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.

Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell and his lickspittles assure us that Hydro is not for sale, But he said that about BC Rail too.

Why is Campbell doing this if it makes no economic sense to do so?

Two reasons – it will bring in a large though short term slug of money; more importantly to him is satisfies the ideological mindset he has developed from the “right wing” supporters of The Liberal Party not the least of which is the Fraser Institute which holds that no government operation can be as effective as a private one. This isn’t economics but political philosophy.

It’s important to remember that WAC Bennett and his two rivers (Peace and Columbia) was to achieve the cheapest power for industry and citizens. To achieve that he inflicted horrendous environmental but that’s done and now the power is truly green unlike Independent Power Producers who must (pardon the technical talk here) bugger up a lot of BC’s rivers to produce power that for the most part is of no use to BC Hydro because it’s produced at a time that Hydro’s reservoirs are full.

Watch for it, folks – this government is slowly strangling the life out of BC Hydro to satisfy Campbell’s dogmatic hatred for publicly owned companies.

This will be my last blog for a week as Wendy and I are off for a short vacation to London. London is our version of Maui. Wendy tells me that I look ten years younger when the plane sets down although that still leaves me a bit long in the tooth!

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.

There were often debates as to how much, where and when but with the exception of one or two “righties” in the government of which I was a part, a number of programs, especially in the Health Ministry, Housing and “Social Services” were started or expanded. During the five years I was there we even brought in a Dentacare program which had to be quickly abandoned because we, frankly, had underestimated the cost and the Minister of Finance, Hugh Curtis, wisely advised us that a recession was approaching and it was time we battened down the hatches.

Let me digress for just a moment on this point. Curtis, unlike current Liberal Ministers of Finance, kept abreast of trends and it is to his considerable credit that he and his able ministry were able to see the recession of the 1980s coming and have BC in much better shape than other provinces. What he and his predecessor, the late Evan Wolfe, were able to do was keep cabinet abreast of what was happening fiscally. Contrast that to the Liberals being shocked to learn, right after the May 09 election, that they had miscalculated the state of finances by over $2 Billion! As I’m sure Hugh would tell you, a finance minister should have a good idea of current financial affairs just by reading the sales tax returns, an excellent barometer. The Liberals are, and there is no other way to say it accurately, lying through their teeth.

What distinguishes this government especially is that they pay out social dollars as if they were coming out of their own individual pockets. They don’t put money into healthcare, welfare, health, the environment and the like because they know that it’s the right thing to do but because they must. And this attitude can’t help but filter down to those who administer these programs.

Let me give you an example from my time. In 1979, the City of Seattle told us that they were about to exercise their right under a 1941 agreement with the BC government, whereby they could increase their power by raising the Ross Dam which would flood the Skagit river forming a lake on our side of the border and destroy what is a wonderful, wild Skagit river so near Vancouver. Our government didn’t have to do a damn (pardon the pun) thing. It was a government policy in T.D. Pattullo’s government of 30 years before that got us into the pickle and no one, very much including the Barrett NDP government, had acted.

Bill Bennett authorized me to save the river which we could only do by giving Seattle the power they would have got from raising the Ross Dam. And we did that and the beautiful trout stream, canoeing stream, drifting stream, a jewel in our midst, was saved. We did it because it was the right thing to do.

I don’t want to give the impression that we were alone in caring about these things – the Barrett government for all its fiscal meandering, undertook reforms long necessary. Nor was I, with substantial changes in consumer law, the only reformer in our government. Much social law was extended or established by my colleagues like Hugh Curtis, Grace McCarthy and Bob McLelland to name a few … and this was a “bad old Socred government.”

There is nothing wrong and a lot right of careful spending of public money but there’s a hell of a lot wrong with meeting social obligations grudgingly, suspecting all and sundry recipients as malingerers and thieves. There is a hell of a lot wrong with denying the mentally ill the ability to be properly diagnosed and treated. With the possible exception of Rich Coleman who does seem to be approaching subsidized housing sympathetically the Liberals, like their joined at the hip federal Tory look alikes, are grinches and it shows. Advice from the Fraser Institute trumps fair and sympathetic policy.

