Citizens of BC are misled by government about economic returns from natural gas. Relevant statistics are not readily available and the ministries prefer to conceal them. Since government does not issue press releases with awkward news, the incurious press gallery ignores information like that shown below…
Ruled by climate change deniers
Both the Horgan and Trudeau governments made symbolic commitments to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Neither was sincere. Horgan passed UNDRIP into BC law but now ignores the declaration. Trudeau said they would table a bill on UNDRIP but this week decided to put the promise aside. Indigenous people won’t be surprised by choices of either government. They’ve observed 150 years of oppressive acts and broken promises.
Delusion, deception, inertia
Faced with a choice between respecting Supreme Court confirmed indigenous governance and serving foreign financial interests (Shell, Petronas, and PetroChina), BC NDP joined with the land polluters, not the land protectors.
Deficient
Failures and reversals of John Horgan’s government mount. The NDP promise to apply UNDRIP is proving as hollow as acknowledgments NDP members make when meeting upon unceded indigenous territory in British Columbia. While […]
Enough said
Regular readers will be aware that BCI has a long history of extravagant rewards to insiders. These measure 3x to 5x amounts paid to top people at the similar organization in Washington, one which has generally had superior investment results…
Public consultations and transparency, sincere or fake?
Transparent decision making and promises of public engagements have been common in British Columbia. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell’s 2001 platform undertook to: Hold open Cabinet meetings at least once a month that […]
Hopeful change?
Today, Premier Horgan gave Energy Minister Michelle Mungall a new job, replacing her with Bruce Ralston. I am encouraged, anticipating (perhaps naively) that leadership of the department responsible for BC Hydro and […]
We're fracked!
Remember when mendacious BC politicians spoke of massive wealth from natural gas production? Eight of the last ten monthly sales of petroleum and gas rights rank amongst the worst in 23 years.
To be or not to be – Updated
Recent inactivity at In-Sights may be a prelude to discontinuation. When I began eleven years ago, neoliberalism had ascended and mainstream public interest journalism had descended. Access to corporate media was carefully […]
NDP energy promises now forgotten
Most business managers are drawn to new low-price means of production, particularly when costs of innovations are trending steadily downward and costs of conventional methods are rising. Not at BC Hydro.
Revenue from natural gas rights hits 23 year low
Were timber companies offered similar levels of cost relief as gas producers, the province would not have thousands of forestry workers hungry for employment. Politicians seem to believe that non-renewable resource companies are more deserving of financial support than ones harvesting renewable assets…
Good old days
Politicians, not too long ago, feared the press. Much has changed, not because corporate media owners are suffering financially, since most are not. Good journalism is available, much of it from new media that survives on the knife edge between survival and insolvency, ever in need of financial support. Tenuous job security ensures that few real characters survive in today’s mainstream media. It was not always so…
Oilberta – updated Dec 07/2019
Alberta has long been a puppet of the oil and gas business but Kenney’s compulsion to deliver benefits to this private sector is unprecedented. It is as if Alberta’s right wing government looked at what Norway has been doing and decided to do the exact opposite. In the first 13 weeks of the 2019-20 fiscal year, Alberta’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund declined by $156 million to $18 billion. In the last eight weeks, Norway’s wealth fund increased by C$55 billion, a rise of 4% to C$1.46 trillion.
BC Hydro, by the numbers
In the preceding article, I suggested BC Hydro was a sinking ship, ineptly managed. Numbers taken from 25 years of annual reports provide the evidence…
Steady as she goes
The 40% demand growth over 20 years is a fantasy spun for so long that it is baked into BC Hydro’s DNA. No surprise. Not spending billions of dollars to expand a system with stable demand would leave more than a handful of affluent folks looking for work.
Returning to action
My consumer testing of BC’s healthcare system is now complete so activity at In-Sights will resume this week. As Arlo Guthrie said 52 years ago, “You walk in, you get injected, inspected, […]
Democratic delusion
“Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.” Even with contribution limits, generous as they are, government remains biased toward serving interests of prosperous citizens…
God Bless the Children
Climate protest. A story in pictures of dedication and courage. And urgency.
Not on time, not on budget
Since actual annual payments are almost 3x the contractual obligation, it looks like the $400 million Sea to Sky Highway improvement project will involve payments to the private partner of $1.5 billion. And remember, the province financed one third of the project’s construction cost while the P3 financed two thirds…
Remembering
An old guy remembers the old days in British Columbia…
Recent Comments