Before British Columbia’s 2017 general election, a person who would be appointed to a senior position in John Horgan’s cabinet indicated that Site C would not be cancelled. He asked, “Would you eliminate 3,000 jobs?” Months of political theatre followed, directed by Horgan et al, until December 2017 when BC NDP removed all pretense that the megaproject was under review.
It turns out the answer to the politician’s question should have been, “Cancel Site C and create more jobs throughout the province.” The correctness of that response is proven by a recent publication prepared by U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Jobs.
From the report linked below:
- Clean energy jobs increased in every state and grew 3.9% nationally from 2021 to 2022.
- Clean energy electricity technologies, such as solar and wind, accounted for nearly 87% of net new electric power generation jobs, adding 22,279 jobs (+3.6%).
- Employers across all technologies report they expect growth from 2022 to 2023, ranging from 1.6% in fuels to 6.4% in energy efficiency.
- Clean energy technologies accounted for more than 84% of net new electric power generation jobs,
- Both solar and wind, the two largest employment sectors of electric power generation technologies, increased from 2021 to 2022, following increases from 2020 to 2021. Solar had the largest number of jobs gained, adding 12,256 workers (+3.7%). Land-based wind added 5,238 workers, for a growth rate of 4.4%. Offshore wind, although small relative to other renewable energy technologies, had the highest growth rate from 2021 to 2022 (+20.3%, or +178 jobs).
- The energy efficiency sector remained one of the largest energy technology sectors, with over 2.2 million workers.
When in opposition and before backroom deals were made to relieve the party’s penurious state, BC NDP understood good energy policy.
Union leaders and politicians were helped by the organizations and businesses expecting years of financial rewards from the megaproject in BC’s northeast. Innovation was the last thing desired by BC Hydro and senior government bureaucrats. This quote suggests the reason:
The trick to staying power in big organisations is spending enough time on making its most powerful force work in your favour. That force is inertia.
Inertia, put simply, is the tendency for things to travel along the same speed and direction, unchanged. Bigger things have more inertia. Government has inertia squared.
GovInsider
Categories: Energy, Site C, Uncategorized
in-sights.ca 
A point that perhaps the honourable David Eby isn’t considering is that the slow moving approval process is mandated by the government, and the government of BC chose the process because it realized that BC Hydro and previous governments short circuited public investigation and awareness of the impacts of big hydro. Once the approval process was established which would provide legitimate answers on the pros and cons of building dams, I think it was understood that there is no justification for the construction destruction and the dam building stopped.
Then starting with Premier Gordon Campbell, through Christy Clark, through John Horgan, the approval process was once again sidelined in favour of behind closed Cabinet doors decision making. Here is a clue David Eby, removing responsibility for decisions makes for bad decisions. And we all pay for bad decisions on this scale.
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If you are a politician it is imperative you sound and act to produce jobs. That is what big money counts on. It was tried twice with the TPL plan to build a gas pipeline from the Beaufort to the lower 48. Failure to build was directly due to the US expecting Canada to finance the line, much like we did for Churchill Falls and Site C and Northern Gateway and the line to Kittimat.
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And now David Eby is trying to figure out how to increase our electricity capability through generating more and yet more power, and without a long approval process. Doesn’t look good for British Columbia. There were estimates of job potential in small scale renewables and conservation of 7 times the jobs in mega projects as far back as the 80’s. It is sad to see us falling backwards after all these years.
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/where-will-bc-get-the-electricity-for-future-lng/?fbclid=IwAR1vpog_S6L7obYruS0UaDZEXK1K6nfK1Ui-ca8JVeJvzrcYCo2bp-vzPTU
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Is it that we are stuck with the “Mathew Principle” as given in the New Testament ?
“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” ( Mathew 13:12).”
No wonder people get cranky!!
Erik
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