That’s why no one should be surprised at the Campbell government’s attitude towards the environment and parks. That’s why rivers are being destroyed based upon a thoroughly disgraceful and utterly dishonest “Energy Policy” and why the Auditor-General has found that they have badly neglected our parks.

This government cares only for its friends.

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).

There were, however, what were no more than “speakeasies” which billed themselves as “private clubs” but one could join immediately when presenting oneself at the door and the membership fee was only $1.

There were several of these clubs – including the Pacific Athletic Club, the Quadra Club as well as th Arctic Club and several others.

Ken Stauffer and Bob Mitten ran the Arctic Club – my dimming memory tells me they also had something to with the Cave Supper Club when it was owned by Max King (whose super daughter, the late Jeannie King (Jackes), who later sold it to Izzie Walters, whose son Ritchie was at Prince of Wakes with me. Jeannie and Bob Jackes also were at PW with me. At any rate, Ken and Bob were something less than punctilious about looking at your ID, so that those of us under the then legal age of 21 could, after slopping beer in the old Georgia Pub, where likewise, the manager and waiters (Barney and Cec) had no great interest in looking at ID, and repair to the Arctic Club for nightcaps.

These speakeasies brought this from a wag, the late great columnist Barry Mathers who said “The Pacific Athletic Club is no more noted for athletes than the Arctic Club is for Eskimos”.

The clubs usually had entertainment and the truly great Chris Gage banged away at his jazz piano in the Arctic Club for years and a lovely Seattle singer, Pat Suzuki, was a regular.

I first saw Rolf Harris at the Arctic Club and like the rest of Vancouver and was blown away by his talent and his obviously sincere love for Vancouver. His big hit was “Tie Me Kangaroo Down” and one could not listen to that without wanting it again.

Permit me to digress. Vancouver, in those days, had a steady stream of great performers at Sandy DeAantis at the Palomar Supper Club which was at where the present Burrard Building is, and the Cave on Hornby and Pender.

Here are some of the performers I remember seeing; Ella Fitzgerald, Frankie Laine, the Mills Brothers, Nat “King” Cole, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Junior, Stan Kenton, Louis Jordan, George Shearing, Count Basie, Billy Eckstine, Mel Torme, The Ink Spots (whose leader, Bill Kenny feel in love with a local girl, married her and spent the rest of his life here) and many others.

Back to Rolf Harris – he’s back in town at the age of 80 and performing with nonagenarian Dal Richards who back in the days I mentioned above, was a fixture at “The Roof” in the Hotel Vancouver.

One last note. In the early 70s I lived in Kamloops and Rolf Harris came to town to sing at the Kamloops High School Gymnasium for several performances. Of course I saw him but on this particular night. I had been at the Stockmen’s Hotel lounge with some cronies. In any event we decided to see what was happening at our favourite cabaret, Friar Tucks. (Later I defended Friar Tucks when charge with obscenity for having a bottomless dancer perform – we and the lady in question were acquitted.)

When my mates and I walked into Ralph and Liz Biggar’s  Friar Tucks – in those days I had a dark beard and wore horn rim glasses -  I receiver a thundering round of applause. I couldn’t figure out what the hell this was all about until I realized they thought that I was Rolf Harris! Deflating to the ego but pretty funny.

Let’s then raise our glasses to an Aussie who distinguished himself first in Vancouver, lives amongst us and has returned “home”.

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?

In the first place the answer is yes. As a former low handicap player and professional instructor I’ve been saying for some time that he’s been what is called “dipping” or letting his head drop at impact. That I could see that and his instructor could not tells me he should go back to Butch Harmon, son of a former Masters Championship, who by all accounts is a superb teacher, and the one who coached him to his marvelous career start.

The second question is more difficult to assess. That he’s lost his ability to spook other golfers, at least for now, is clear. What is also obvious is that if he cannot summon up that massive confidence he had, he may be just another good golfer.

Amazing though it may be, he could be in financial trouble. He’s lost big contracts, as mentioned. He will no longer get $3 million to appear in a local tournament. He’s hardly improving his cash flow on the golf course either.

But there’s more – if he gets a lower cash flow he may have  sell assets and that could be a problem for no matter how expensive your home, your private jet and yacht are, they’re not easy to sell especially in this market.

