nice link, alda

Rhetorical question: Why do we hear none of this from the MSM?

Answer: because the MSM is Big Business and Big Business and the Liberals are two sides of the same coin. The Liberals are overwhelmingly funded by Big Business.

The following was taken at 2:20 PM, April 15, 2008 Libs Cling to Big Lie that Labour funds NDP
by Bill Tieleman in Strait.com:

Party financing also shows that the biggest untold story in B.C. politics is the enormous dependence of the Liberals on the business community to fund them.

And although many claims are made that "big labour" bankrolls the NDP, the facts show a different picture.

Labour provides only a small fraction of NDP funding. During the same four years between 2000 and 2003, the NDP raised $11.6 million, less than half the Liberals' total. Union contributions amounted to only $1.15 million, or about 10 percent, with more than half of that total coming in the election year of 2001. The remainder came mostly from individuals, plus business and other sources.

http://www.straight.com/article/libs-cling-to-big-lie-that-labour-funds-ndp

It's funny you bash MSM for

It's funny you bash MSM for their biased point of view then regurgitate the propaganda of of the NDP's largest individual donor.

MSM is biased, but the NDP's largest individual donor is not, that's rich.

Until third party donations are properly regulated and accounted for those numbers are misleading at best. The BCTF has spent about 5 million in that period but no mention of that. They have also said they are going to spend millions on the next election. That is just one union out of many.

Enough of the lies.

40,000 teachers

So, Jim,

40,000 teachers got together and decided to stick up for themselves. That's about $120 per member to tell the truth about the Campbell government's mistreatment of teachers and students.

Campbell's government:

1. unilaterally broke previously negotiated contracts by imposing a contract without negotiating;
2. took apart the teachers own BC College of Teachers and replaced it with government appointees who were not teachers. These appointees then rewrote the laws governing the College of Teachers before allowing teachers back as representatives - but they have not allowed enough so that a quarem of teachers could be found in the board. Why doesn't he try that with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, The College of Engineers, the Canadian Bar Association/Law Society of BC? As far as my research can go, the BC College of Teachers is the only professional college that has been run by people outside of a profession. It was a plain wrong. Campbell and his minions then had the audacity to try to force the members to pay dues to the College that did not represent them. It was a tax, not a membership fee. Rightfully, the BCTF members refused. The College has since moved the time for collection of fees to the end of the preceding school year. This, of course, will make it easier to control teachers as replacements are more easily found over a summer.
3. wrote Legislation to declare education an essential service.
4. Inacted the most draconian of measures against them.
5. Took away supports for children and class size guarantees that had been promissed to teachers who were willing to help the children in lieu of reasonable wage increases.
6. violated the UN agreements signed by Canada regarding the fair treatment of employess with its legislation.

The teachers weren't supporting the NDP, they were fighting a monster who has done much to worsen public education in this province. It has been my experience that teachers will vote for anyone whom they believe has the common good of students and teachers (and the rest of the citizens) at heart. I was fortunate enough to have spoken with some BCTF executive members during the last election; and, they assured me that in the 2001 election, Campbell had well over 50% of the teachers voting for his party. So, it was Campbell who made BC teachers his enemy, not the other way around! Campbell made his own bed.

Jim, are you a paid media monitor?

My apologies to Rafe and readers of this thread for not staying with the topic.

Low Farce at its Best

Whatever you think of the public vs. private power debate, the fact remains that British Columbia is in a deficit position with respect to electricity supplies and the power has to come from somewhere. We can either do it by small-scale run of river projects, large-scale Peace River type projects, nuclear power, buy it on the open market or develop that atrocity called wind power. (I called the latter an atrocity because it is extremely ugly to look at (go to Pincher Creek Alberta sometime and you will know what I mean). It is also dangerous for birds. It will ruin the North Coast if the Naikun project is allowed to go ahead.)

Anyway, the public process for the proposed Pitt River project was a complete farce. Two well-organized environmental groups, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Burke Mountain Naturalists, stacked the meeting with their supporters. The meeting was held at 4 PM in Pitt Meadows, when most people who work are still at work or just driving home.

Barry Penner, the Environment Minister who has never met a greeny he didn't like, immediately thought that this stacked meeting was the absolute representation of public opinion and threw up a roadblock by not allowing a power line through a park that only the elite can afford to use anyway.

My understanding is that all of the water for the Pitt Project would be diverted to generate power on tributaries above where any salmon resided and that the same volume of water as before would enter the Pitt River where it is salmon bearing from these tributaries. My understanding is that there is already an existing power line through the Pinecone Burke Park.

There are abviously trade offs to meeting human needs. The attitude from these Environmental Crusaders is that there is never an acceptable trade-off to meet human needs and that humans always need to take a back seat. This despite the fact that there is not one scintilla of credible evidence that I have seen that any natural resource would be even moderately negatively affected by this project. Oh yeah, and then there's the fishing lodge owner who opposes everything on the Pitt River, except of course his own business. Truly bizarre.

British Columbia

IS NOT IN A DEFICIT POSITION WHEN IT COMES TO HYDRO.

If we managed current demand better and stop selling power to the Americans there is NO shortage and will not be a shortage for some time.

