Follow this link and read my commentaries about BC Hydro. Listen to CKNW on Wednesday after the 9am news. I’ll be talking with Jon McComb. ipp-purchases-and-market-prices
Just asking
Norm Farrell
Gwen and I raised three adult children in North Vancouver. Each lives in this community, as do our seven grandchildren. Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. Since 2009, I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA.
Saying no to the Forces of Know
At The Gazetteer, RossK and friends are commenting about reports that Petronas does or does not aim to bail from the land of Sparkle Ponies. In my opinion, discussion of what’s been said or not said […]
By the numbers
BC Hydro has experienced flat demand for more than a decade. Nevertheless, the value of its assets have grown 250% and purchases of private power grew 280% since 2005. Add to this, the fact it has committed to spend another $10 billion or so to build the Site C dam. It is inexplicable.
Truthiness
truthiness n. informal the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true.
Crime on the streets and in the suites
Canadian governments spend more than $20 billion a year on criminal justice. Little of that money is aimed at white collar crime.
2005→2016 IPP purchases ↑↑ $835m ↑↑
BC Hydro has three particularly important types of customers. These consumers, all inside British Columbia, are categorized as: Residential, Commercial and light industry, Heavy industry. There are others outside the province but BC […]
Guest editorial
BC Liberal government insisted they not be allowed to entertain other more environmentally sound and less expensive systems. Seems Ms. Clark has a list of eligible corporate sponsors for contract dispersals…
BC Hydro encore
At my Tyee article BC Hydro: From Public Interest to Private Profits, a couple of commenters associated with BC Hydro and the Liberal Party dispute statistics. However, the numbers I use are from BC […]
BC Hydro: From Public Interest to Private Profits
An almost quote from James Boren, “Every Liberal has a right to fuzzify, profundify and drivelate. It’s a part of our freedom of speech…If people can understand what is being said in Victoria, they might want to take over their own government again.”
Journalism 101
A reporter’s job is to get as close to the truth as possible, overriding personal biases and sifting through a rising churn of spin and lies to explain what happened and why it matters. At its highest levels, journalism informs (via scoops and insights that would otherwise be unknown), provokes (via new thoughts and action), and holds powerful people accountable (with no fear or favor).
Taxpayers as bagholders
Normzig, “No matter how many speeches are made or how many permits are issued and how many rainbow forecasts are shown, the only way BC is getting LNG plants anytime soon is […]
No puppies, no kittens, no coverage
Perhaps a TV news anchor revealed more than he desired Friday. On Twitter, Chris Gailus explained why Global TV would not cover what might be one of Vancouver’s most significant news stories this decade: …it’s not a […]
Disvalue for money
In its last fiscal year, BC Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC) paid its top five executives $7.25 million. In its last fiscal year, Washington State Investment Board (WSIB) paid its top five executives $1.76 million. In Victoria, CEO Gordon Fyfe is paid almost five times the amount paid Gary Bruebaker, WSIB’s Chief Investment Officer…
Damn the torpedoes…
Leaders cannot keep marching in the same direction simply because they have invested heavily in a particular course of action. Instead, leaders must react to changing conditions and be willing to shift direction accordingly, perhaps even to pivot one hundred eighty degrees if the situation warrants it. This is not a complex direction but it doesn’t resonate with the small minds running government in Victoria. Regarding BC Hydro, they’ve become overly committed to announced policies despite consistently poor results and clear evidence of failure.
Conflict, was ist das?
Conflict of Interest Commissioner has been unable to answer questions posed by journalist Bob Mackin. Of course, Fraser has only a handful of staff members to assist him so communicating with inquiring reporters is nigh impossible. When one man has only a single Executive Co-ordinator, one Executive Administrative Assistant, one Legal Officer and a single research assistant and faces one, two, even three formal opinions to be issued each year, some time saving moves are required.
Let facts speak
BC Liberals claim NDP doesn’t want to talk about their record at BC Hydro. In fact, it is the Liberals who don’t want to talk about the NDP record.
Politics, journalism and easy virtue
G20 country governments are providing $444 billion a year in subsidies for the production of fossil fuels. In Canada, at the federal level, this amounts to a minimum of $1.6 billion, mainly through tax expenditures. At the provincial level, tax breaks amount to a minimum of $979 million annually. In fact, the numbers are even larger. Fossil fuel companies recognize values gained when sympathetic politicians are there to determine financial policies so oil and gas producers spend extravagantly to sustain a synergetic relationship. In recent years, they’ve courted journalists and media companies whose financial comforts have been in decline. Many of those have turned out to be of easy virtue.
It’s a big club… and you ain’t in it
They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them; that’s against their interests. …You know what they want? They want obedient workers… people who are just smart enough to run their machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
On the monorail to oblivion
Were David Black and Christy Clark serious about the Kitimat refinery? During the mid-1960s, American entrepreneur John Shaheen, owner of Shaheen Natural Resources Company and various other petrochemical businesses, arranged to construct an oil refinery at Come By Chance, then an east coast hamlet. The plan was ill-fated and resulted in one of the single largest bankruptcies in Canadian history to that date. It also greatly added to NL’s mounting public debt.
Gas & petroleum rights sale, Aug/16
The Crown Petroleum and Natural Gas Rights Public Tender brought in $950,121 this week, raising the 2016 eight month total to $5.8 million. 2015 and 2016 are the two worst years among the last 20. It’s another bad result for a Premier who ran the last election on a claim that large natural gas revenues would result in a debt-free, sales tax free BC.
in-sights.ca 
[…] Different questions asked and answered in different countries. Source link […]