I hope I’m wrong but you can be sure of is this – what he’s gone through (through his inability to keep his pants zipped up) has scarcely helped his golf game and now he knows that unless he can come back to the head of the pack again. More endorsements will go too. Going broke isn’t a pretty sight – I can tell you that from personal experience. Once the first couple of stones start down the mountain, a deluge follows. So it is in the world of the rich.

I personally think that Tiger will come back to be amongst the best in the world but no longer the unstoppable force he once was.

He has, however, lost 2010 where two majors were played on courses that Tiger knew very well.

He must work towards 2011 and I for one want him to make it because he has made watching golf a great pleasure. His rivals want him back too for it is he who has driven the purses up and only a healthy, physically and mentally tough Tiger Woods can keep them there.

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.

The situation is getting desperate. The federal fisheries minister Gail Shea comes to BC and announces $637,678 in funding to support innovation and sustainability in the aquaculture industry in British Columbia. This from the press release -

“This investment supports the British Columbia aquaculture industry in developing projects that are more innovative, sustainable and competitive in the international aquaculture playing field,” said Minister Shea. “I am pleased by the range of projects in this province that are receiving funding under DFO’s Aquaculture Innovation and Market Access Program (AIMAP). It demonstrates the scope and potential of the industry, its focus on environmental stewardship, and the economic benefits it offers to coastal communities”.

Gag me with a spoon! Has this half wit and her colleague John Duncan, recently raised to cabinet once more exhibiting the truth of the Peter Principle, have the gall to come to this province and reward those who would wipe out natural fish stocks so they can grow other inferior and often alien species to their profit and the loss of the citizenry at large!

Then we have the Liberal leader, Dr Ignatieff, comes to town and the only news about fish farms that came out of this Liberal tentative tiptoe into the wilds of far off British Columbia was that the local Libs couldn’t even get a pallid excuse for a resolution controlling fish farms onto the agenda for the national convention.

Thus we have the Harper government appointing a half wit to run our fisheries and the Liberals can’t even get the fish farms discussed at the convention.

Again, I would be the last one to suggest any monkey business but if you were told that this sort of thing happened, say in the State of Alaska (where they have banned fish farms – I use this just as an example) the first though to cross your mind, I daresay, would be that the fix was in.

What are we to do in this province? Simply stand around and watch as our governments, federal and provincial, acceded to by the Federal Liberal opposition, give away – not sell but give away our resources to the United States wreaking havoc to the oceans and rivers from which they were taken?

No one, especially Canadians, want to disobey authority but what other option do we have? Are we just to stand aside and watch the open theft? These bastards, the fish farmers and their getaway car drivers in Ottawa and Vancouver are like bank robbers, not content to just take the money and run but blow up the bank as they go!

We live in a country where crooks like Allan Eagleson, Conrad Black and Brian Mulroney get Orders of Canada, where the man who set up the terms of reference for the investigation into Mulroney so as to prevent the Inquiry asking why he was paid that money in the hotel room rewarded with the Governor-General’s sinecure and tries to throw Alexandra Morton in prison.

To their great credit, Simon Fraser University, known for waving the middle finger at the establishment upon which they rely for funds, recently awarded a Doctorate to Alexandra Morton and did so in plain language telling the world what she had done for her adopted province.

Thank God we have at least one public institution in this country with a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong and the courage to behave accordingly.

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

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.

In March of 1976 we brought out our first budget; we needed money and the Finance Minister, the late Evan Wolfe, proposed we raise the “sin taxes” starting with booze, Evan told us we would have to raise the price or Rye, Scotch, Vodka, Beer …- whereupon Premier got one of those dark scowls for which he was famous and said “No! Don’t raise the price of the workingman’s beer! Do you want everyone having a beer during the election cursing us every time he/she has a beer in the pub with their mates?”

The price of beer stayed the same, For while this was lousy logic it was damned good politics.

I needn’t deal, I’m sure you will agree, with the application of Axioms I & II to Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell but Axiom III very much comes into play.

There are three main aspects, leaving aside Pinocchio’s utter lack of credibility.

1.   Fish farms. Campbell has, it almost seems deliberately, built this issue up from the beginning and while it didn’t form much of a part of most voters’ political consciousness, in the last election it’s there well and truly now and undoubtedly will be there in May 2013.