RoR

Calvert has clearly demonstrated in his book Liquid Gold how the thrust behind these RoR projects is Howe St and the TSX. Our BC minister of Environment was recently reported by the Tyee to be heavily invested in Hydro electric projects --RoR by any chance? Its so disgustingly obvious that these proposed projects are about corporate and gov't greed on the backs of the tax payers and the environment and the ongoing erosion of democracy.

But I have been wondering, if we are needing more electicity, what about solar? Canadian Geographic has an excellent article on how the Ontario gov't is buying solar power off of people's roofs to pump into their grid. And their winters are often worse than ours. And then what about putting generators in flood control reservoirs that are already set up like the Duncan? RoR generate most of their power in peak runoff which does nothing for our winter electrical needs.

This whole thing seems more and more about taking away the complacent BC voters power/money than it does about electricity.
This pattern has to be reversed...lets get proportional representation rolling as well as stopping these RoR projects dead in their water licence applications.

bc hydro

Anything that comes from the Vancouver Sun is a pure steaming pile of BS. As soon as one quotes this rag I know that they, she,He or It is a liberal or neocon mole that just crawled out of its hole to spread more of Gordo and his gang of thieves lies.
Nothing that comes from the Sun is news, it's usually planted by the boys that pay the most and most anybody, with even a small lick of common sense, knows who they are.
These are the same guys that think that charging $75.00 per megawatt Hr.that costs $5.00 to produce is a good deal for the public users. This is the deal Alcan got from Hydro for the power they basically stole from BC taxer payer when they damed the Nechako River with the Kenney Dam. Hell, they didn't even have the decency to warn the Indians living along the banks that the river was going to be flooded not to mention what it did to the salmon runs.
There is NOBODY that can produce power as cheaply as WE THE PEOPLE.
There is a small power plant just west of Lillooet that was built in the late 1940's and is owned by WE THE PEOPLE. Today it brings in about 114 million and costs about 3 million a year to maintain.The 112 million left over goes to pay for schools, highways, hospitals, health care etc.etc.
Could this be the reason why all of Gordo's
buddies are lining up to share in the spoils?
If British Columbians don't wake up soon we will be the ones sitting in the dark and freezing while our power, like our oil, is sold off to the highest bidder. By the way we are not short of power its all about that liers figure and figures lie thing.

James Burns: Quote:Luke

James Burns:

Th additional potential of 1,000 MW from the still to be completed 5th and 6th generating units at the Revelstoke Dam (only ~$300 million development cost for the 500MW 5th unit), should have been completed years ago.

OTOH, Site C will only provide 900 MW and BC Hydro has preliminary cost estimates of $5 - $6.6 billion for that project (still at least a decade or more away).

Yes I support additional electrical generation development by BC Hydro but is seems that smaller RoR, with its lower development costs per MW, is currently more economically/environmentally feasible.

The issue here seems to be whether IPP's or BC Hydro should be building RoR's. Frankly I don't really think that most of the population really cares IMHO.

x4estworker:

And BC Hydro also confirms your statement:

However in recent years, as Hydro’s surplus has decreased, Powerex has increasingly been purchasing low-priced electricity from outside the BC Hydro system to meet its own trade commitments and to support BC Hydro’s domestic needs.

In fact, in fiscal 2001 and 2002, Powerex was a net purchaser of electricity. These purchases are made from other producers in B.C., western Canada and the United States

.

http://www.bchydro.com/policies/electricitytrade/electricitytrade794.html

alda: Quote:So you deny

alda:

Rafe came out in the media in the last federal election (?) that he was supporting the Green Party candidate in his riding. Many of 'em out there.

In fact, the lastest Mustel BC poll shows the following:

Liberal - 49%
NDP - 31%
Green - 17%

http://www.mustelgroup.com/voter_intention.html

Comment one on Hydro

As Mr. Mair well knows private vs. public debate has been with us ever since the first man built a fence and said this is mine. As a lawyer he also knows that since the Industrial Revolution private has been protected in law over public. Mr. Mair also knows that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the interests of many over the rights of an individual if the individual right is harmful to the many. So what is my point? The point is this; there are many things that we collectively need for our survival that should be protected in law. The things which I see as collective or public which we need for our survival fall into the category of renewable resources. We need to protect in law such things as water, air, education, health care, forests, and utilities like hydro, transportation and disposal of human waste. All these things are important to human survival and quality of life that profit driven private enterprise will never deliver.
We just passed far reaching legislation to protect us from second hand smoke but this was only possible because education has sounded an alarm and collectively we finally saw the value of breathing clean air. Where were you on this issue Mr. Mair when you were the minister of Health? Forty years ago teachers hammered the three R’s at their students: reduce; reuse and recycle and only now the former and present government Cro-Magnums have seen the light and are taking legal steps to protect the environment yelling “Eureka I found it”. Why not sooner Mr. Mair?

