Muskrat Falls was always a done deal, and a bad one, Pam Frampton, Saint John’s Telegram:
One week the project was all about clean energy, the next it was job creation, then it was all about being an affordable energy source, then it was a means of foiling Quebec, then it was a lure for mining companies.”
The Progressive Conservatives’ sales pitch was scattershot; they threw out a whole bunch of messages and hoped something would resonate with people…
Many people worried that the project might be far more than we needed or could afford.
In fact, if you look back at how it was being sold, most of the government’s assertions have come to naught. It’s not affordable energy, and it’s not even particularly clean.
…But there were plenty of well-informed people challenging government’s argument for Muskrat Falls from the beginning, both through presentations to the Public Utilities Board and through the media. Unfortunately, those strong voices went unheeded, and we’re all the poorer for it.
…The sad fact is, once Danny Williams issued his decree on Nov. 18, 2010, telling reporters “This project is a go,” all the critics in the world couldn’t have stopped it.
in-sights.ca 
Also look at Manitoba’s Keeysask hydro project. Eerily similar.
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A recent Ernst & Young survey found 75% of large hydro projects worldwide have gone over budget by an average of $4.6 billion US. Muskrat Falls started out at $6.5B and is now $12.7B Cdn and 2 years behind schedule, resulting in power rates doubling by 2021.
When E&Y looked at Site C last fall, they flagged geotechnical concerns. “… it is impossible to understand every nuance of the subsurface conditions of such a large site… as a result unforeseen problems have arisen, and will continue to arise, requiring innovative engineering responses to contain cost increases.” Despite this, Site C will somehow be different and come in on budget?
The Nfld gov’t lamented that it did not have the nat. gas option and had no choice but to build a hydro dam. BC HAS the gas option but is going down the same path as Nfld? Little surprise the Liberals did not want this to go to the BCUC. Do we not learn from history?
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“(Marc) Eliesen (former chair of BC Hydro) also chastised the previous government for mismanaging the finances of BC Hydro, which “is deemed to have the worst financial record among all provincial utilities in Canada.”
“The financial security of BC Hydro is at risk and as a consequence so are the finances of the province at risk,” added Eliesen in an interview.
BC Hydro’s debt level has catapulted from $8.1 billion in 2008 to $20.6 billion for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.
Mismanagement of the utility has been so pervasive that electrical rates will have to go up in the future, said Eliesen. “But if we build Site C those increases will be catastrophic.”
When rates go up, not only families suffer but businesses become less competitive and that affects jobs across the province, he said.”
https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/08/17/Reject-Site-C-Says-Eliesen/
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Petrowest has been placed in receivership, a year after being awarded one of the largest earthmoving contracts in Canadian history.
BC Hydro supposedly qualified all of the bidding consortiums before proceeding to the RFP portion of the bidding process.
Petrowest has had their contract terminated.
There is now no earthmoving on the project….
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Yep, and those friggin Liberals have a whole bunch of people covinced that we have a huge shortage of power and we NEED that site C power. In their minds if the Government cancels site C it would catastrophic for the future and will prove once again that the are NDP economic disasters. Maybe Clark and her fellow Cabinet Ministers should be charged with the very least, Breach of Trust, and throw in some other charges to keep the pot stirred for a long while.
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Geeze haul Clark,s Bennet’s ass back and get some kind of inquiries going who do we contact and try and get the ball rolling our M.L.A,s. Aint gonna swear biting my tongue! Past the frigging point of no return has any truth come out of that hole of her,s
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In this “overpopulated planet” day and “rising temperature” age……….. with wind power , solar power, tidal power, or in the exceptional case of BC………….. GEOTHERMAL power.
Its absolutely ludicrous that were are flooding prime agricultural land for a Dam to be built of what is potentially a seismically unstable disaster in the making.
Audit the entire thing and find out where they already spent $2 BILLION dollars….. did they put gold toilets in the work camps for God’s sake?
$2 BILLION dollars for WHAT?
WHERE was all that money spent?
WHO has recieved $2 BILLION dollars?
Convicted briber of politicians in foreign countries and banned for 10 years of bidding on International Monetary Fund contracts world wide because of the aforementioned bribery convictions…..Quebec’s SNC Lavalin……..is in charge………
It makes me want to vomit.
Time for our own Charbonneau Commision of Inquiry into govt corruption?
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25% of it went to the Hydro Hilton retreat. The rest was wasted.
I hope Horgan has the balls to call for a real inquiry!
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Horgan’ approach has been effective so far: he deftly avoided the most expensive partisan mousetrap ever built (while the project itself won’t ever be completed, I pray) by campaigning to send the matter to the independent BCUC, as it should have been done from the get-go. Now he’s premier and has done exactly as he promised. In all likelihood—especially since there’s no LNG industry by which the dam was initially rationalized, and no pressing consumer demand for all that expensive power—the BCUC will recommend discontinuing the project in order not to spend good money after bad. That will be the point after which blame for the boondoggle can be assigned, and potential punishments be meted out.
I’m not happy that a couple billion dollars will have been “wasted.” But at least workers got paid and will spend that money in economically stimulative ways.
It’ll be worth it, though, if it means the BC Liberals’ reputation becomes so toxic as a result that they can’t ever be elected again.
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if they continue with Site C Canada will have book ends of financial disasters, one in NFLD. and one in B.C. Doesn’t make me any happier but at least we know it isn’t a good thing to go ahead building dams anymore.
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