2.   Private power is becoming and will in fact be a huge issue by the next election time. This fall with The Common Sense Canadian (www.thecanadian.org) Damien Gillis and I will be visiting 30 communities raising awareness of the incredible damage this horrible policy is doing.

3.   The HST is a wonderful example of Axiom III at work; it will be a daily reminder from here until Election Day and be a great issue for the opposition.

The HST started with a barefaced lie to the people having them believe that in May 2009 this tax wasn’t even on the Liberals’ “radar” screen yet six weeks later if was policy.

Issues, like mining stocks, need a story for it to sell. Promoters of penny stocks know this well having learned that the last thing you need to sell is the technical aspects of your product – what you need is a “story” that attracts support.

What was the Campbell’s story re HST?

Why, more taxes are good for you, folks. Moreover, you better off people will hardly notice it and who, besides the NDP, cares for the poor anyway? And here is the best part, the business community loves it and says that they will save millions on bookkeeping which they’ll pass on down to you. John Kenneth Galbraith aptly, if inelegantly, described this “trickle down” theory thusly: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

Not only is the HST proposition preposterous, its only supporters are those who would support Campbell no matter what he does.

Axioms I, II, III are immutable though I suppose you might get away with violating either or both I & II – but to violate III is fatal.

This government violates all three of Mair’s Axioms and all that remains to be done is calculate the carnage before we throw the bastards out.

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.

In 2008 the economy of the US fell like it had never fallen before. Lehman Brothers, thought invincible, fell. General Motors and Chrysler did the same. The country’s two largest mortgage lenders went broke leaving millions of Americans owing far more on their homes than they were worth. It was a hell of a mess and it was caused by the laissez-faire attitude of the George W. Bush Republicans toward reasonable regulations.

While one can never say positively that someone else might have done things differently than the president did but if you mentally put John McCain and, heaven help us, Sarah Palin in power, what would they have done?

Does anyone seriously suggest that they would have said to industry “one of the basic tenets of capitalism is that you have a right to make a profit but you also have the option of going broke? If we give you lots of money that defies the tenet that when a company fails anther new company with fresh faces in the control room and pretty soon all is well again.”

Can one imagine for one moment that McCain/Palin would have said to the huge contributors to their election slush funds, “sorry guys, but you know how capitalism works. Government has no role to play in the market – we leave that to the ‘hidden hand’ which, unhappily, has just punched you all in the face”?

President Obama has started the economy working again, Workers are back in the plant and the bosses are back lunching at the “Club”.

The recession is far from over. More bad news is, in my view, on its way. But however much you prefer to see the government butt out of the marketplace, would you have 100s of thousands out of work with no prospect of change while the government, instead of getting the companies back on their feet, set up soup kitchens and invented make work projects?

I also believe that the Obama government has made good progress cleaning up the mess in foreign affairs.

By definition, problems in this field are not solvable. All you can expect is the president brings some solutions to bear and makes the world at least a soupcon better. Just as Obama couldn’t walk away from the economy he couldn’t suddenly withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, two large insoluble problems created by Bush and left to Obama.

The president and his able Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton, have done very important work is improving relations with Russia, of critical importance to solving problems in the Middle East and elsewhere. It never happens and never will happen that the leaders of Russia and America will stand up and declare that all problems are solved and they are now great buddies forevermore. The best one can hope is that everyone’s still alive and deals with the new problems that morphed out of the old ones.

I see an interesting parallel between now and 1946 when Harry S Truman was an unpopular president facing mid terms elections which he lost big time. For the balance of his term Truman kept putting legislation to the 80th Congress and he got rebuffed. Like Cato the Elder constantly said “Carthage Must Be Destroyed”, he kept deriding the “do nothing 89th Congress”. The GOP was confident that Thomas Dewey, who lost to Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, was a slam dunk for 1948. All they had to do was exercise patience.

By the time the 1948 election rolled around, Truman faced three opponents – the Republicans, a left wing breakaway Democratic Party chunk called The Progressives, led by former FDR vice-president Henry Wallace and a breakaway southern Democrats called the Dixiecrats led by Strom Thurmond, later a republican Senator after Richard Nixon had become friends of the White Southerner in the 70s.