second comment on Hydro

When you were in Kamloops, as a member of the governing party, Probe BC did everything to get the refinery, pulp mill and Afton Mine to install scrubbers. You and many members of your party that we lobbied saw the rotten egg smell in Kamloops as “the smell of money my friends” and pollution to you happened when someone dumped a bucket of garbage on your head. To your government pollution by dilution was the policy of the day. As health minister you should have known that there were high levels of heavy metals in lichens grasses and pollen and that prostate cancer and breast cancer were alarmingly high in the Kamloops region. Like all others who sat on this or that board the favorite method of pollution control was to shoot the messenger by calling them “pinkos” and you told the public they were subverting democracy and here you go again in this article shooting the messenger, saying “I have never voted NDP” as if voting for the NDP is the return of the Black Death
Private power you write “has been policy by stealth”. Why should this be so? Your friends in the media are silent as you have been silent in the past for the same reason. Look at the Basi-Virk Trial, the biggest scandal to hit the province since you were in government and mum is the word from your friends in the media. Partisan politics got us into this mess so lets work together we are in the same nest so lets clean it up. My comments on Mr. Mair last article have been deleted. No idea why? Here is a web page you asked for Epic poetry.

Likely another worthless poll -

How'd they 'set the demographics up' on this one Luke.....?

Without the questions and an analysis of the sample it’s just a worthless piece of nonsense.

Does this one any more accurately reflect the population characteristics and demographics than the last utterly phony and disreputable Ipsos-Reid one?

I guess you ignored the qualifier:

...to meet its own trade commitments

There should be no hydro commitment to anyone BUT BC residents. That was the original plan for when the Columbia treaty agreement expired and it should be followed - now - and certainly before surrendering BC generating capacity to private and often foreign owners.

the web page

for some reason things that I post are deleated???

Mustel Poll...

G West:

Well, ya just can't get any better than Mustels' proven track record! ;)

http://www.mustelgroup.com/accuracy.asp

Walter

Tyee has a funny quirk you may not be familiar with.

Posts are categorized as 'Best Comments' by the editors - sometimes because people have clicked on the 'Recommend as a best comment' option and sometimes for reasons only known to the editors.

In any case, there is a lag, sometimes several hours between posting and classification. In the meantime comments remain in the 'ALL COMMENTS' category.

The trick is that everytime you sign out the software defaults to the 'BEST COMMENTS' tab and anything that hasn't made the editor's grade disappears.

TO get around the problem go to the end of any story and select the ALL COMMENTS tab. I think you'll find your comment is still there.

Best advice is to stay signed in, or, if you must sign in and our, remember you have to pick ALL COMMENTS each time you do so.

Hope this helps.

I certainly enjoy reading your contibutions.

I don't pay any attention to any poll

Unless I have an opportunity to analyze the size of the sample, the demographic make up of the sample and the questions asked.

Anyone who doesn't is asking to be hoodwinked - which of course fits right in with certain media monitors and their mission in life - not to mention the current ceo government in Victoria.

apology

Luke Skywalker & Rafe,
Mea culpa. (I just get tired of people who whine and say that there's "no real alternative out there other than not voting at all.")

-------------
X4estworker:
Who gives a flying fig how "ugly" Pincher Creek is? What kind of logic for a world burning up from CO2 emissions is that?
I actually love the look of the wind mills as you come down into the valley, because I understand what the windmills represent - clean and desperately needed energy. Yes, I give you that the bird mortality rates are real, but I understand they've come a long way to fixing the problem (some kind of protective mesh, or something, designed in Germany). And they're getting smaller and more compact all the time...

To console you B.C. folks, we in Alberta are having foisted on us energy projects even more monstrous than River Run projects - gas and coal fired plants -- and, soon, nuclear... and for what? To support the tar sands, of course, to supply electricity for the burgeoning population brought to work for the fossil fuel industry, and to supply the U.S.'s insatiable demand for more electricity. We, too, are in the position of having to "pay more" for this great and insane privilege of turning our land and our water systems into a rotting landfill.

Motto of this little Grimm's fairy tale?
Don't let village idiots dressed in expensive business suits anywhere near the command post.

geoelectoral dynamics not all about dam-nation

1960 Election:

Columbia: Social Credit
Cranbrook: NDP (CCF)
Fernie: Liberal
Grand Forks-Greenwood: NDP (CCF)
Kaslo-Slocan: NDP (CCF)
Revelstoke: NDP (CCF)
Rossland Trail: Social Credit
NDP (CCF): 4 seats; Liberal: 1 seat; Social Credit: 1 seat;

1969 Election:

Columbia River: Social Credit
Kootenay: NDP (by 15 vote margin)
Nelson Creston: Social Credit
Revelstoke-Slocan: Social Credit
Rossland Trail: Social Credit
Social Credit: 4; NDP: 1

Uh, I think you'll find if you do some digging that the population structure of the region changed in that particular time period, with the union-heavy Boundary Country (Grand Forks-Greenwood) and Slocan (Kaslo-Slocan) winding up depopulated and shunted into other ridings; likewise Columbia River vs Columbia ridings. Riding maps would help...I know the bulk of voters in the federal Coast-Chilcotin riding, briefly extant in the '60s (Paul St. Pierre's), but also in its predecessor ridings and provincial cousin-ridings, were pretty much the population of a few large company towns that aren't there any more (Ocean Falls, Bralorne-Pioneer, and Bridge River - and none were incorporated). Anaconda had long since closed by the '60s, but the survial of thoese ridings says something; they may have been, also, low-population ridings like many were in those days (Atlin with all of its...300 electors? 1500?).

