Article by Scott Simpson: Heavy Hydro users hit with higher rate

In this Vancouver Sun article, British Columbians are told the BC Utilities Commission has approved a two-tier billing system for residential consumers to promote conservation. What they are not told is that their rates will be going up many more times due to the baffling economics of Gordon Campbell's private energy agenda. Under Campbell's policy, BC's historic public power utility, BC Hydro, is banned from developing any new public power of its own and forced instead to buy ever increasing quantities of costly and needless private electricity - mostly from disastrous private river power projects that will destroy our invaluable watersheds, killing our fish and wildlife and releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

SFU economist Dr. Marvin Shaffer has termed BC's private energy plan as "buy high, sell low" economics, because this new private river power comes at up to 20 times the cost of the public power we develop today from our historic dams - and is much more expensive than the rates Hydro sells power for today to consumers, industry and our neighbours. This can have only two results: one is much higher power bills for consumers and businesses; the other is the ultimate bankrupting of BC Hydro. The public is also told that we need this new private power, when, according to Dr. Shaffer and other experts on BC Hydro, we do not: BC is already self-sufficient and only imports and exports power to make a profit for BC and keep our taxes and rates low.

These new private river power contracts will ultimately bankrupt our last profitable crown corporation, BC Hydro, and deprive us of control over our water and energy - the very things wars are fought over around the world. The ultimate irony with this disastrous, secretive scheme, is that while British Columbians fund the new private power infrastructure, we will wind up owning nothing, being in serious debt, losing our prized public power assets, and being stuck with crushing electricity rates like Californians - more than four times higher than the rates we enjoyed up until Gordon Campbell got ahold of our province and public energy system.