Truman went to the people slamming  the “do nothing” 80th Congress and won.

In 2013, barring a catastrophe in the meantime, Barak Obama will demonstrate that presidential elections and congressional elections though fought at the same time are fought on different issues – that people are quite prepared to split their vote.

And he will win.

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!

The Common Sense Canadian (www.thecanadian.org) sent Mr. Andersen’s report to nearly all the newspapers in BC, a day before the press release along with releases to the principal columnists as well as to about 2000 people and there has been no response from the papers; I gather CBC has done an interview with Mr. Andersen.

My reaction is this – why haven’t we risen as one to condemn this disgraceful state of affairs?

I think I know the answer. The numbers can be easily confused and the Campbell government and its supporters, dwindling though they may be, use this complexity to discourage people from getting involved.

What I’ve just told you is bad enough but there’s more – upwards of 600 rivers will be, to all intents and purposes, killed along with the ecologies they support if we don’t put a stop to it.

Damien Gillis and I have formed The Common Sense Canadian whose principal endeavours are to save our power and rivers as well as fight fish farms. There is a “donate” button on the website (www.thecanadian.org).

The Wilderness Committee with Joe Foy and Gwen Barlee leading the charge are valuable allies.

It’s your power company and the rivers belong to you. Both are being ruined and will be successfully ruined if we don’t fight.

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.

The power didn’t come cheap either fiscally or environmentally as huge dams were built of the Peace and Columbia Rivers, however Bennett had got the job done and we had an abundance of cheap power. In fact we British Columbians owned what many felt was the best power company in the world.

Enter Gordon Campbell and his energy policy of 2002. What he did was simple and it was breathtaking. So much so that many British Columbians are only now waking up to what has happened:

1.   All new power was to come from private companies and except for upgrading their facilities and Site “C” should they wish to develop that, BC HYDRO was denied the right to create new power.

2.   We were told by the government that these projects would be “run-of-river”, namely that the river would be undisturbed.

3.   We were informed that these would all be small “mom and pop” operations.

4.   We were told that BC was a net importer of energy and that these Independent Power Producers would ensure that we would be self sufficient by 2016.

For the past 2 ½ years Damien Gillis and I, along with Joe Foy and Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee have been speaking around the province telling people the truth. namely, that these plants were hugely intrusive and destructive of the rivers and their ecosystems, that the companies were huge, such as Ledcor and General Electric, that BC was not short of energy and need never be is we made some modest changes to our policy and that this independent power, because it can only be generated during the run-off, was of no use to BC Hydro since at that time their reservoirs were full and they needed no help.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, we slowly but surely learned what the deals were that Hydro was forced by the Campbell government to make with these IPP’s. And we could not believe what we learned.

To put it shortly and bluntly, Hydro was forced to buy power, on a “take or pay” basis, at double or more what they could get on the export market! If that wasn’t bad enough, HYDRO would be forced to export private power because, as explained above, it was surplus to their needs.

Erik Andersen was only known to The Common Sense Canadian through blogs he did and I was on his mailing list. We have a list of contributors, which you can find on our website at www.thecanadian.org, numbering about 25. These men and women from all walks of life and of every political stripe are asked to do a column for us from time to time for which they aren’t paid a dime.

Erik Andersen did a blog or two which dealt with the issues we’re involved with and we asked him to become one of our contributors and he kindly consented. Erik has been an economist for many years and his resume is fascinating.

On his own, Erik did a blog dealing with many of the points I have above and we asked him if he could flesh that out and give us a report we could circulate.

What Erik was able to do, because of his expertise, was to find the numbers that justified the position we had been taking for the past 2 ½ years – and then some.

I urge you to read this report and send it to friends. What we have here is theft – legalized theft of out rivers, their ecologies and our power. Not only is our power, and the profit traditionally given to the government by BC HYDRO, been sent out of the Province we are paying private companies to do it! We get nothing for this, nothing except the same taxes the government would get from a grocery store.

I’m not a young man anymore – in fact I’ve seen many governments some and go and have been part of one.

Never in my life have I seen such outrageous as this. It’s made all the more shameful by the government MLA’s doing and saying nothing as their province is ravished.

Read Erik Andersen’s report and weep at the outrages inflicted and still being inflicted on British Columbia by this evil government