Anyway, take away a few company towns, or depopulate them, and you reduce the union vote; as does mechanization, by depopulation; which is why East Kootenay ridings aren't commie hotbeds like they were for so long (ref. Tom Uphill).

electoral majorities

By the way I had to chuckle earlier while prepping to write a Wiki article on John Grant, who had been Mayor of Victoria but also MLA for Cassiar in from the 1882 election through '86s to his run for the mayorlty in the capital....the Elections BC footnote to the 1886 election says, in commenting on no votes shown, "the Returning Officer simply states that Mr. Grant was returned with a majority of 3."

Doesn't say it, but is the implication 5 voters, or a difference of 3 over whatever other number? Most likely the latter; Comox and Kootenay ridings on their first taqke at the hustings had about 7 and 2 voters, respectively (not much more than that, anyway; even by the end of the '70s it was only about 35 and 25, respectively...).

Voting in those days was by show of hands, in remote places like that it was who showed up, more like a card game than a ballot box....

Surviving

I'm enjoying reading your contributions as well, Walter, especially the excellent point you make above.

And yes, a complicit and shamefully silent mainstream media has played a large part in the dismantling of democracy in BC.

Skookum1: Quote:Uh, I think

Skookum1:

What perplexes me is the fact that Rossland-Trail ever elected a Social Credit candidate. Heavily unionized Trail (read Cominco) was a CCF/NDP natural.

Of course, in August, 1972 and thereafter, the seat has been held by the NDP ever since (with 2001 and its re-incarnation as West Kootenay Boundary being the exception).

Wanna buy a swamp?

Im with Burns, et al. Anyone who actually believes more than two percent of what is written in the Vancouver Sun has lost all credibility with me, now and forever after. Hilarious.

Lynn, great posts- took the words right out of my mouth.

tradeoffs for ?????

In the early days when the huge US National Parks such as the Grand Canyon were being promoted, the critics of doing so had a favourite line which went "These places are so remote that only the rich who can afford horseback outings will be able to afford them". Which was true......THEN.

But more farseeing people, knowing what had already gone down on the East Coast, sought to preserve some of the beauty to be found in the West, for the enjoyment of those yet to come.

And they were right, for today the big problem these huge Parks face is not underuse by the few, but rather overuse by the many - even those who come on horseback :-)

But the nay-sayers still abound who, when they see a place they want, say: "Since no-one owns it, and only a very few if any are using it, give it to me so I can make some money with it".

They don't feel obligated to those who have gone before and who've left them things to use and enjoy, nor any obligation to do the same for those will follow.

For them, it's only "Gimme, gimme....I want it now.....so gimme"

Perhaps that's not the way x4estworker felt when he wrote:

"....not allowing a power line through a park that only the elite can afford to use anyway"

..But it sure sounds like it, and like how a lot of the others sound, too.

Soft Energy

Yammer, you make good points. Sources such as wind power and tidal make sense and soft energy suppliers. Solar depends on the sun and connecting all the solar panels up the the grid is so far not economic. Those profitable energy purchase rates have to be paid by someone. Are you suggesting tax payers Wind power is a good soft source and can supply up to 10% of needs, allowing water to be kept in dams for export during profitable periods. Then you also must balance off what it costs to build, connect and maintain soft sources vs conventional hydro facilities.

Water wheels are a fun idea. Go and price a system out and compare it to the cost of buying power off the grid at 6 cents a kilowatt hour. Water wheels tend not to work that great in summer when flow goes down.

The fact remains, neither wind nor solar are going to run an aluminum smelter. The only economical way is to build medium to large power plants and run transmission lines to them, unless readers here, as consumers, are prepared to pay a lot more for electricity. Conversely, we can cease power exports and accept either tax increases or program cuts. We can close Alcan and accept job losses. Any way you look at it, there is no free lunch,

I do note that nobody here has said what they were willing to give up in the name of conservation. I tossed out the clothes dryer years ago.

Where to cut? Where to tax?

Stopping exports to the US is certainly an option. It would, however, take $2bn out of the BC treasury. That would mean either higher taxes or program cuts.

Just decide what you want to tax or cut. Just make sure it is someone else.

Piece of cake CP

Start by cutting the Vancouver Convention Centre expansion Program; the stupid highway to Whistler program, the Olympic boondoggle; the unearned increment in increases to MLA salaries; the unconscionable increases in the costs of the undemocratic, unelected and unaccountable board of Translink; the irresponsible and expensive privatization of BC Ferries and BC Hydro; the wanton destruction of ship-building in the province to stimulate the federal treasury through import taxes and help the industry in Germany; the wasteful, dangerous unfair and illegal as well as extremely unhealthy privatization of health care jobs (even the Supreme Court agrees with that one); the sub-contracting of government services to extra-national corporations...the criminal sell-off of logs which should be manufactured here….I could go on for pages. And I haven’t even started to look at Gateway, the Canada Line, the growing disaster of agriculture in the province – I don’t suppose you care to go there either.

