Few people have led lives more unique than Dr. Mike Webster. After success as a pro football player, Iron Mike earned a place in the Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame. He then practiced as a clinical psychologist and worked frequently with police services. After Webster criticized its leadership, the RCMP first threatened, then dissociated him. That did not stop the psychologist…
The final item may present a clue to the current state of British Columbia’s energy market. It’s hard to believe we came to this only through the sheer stupidity of our policy makers.
Columnist Vaughn Palmer reports concerns expressed by Moody’s Investors Service about growing BC Hydro debt. The agency stated the obvious, which is that numerous capital projects are adding billions to the public utility’s debt and higher electricity rates or contributions from government are necessary. Palmer repeats Moody’s judgement that Hydro’s financial metrics “are among the weakest of Canadian provincial utilities.” However, the Vancouver Sun pundit provides an inaccurate explanation of why the situation exists…
When government is captured by people pursuing fortunes in real estate development and resource exploitation, the interests of all others become secondary. When the bubble bursts, when phantom markets collapse, what remains?
Small and medium‑sized enterprises employ about 2/3 of Canadians employed in manufacturing. Yet government programs typically aim benefits at large multinational corporations. An example in British Columbia is the arrangement allowing large, mostly foreign owned, mining companies to defer payments for electricity for up to two years. Additionally, Government directed BC Hydro to spend about a billion dollars on transmission lines that primarily powers the Red Chris open pit mine of Imperial Metals, which is controlled by Christy Clark’s favourite fundraiser, Murray Edwards. Substantial expenditures are also being made in the Northeast gas fields, even though government revenue from that resource has turned fugitive…
In 2012, Premier Christy Clark declared that coastal ferry subsidies would not grow under her government: “That is not a sustainable amount of money from taxpayers across the province. It’s just not. […]
Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett announced a five-year, $300 million hydro bill deferment plan for 13 mines owned by six companies.Never mind that B.C. Hydro is already grappling with its own deferral problems to the tune of $5 billion. Make no mistake, there’s a price to pay when B.C. Hydro becomes a political arm of government. The intertwining of self-interests gets complicated, while the interests of ratepayers can take a backseat to political interests. Three of the six companies in Bennett’s deal were highlighted in a December Financial Post article, “Debt risks mount as Canada’s base metal miners sink deep in the hole.”
September 2015, I reported that a source told me the Queen of Chilliwack had been sold to its new owners in Fiji for $100,000. BC Ferries refused to comment on speculation, refusing […]
What’s really wrong is that BC Hydro has been spending billions on new capacity but producing less power. Demand has not grown since 2005 but purchases from IPPs, between FY 2005 and FY 2015, rose 108% from 6,444 GWh to 13,377. The purchasing is up again in 2016, by about 11%. The cost of IPP power was almost $500 million more in FY 2015 than in 2013.
When you’re determined to reward IPP friends but have too much power and no profitable export markets, you shut down your own low-cost operations…
…To gamble away our world class treasure of a river and the cultural and economic values that are sustained by it for a relatively few short term jobs that will leave us with less than nothing when they end, to give away our birthright to a corporate entity some call the Malaysian Mafia, to imagine that there is anything natural about fracked methane, that thousands of kilometers of pipeline across wilderness will leave streams and rivers and wildlife habitat intact, that massive dredging and construction in the Skeena estuary will have “no significant effect” on salmon and other species, that the earth can somehow afford yet another huge dump of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, or that this will somehow benefit our children and grandchildren, is to live in a dream world.
Canadian bank fined $1.1M for failing to report suspicious dealings, CTV News, April 5, 2016 The federal anti-money laundering agency has levied a $1.1-million penalty against an unnamed Canadian bank for failing […]
The Panama Papers are in the news today but the underlying stories are not new. American commentator Matthew Yglesias reports on the latest developments. He says the leaked papers: …offer the most […]
The material below was published June 21, 2014. Since this was written the proponents sold to an Alberta company that is financed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, not exactly the mom […]
“Water is the driving force of all nature” — Leonardo da Vinci Why Site C must be stopped, Wendy Holm [Consulting Agrologist], Special to the Vancouver Sun, July 28, 2014 …in the […]
I invited Chris Alemany, a councillor for the City of Port Alberni, to write of his effort to gain information about a subject of broad public interest. It is unfortunate the BC […]
Coastal communities have reasons to distrust the provincial ferry service and its political masters. One issue is discrimination, because people on saltwater pay onerous fares while inland ferry users enjoy free sailing, services that have cost the province over $200 million during Christy Clark’s time as Premier. The intermediate-class ferry new-construction, S-Class refits and the planned LNG fuel facilities are proceeding without full disclosure and public discussion of details. To avoid risk to passengers, BC Ferries has long had a policy of restricting dangerous cargoes to special sailings. Now, they plan to sail with LNG tanker trucks fueling vessels while parked beside customers’ vehicles…
130 Canadian and international scientists urged the Trudeau government to reject a recent Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) report that concluded the Petronas-backed Pacific NorthWest LNG project could be built safely for the environment. Joseph Welch’s famous quote could be directed to Rich Coleman: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?
“I think there is an atmosphere of total terror.”
It’s a story of intrigue, corruption and multiple murders, stretching from the streets of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, to Switzerland, France and the US as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, all the way to Australia’s doorstep. “You know I can’t talk much, he said, because my phone might be bugged”.
The money involved is astonishing…
Though it makes entertaining if financially absurd theatre, unfortunately for BC taxpayers, political grandstanding is irrelevant. It offers zero leverage and has no bearing on whether this effort will be seen later as either a brilliant initiative or a barking mad Ponzi scheme. The argument that pushing massive projects like Site C still is “necessary” [says who? what are the facts?] and the belief that all those other LNG fantasies ever were invaluable to taxpayers now looks more like attempts to pretend that the risk of such investments failing simply doesn’t matter. Like a sinking Titanic the bridge believes it can all be managed. Just Remain Calm.
Many people believe that BC Hydro’s current job #1 is enabling the delivery of water and cheap power to northeast gas fields and heavily subsidized energy to remote mine sites. If true, […]
Readers may be aware that late March 23, the website ‘No Strings Attached: Laila Yuile on politics and life in B.C.’ was taken down by a malicious attack aimed at quieting her […]
My stepsonn posted a meme on his Mastodon account with both PP and MC claiming, à la Spartacus, "I'm Stephen…
Well of course! CBC's very own internal censor, Bari Weiss, was right and proper to cancel release of the video…
In these days where we are bombarded on social media by lengthy blocks of text with no paragraph breaks… (which…
Jonathan Winter reminds me of when Pangloss tells Candide that men must perforce have been made to wear eye glasses,…
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The Wall Street takeover of Canada shouldn't come as a surprise. Ex Goldman Sachs executive, Mark Carney, is demonstrating once…