at the time he made his statement. This government loves to compare the two saying “if you don’t want our rivers policy you’ll have to accept Site “C”, This is a false dichotomy set up by the Campbell government to demonstrate that Bute Inlet will out produce Site “C”. This, again, is demonstrably untrue since, again, Bute Inlet can only provide power during the spring run-off when we don’t need it.

Again, a false statement by the minister.

While the Bute project would have an immensely larger ecological footprint than the proposed Site C dam – it would yield approximately half the annual power output, mostly at a time of year when we don’t need and can’t use the power!  And despite being less valuable and useful power, it would cost us considerably more than the power from Site C, and would be private instead of public power!  We at Save Our Rivers don’t favour Site C either – this just to illustrate how much of a better deal it would be for British Columbians than the disastrous GE Bute proposal.

Mr. Hansen is dead wrong in what he says and is guilty of misleading by not telling the whole story about what we need and the inability of private power projects to supply appreciable energy to BC when Hydro’s reservoirs are low.

I must say that I’m sore tempted to use a stronger word but let’s just say that, once again, Mr. Hansen is disingenuous.

Disingenuous statement #7

Incidentally, the clip I’m alluding to has less than two minutes and, if you’re a fan of disingenuousness, can be seen here (go quickly – as I wouldn’t be surprised if it disappeared soon after this  article appears). It’s not often that I recommend that anyone watch a Liberal government clip but this one demonstrates in graphic terms the utter falseness of the Campbell’s statements. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYzKzvNQkrE (transcript)

Now let’s see where we stand. Leaving aside the things Mr. Hansen didn’t  address but should have, in 1 minute and 51 seconds we can record 7 huge, may I say world class,  disingenuous statements. Perhaps we can characterize this video as a “tissue of disingenuousness”.

And here is where I need your help. When a man, a senior member of cabinet, in just a few seconds, pronounces seven completely false statements in formal defence of the government of which he is a big part, seven statements that are demonstrably untrue, false statements deliberately made to fool the public,  is “disingenuous” the most I can say?

Your suggestions welcome!

These meetings raise the critical question as to what can be done.

Trying to persuade the Ministry of Environment not to approve the project is a waste of time. That the government and companies are as close as Siamese twins is evidenced by the fact that the Environmental Assessment process is held jointly by the company and the senior governments. One of their cute tricks is to hold the public meeting in a small centre like Kaslo rather than the larger centre, Nelson. At these meetings one is out of order if they question the project on its merits!

Assessment of what the public can do is based upon the public having had no input into the government’s energy policy which spawned the independent power projects; having their right to a hearing in their municipal region (taken away by Campbell by Bill 30); and no right to raise questions on the merits of the project at the phony baloney meetings under the tender care of the company and senior governments. This leaves citizens two choices – accept the project and the ruination of their rivers or commit civil disobedience.

The consequences of civil disobedience, because of nice and legal abuse of the court system by the company with the blessing of the Tyrant Campbell, inevitably brings jail. It happens this way.

There is picketing, laying down in front of dirt movers whereupon the company brings on an application in court for an injunction depriving people of their right to go on Crown land and protest. When people disobey this court order, they are hailed before the judge and sent to jail, often times for no fixed period.

Civil disobedience has a long and honourable history when governments won’t even supply the opportunity to be heard. In fact, as I said, it’s the only thing left.

There are two basic rules; one must accept the consequences and there must be no violence,

The Glacier-Howser project is by a company called Axor which is really the immensely rich American Dupont family enterprise. This ghastly project, with utterly unacceptable environmental consequences, will take place no matter what the public does except to picket in spite of the consequences.

My reading of the situation is that the good burghers of the West Kootenays will picket and accept jail but with this added factor – there won’t just be one or two go to jail but many others. All these people have left to fight with is publicity. God knows they won’t get much with the current media and must hope for national and international pressure.

I believe that the people in the West Kootenays will fight this fight with more vigor than this tyrannical government is bargaining for.

I hope so.