And that's just a start CP - and no program cuts necessary. Just remember that all those jobs gordo's sold off to his chichi American friends used to performed by people who paid taxes and contributed to the economy here - instead of siphoning profits off into America and elsewhere.

Oh, and by the way, there is a program I'd cut - and it would save a lot of money too - it's called the Bureau of Public Affairs. It includes a lot of offensive and unnecessary 'media monitors' and PR efforts like that 'best place in the world' garbage. People who sometimes comment on places like Tyee and call into hot line shows to read stuff prepared for them by the ‘bureau’. One of them, Stuart Chase, by name, used to show up every day at the Basi, Virk Trial to send detailed reports back to his masters in Victoria. Great value for money.

That stuff is expensive too.

Conservation

There are also many thing that the average person can do reduce energy consumption. I live in a 1200 square foot three bedroom townhouse with electric everything. My last Hydro bill for February and March was $155 and it was a colder than average year. I do this for a living and here are some real savers:

-If your hot water tank is more than ten years old, replace it. If you have the electric service, replace it with an on demand unit Otherwise, get the smallest tank you can get by on and heavily insulate it. Basically, four people can get by on a 32 gallon tank. Keep it at 110'F.

-Install low flow shower heads and faucet aerators. Get good ones and you will never know the difference.

-Install a computer thermostat. Set it at 15'C at night and 20'C during the day. Have it come on at 6:30 am, off at 8:00 am, on at 3:00 pm, off at 8:00 pm. Get a sweater, watch TV with a blanket.

-Get a dehumidifier and in the coastal climate, run it 24-7. Yes, it uses power but reducing humidity to 60% makes the house much more comfortable and makes lower temperatures much more tolerable. You also will have no mildew problems.

-Use the oven wisely. Ovens are power hogs. If you are roasting a chicken, do your cakes and cookies at the same time. Try to only run it once or twice a week. You will notice the difference.

-Toss the dryer out. Hang your clothes in the same room as the dehumidifier or outside when you can. You will save tons of power and your clothes will last longer. A big dryer uses 4 kw/h. An added bonus is that the clothes are already sorted when they are dry.

-Get a front loading washer and use cold water whenever you can. Add washing soda to your liquid detergent. Dissolve it into hot water. Don't get the biggest washer in the store. Get the smallest one. My family has a 3.2 cubic foot model and it is perfectly adequate. Your clothes will last longer and you will use 2/3 less water than a top loader.

-If you have something on the stove, turn the fan on! Same goes when you are having a shower.

-Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents. An 11w CF actually only uses about 4 watts when in sustained use. Don't turn it on and off; keep it on if you plan to use it more than four hours.

-Seal draughts, especially around doors.

-If your fridge is more than ten years old, think about replacing it. Don't get one bigger than you need. Seventeen cubic feet does me just fine.

-Most importantly, don't live in a bigger dwelling than you need. The rule of thumb is 300 square feet per person. If you want more than than, don't complain about heating it.

I am not saying to go out and buy a bunch of new stuff right away. Do it as these appliances need replacement. However, in my experience, following the above advice can reduce a Hydro bill by up to 50%. Usually, the savings are over 30%. You'll hardly notice the difference, except you will have an extra $500 in your pocket every year.

hmm

Some replies:

City Person, those are good suggestions, but as I am a renter, pretty useless, for the most part, for me. I can't invest in all those appliances, becaus eI am much too nomadic to haul them around with me. I wish my house had fans in the kitchen and bathroom. The mildew sucks. I will consider the dehumidifier though.

Luke Skywalker,
I will join in the round of people who decry canwest's poor reporting.

"$62 per megawatt hour - same as an IPP"

BC Hydro's last call for power was significantly higher than that. I know, as of last May it was $86/MWh.

So, even if public power costs "$62" at ONE generating facility, that is STILL cheaper than what we would pay to an IPP.

The fact that IPP's have higher financing costs and MUST return a profit to shareholders makes it improbable that they could produce power more cheaply, or even at the same rate as BC Hydro. It is basic economics. Crown corporations can borrow money at lower interest rates, and don't have to pay dividends, so they can produce power more cheaply. Period. You can't argue that; it is simple addition.

Rossland Trail why Socred.....hmmm

Well, given that they voted that way in 1960 as well as 1969, and at odds with the rest of the Kootenays......hard to say without knowing the riding boundaries (e.g. which ridings Castlegar and Salmo were in...), but I suspect that the Trail riding's merchant/middle class population, as an urban centre, was enough to hold off the union tide; and many redneck workers as we know identified with the Socreds rather than the lefties.... There's also post-war mechanization and also the reality of Social Credit labour politicking was sweetheart deals with certain industrial unions, in order to keep the economy going.....I know my Dad, a staunch IBEWer since the '30s, was a big WAC fan - but it WAC who made all the work for Hume & Rumble and Northern Electric and the other contractors and institutionalized his job, i.e. protected it (although by the end of the '50s Dad was jr mgmt).

I haven't peeked, but when I did all the riding figures for Wiki's general elections listings I think I noted that Trail wasn't generally voting as consistently lefto as other parts of the Kootenay; why that is I'm not sure. In stark contrast to, as I said, the riding including the Elk Valley (whatever it was called from election to election) and also the Boundary ridings.

One thing to note - by '69 there weren't enough draft dodgers naturalized yet to account for any perceptible vote-pattern changes; different now.

I'd think, other than Trail's legacy of (I think) conservative-type voting, or establishment-party anyway, that mechanization and labour-population decreases might account for some of it, in teh post-war era anyway. But not in Trail's ridings; I just wiki'd and here are:
Trail results 1916-1920
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_%28electoral_district%29
Rossland-Trail results 1924-1963
Only once, in 1941, did Rossland-Trail vote CCF. And in Socred years - it was Bob Sommers' riding (a cabinet seat); explains a lot huh? A little pork barrel goes along way, especially if the shop steward's wife coffeeklatches with your own....

Our right to know

Thank you Mr. West and Lynn I am new at this. Privatization of BC Hydro is being done as Raif states by “stealth” He needs to get his radar focused on the reason rather then be a firewall for Globalization. NAFTA calls for harmonization of all economic activity on the continent. Ontario went through this five years ago when Ontario Hydro was privatized. Electric energy was bought at Ontario prices by middlemen and sold to the highest bidder in the United States. Consequently, if Onterians wanted energy they had to pay the same price that the middlemen would get in Chicago or Eastern USA. Prices for energy almost tripled in Ontario. At the same time when Pickering nuclear facility was privatized they fired almost 90% of its safety officers leaving a skeleton staff to monitor the nuclear plant.
Private companies in Ontario are now reaping profits on infrastructure and power delivery that was built with Ontario tax dollars. British Columbia is doing the same thing in the name of good economic management. We in BC will be paying the same hydro rates as consumers in San Francisco pay where rates are three times that of BC. Higher rates will multiply through the economy and our cost of living will increase four fold.
City Person any money that we make, the $2 billion you speak off will be lost in higher costs for everything from food to heating public buildings. If the power stayed in BC and if we sold it, the money would stay in the family (BC) and be multiplied through out our economy and we would collectively be better off. Richard Kinder, a Texas, ex-Enron executive is said to have made two billion dollars in one year from the privatization and purchase of BC Gas (Terasen).
In the last few years we have sold off many publicly owned facilities to foreign owned corporation to use in perpetuity in a North American Free trade zone. We got zilch for BC Rail coal delivery which was a gift of millions of dollars to an American corporation. In the end the government tells us that they have balanced the budget. Its easy to balance the budget when you sell the farm, however, once the farm is gone everything you produced on it is gone as well.
I am not a protectionist but we need to get fair market value for what was built with our tax dollars, We need a transparent policy and governments need to be held accountable when they tell us at election time they will not do certain things like privatize BC Hydro. We need to protect BC workers and not outsource billing jobs to Bermuda or some other banana republic. We need accountability not legislation where secret government deals with Accenture are hidden from the public by legislation and regulations. Mr Mair you should be outraged any time someone tramples on our right to know because that is the only way we can protect democracy.

8,200 Private Power sites in B.C. "on the table"

That's a statistic from Hansard debates April 15, 2008.

These power sites involve creeks as well as rivers, covering 1.2 million hectares.

In other words: everything is on that diabolical table where nobody speaks for the public interest.

That's right Mary

And when the rivers have all been sold, and re-sold and marketed and re-marketed and promoted and things don't quite work out the way the CEO-premier intended and hydro rates skyrocket and BC becomes less competitive and an even more difficult place for average people to live in comfortably perhaps we'll hear Kevin Falcon say in the house (as he just did with respect to the increase in BC Ferry Directors' remuneration) -'I don't like it; I don't agree with it....but there's nothing I can do about it.'

This idiotic government has failed in every respect relative to their obligations to the whole of the citizenry - it's time to start pointing this out every time you talk to a friend - every time you send an email and every time you talk to your kids about human rights, honesty, the duties of a citizen in a democracy and the obligations to be a mensch.

It has gone on too long and too much damage has been done - time to start pushing back.
Otherwise we’re going to find ourselves in a situation not all that different than the dilemma the people of China currently find themselves in.

BC Mary...

Sheesh... a little reasonable analysis of that BC Hydro assessment study will paint a different picture:

The cheapest price per MWh of RoR is $50. Let's say we go up to $100 per MWh for RoR.

(BTW, BC Hydro certainly won't pay that figure and are currently roughly paying around $70 MWh at the upper end.)

Potential RoR Sites under $100 MWh:

121 out of 8,242 sites

BTW, here's the BC Hydro study... see for yourself:

http://www.bchydro.com/rx_files/info/info54943.pdf

How about this for reasonable analysis

Run of River developers, putting up virtually no capital except what’s necessary to pay for the license and a few other expenses, can obtain a water license and be eligible to enter into energy purchase agreements with BC Hydro.

When they win a bid, they have in hand a 15 to 450 year contract to sell energy to BC Hydro.

Then off to the bank for a loan secured with a long term guaranteed cash flow.

BC Hydro is effectively backing this loan with the purchase agreement, the interest rate is very low. When the loan is paid down, the company owns the asset.

The public, which has basically financed the arrangement, gets no assets, no protection against future price increases, and no guarantee that the energy will not be exported to other jurisdictions. With hundreds of such projects all over BC, there is no way to determine the cumulative impacts.

Water licenses are giving rivers away to private companies. This is, in effect, a theft of the commons – the birthright of all citizens – in return for a usurious contract over our future needs.

BC Hydro has gone from being one of our most valuable and profitable public assets – one of the true advantages BC has had in both economic and competitive terms and it is being ‘Enronized’ for private profit just as was BC Rail, BC Gas and the like. Writing in the Georgia Straight some time ago, Murray Dobbin claimed there were already some 496 run-of-the-river projects being considered. I don’t know what the current count would be.

This theft is occurring quietly and without much public knowledge. As for the value of a ROR deal as a marketable asset, there's a brisk market for the resale of these rights already - in most cases before a yard of concrete has been poured or a single bolt tightened.

Thus far, all we've really seen is a facile marketing campaign about higher costs that is clearly part of Campbell's softening-up of the customers for the coming shock.

Sad, unforgivable stuff. Why anyone would suggest this kind of nefarious activity is good for anyone but a few shareholders – many of them of companies that have nothing but an iron in BC’s fire and possessing a total lack of commitment to anything but the bottom line – is a real and perplexing mystery.

These thugs must be fought in every possible way – economically, environmentally and, above all, morally.

Gee West....

So much rhetoric...You continually never know what you are talking about!

And BC water licenses are only for a maximum of 40 years.

Please show me evidence of a 450 year RoR contract to sell electicity to BC Hydro??????

Remember... no more obfuscation!!

"Licence" is only a title deed these days.

Who cares whether a water licence is for 15, 450 or 4500 years?

I think it would be interesting to know if any resource-use licence in BC has ever been revoked.

Bennet bought out BC Electric many years ago, but that was hardly a revocation.

On the other hand, we can look at the Forest Licences, and see that ever since MiniWac, they have consistently been reworded to favour the Licencees, and today exist only to denote "ownership".

It's joke time when these neocons start quoting the law.

BC Liberal Contracts

Perhaps you're unfamilar with the 999 'lease' between CN and BC Rail?

Once the asset falls under the beneficial ownership of the contractor it doesn't matter how long the "original" contact runs does it?

The fact is that once the asset is surrendered it is no longer part of the common property of every BC citizen.

I don't recall anything in the Gordon Campbell election campaign(s) and promises about selling off the furniture do you?

Because he's not only selling off the furniture, he's selling off the roof, the walls, the utilities and the foundation.

Now that's what I call obfuscation.

Next?

Gee West....

But where is the evidence of 450 year IPP RoR contracts?

Going off on a tangent still has not verified your apparent statement of fact.

The 40 year contracts are endlessly renewable

The price which these IPPs pay government for a “small” water license is $5,000, for a term of 40 years, renewable for another 40 years, but likely renewable in perpetuity - I just picked 450 years at ramdom - I could have said 999 years like the deal with CN specifies.

In addition to the water license to have water reserved to produce hydroelectricity, they get some land along the site to build the powerhouse,etc.

Unlike oil & gas, where royalty rates are established relative to the market price of those commodities, the royalty rates to be received by the Province from the water licenses granted are not tied into the potential market price that will be paid to the IPP from the sales of the hydroelectricity.

A $5,000 water license (for a small hydro project) will potentially generate between $10- $15 million/year in revenue for the IPP, and while there are some minor fees to be paid annually ($200/year ) by the IPP, the province will see a return of only 4-5% of the $10-$15 million.

For water licenses costing $10,000, much larger IPP projects can be built, where the payoff per year for the IPP could be $100 million plus/year, and yet due to low royalty rates the Province will only see 4-5% of that $100 plus million.

Up until now, the average price per megawatt (million watts) that BC Hydro pays for electricity is about $1.08 per Megawatt hour, which cost is passed on to the consumer.

BC Hydro has already signed ‘energy purchase agreements’ with the IPPs listed on its website, which require BC Hydro to pay them approximately, $16 billion dollars for that electricity. The average cost to BC Hydro for that power will be $87.00 per Megawatt hour. These contracts will kick in during the 2009/2010 and are payable each year to 2051. Guess who will be paying for that?

[continued below]

many thanks to Peter Dimitrov and John Calvert

From $1.08/Megawatt hour to $87/Megawatt hour is an astronomical increase –guess who will reap the profits from those energy purchase agreements – if you guess IPP’s and the banks you're exactly right.

It gets worse, the scenario exists, that several, if not all of the IPP’s will ‘flip’ their water license and hydro project to a larger energy company, likely American, and voila, us, lambs for the slaughter will have lost control of our new so called ‘green’ energy and the ‘water’ in our rivers/creeks to Uncle Sam forever – under NAFTA. In fact a number of the original IPPs have already been flipped - you can check it out.

The IPP’s, or their new foreign owners, will want to export as much as that power to USA, as likely the market price is higher, and if we can’t pony up the cash or refuse to, well we can just sit coldly in the dark.

Then there is Bill 30.

Once upon a time municipalities, and regional districts in rural BC, had the zoning authority over rivers/creeks in their territory. They had the power to deny an IPPs application to build a hydro project. Not any more: see the Ashlu Creek IPP project in the Squamish area now being constructed by Ledcor Power Inc.

You might care to pick up Calvert's book - I doubt it is on the Bureau's reading list:

Liquid Gold: Energy Privatization in British Columbia [Fernwood Publishing, $24.95]

Gee West....

BC Hydro has preliminary cost estimates for the Site C dam at between $5 billion $6.6 billion.

And that's for only 900 MW.

If ya wanna talk astronomical just figure out the cost for that power.

ROR tradeoffs are valid?

If you are going to quote "astronomical" figures, Luke S, I seem to recall precisely the same things being said about WAC's Columbia River Treaty dams. As a matter of fact, I was among the many who felt it was a "sellout" etc etc.

Now, 50 years later, not even the Lefties make that claim.

The flies in the ointment were and are, of course, the environmental costs, and the people displaced off their land. Those are as much issues today as they were then, and if they are to be contemplated, the ONLY ethical excuse is the "public good", for favouring he "private good" is only a return to barbarism.

If utilising rivers and streams for generation of hydro is deemed absolutely necessary for the public good, then surely the cumulative impact of hundreds and eventually thousands of RoRs will be FAR, FAR, greater than that of Site C, which we should then support.

If avoiding those costs is of the prime importance, then sources such as conservation, tidaL, wind, and solar are the ONLY options presently open to us.

At present, all we are arguing about is the validation of Campbell's get-rich-quick schemes for his friends today and for the Americans in the very near future.

The point is we don't need the power

We need to stop selling hydro to the US and continue to meet our own supply needs from the current infrastructure without sacrificing the ownership CONTROL of public assets to private corporations whose interests will never coincide with those of the people of British Columbia.

When more generation capacity is required at some predictable point in the future then the public resource base available here in the province will provide it - financed with provincial bonds guaranteed against revenues from future electricity sales - this is elementary and should not even require a moment's thought. Instead of contemplating an unconscionable increase in hydro rates in the next couple of years the province ought to be using its relative advantage to stimulate the economy as it starts to go into the tank.

Campbell and his cronyism are just going to make the recession worse.

As ME2 points out, it isn't necessary to re-invent the wheel unless you have an ulterior motive - which, as in everything else the man has done since he was a very young man, Gordon Campbell illustrates in spades.

ME2... Business Sense?

That's akin to stating that the 59,917 active mining claims in B.C. will develop into 59,917 mines.

If you have some understanding of business and economics, my earlier post should clarify matters:

121 out of 8,242 sites

BTW, here's the BC Hydro study... see for yourself:

www.bchydro.com/rx_files/info/info54943.pdf

Read the book luke

And stop expecting an eviscerated zombie like what's left of once-proud BCHydro to provide anything but sops to the Premier.

Sell out!

In an decent country in a decent province such proposals would be met by demonstrations in the streets. Terasen and Kinder-Morgan and all the other now foreign owned kleptocrats think so much of our province that they can't even trouble themselves to ensure that contractors have located their rusting pipe-lines; CN's derelict repair shops send out motive power units unfit for prairie service onto BC Rail's steep lines; pipelines - their maintenance neglected or forgotten - split and poison rivers; Ranchers have their cattle run down because CN doesn't repair the fences along the BC Rail right of way. Fish farms threaten wild salmon stocks.

House prices are too high for middle class families to afford a house of their own any longer...who exactly is benefiting from the Campbell reign luke?

Public schools go wanting for earthquake remediation, proper materials and enough teachers while the minister increases the grants to private schools.

Minister Coel supervises, extremely badly, a rat's nest of rip off for profit schools and colleges keyed to unsuspecting foreign students. The justice system in a shambles and the police are incapable of finding a suspect in a murder – while a local guide/trapper catches him on his own.

Welfare rates are a joke and the minimum wage is an embarrassment.

I could go on but it's just not worth it - where the hell are the good times luke?

Tell me, just who is benefiting? - because it surely is not the average British Columbian.

Why would I believe anything that this government says – all it ever does is lie and spin like a broken top.

Oh Geeee West...

OTOH you don't want anymore land to be developed for housing as you've stated in other threads.

More people... same amount of housing... higher house prices.

You're argument just does not jibe with reality.

You apparently don't understand economics.

BTW, you're admiration for the Soviet Trotsky in another thread certainly says spades about your outlook!

I admire Trotsky's intellect

Not his philosophy - or his attitude - much like Gordon Campbell's - of the end justifying any means.

Furthermore, please show me where I ever wrote that I don't want any more land developed for housing. You'll find I never said any such thing.

As for economics, I understand precisely what's gone wrong with housing costs and I've written extensively about how to address the problem, in my view.

You clearly need to spend a little more time reading and thinking my friend because your comprehension is slipping.

And you're sounding pretty desperate.

Hmmmmmm...

G West:

One can easily draw inferences: ;)

We need fewer people and less development and growth not at all.