Gordo's Eco-Credibility Is Shot

Elections are won or lost on whether a candidate can be believed. On matters critical to British Columbia's essential eco-systems, the stakes are huge -- and so is our need for a premier who is credible in his stated concern for nature.

But what have we been told by Gordon Campbell and his government about the surge towards private river power in B.C.? Or about the safety of our wild salmon stocks in areas where fish are farmed?

Run of river: public wants a say

The momentum against private interests taking over generating hydro-electric power in our province, which has always been within the purview of BC Hydro, is increasing and this can be seen in a number of areas.

As reported here in earlier columns, people are getting downright nasty about the lack of public input.

On the Bute Inlet, Plutonic Power (with strong ties to General Electric) plans a project that will dam 17 rivers, with all the usual roads, bridges and transmission lines. It's bigger than a Site C would be, and there hasn't been and won't be a single public hearing on the merits of the project.

In contrast, BC Hydro has held 50 public hearings as to the merits of Site C.

The only hearings have been to work out "terms of reference" for the environmental assessment of a project the public has had no chance to judge. Indeed, there hasn't been a syllable of public input into Premier Campbell's entire energy policy, unless you consider Alcan constituting the public.

Since I last wrote about this on Feb. 2, the Environmental Assessment Office has refused hearings in Vancouver and Victoria.

River power is for export

The meeting in Campbell River did bring from the mouth of Donald McInnis, the CEO of Plutonic Power, an interesting admission -- this power is for export. Ponder that a moment. Gordon Campbell and his poodles have been telling us that we in B.C. must have this power. Former energy minister Dick Neufeld was fond of telling us how we all wanted plasma TV and this meant more power. Moreover, he said, BC Hydro has been a net importer of power for the past decade.

The real word for this is not usable in polite society so I'll simply call it what Churchill did, a terminological inexactitude. The facts as confirmed by the University of British Columbia and the Federal Energy Board (whose job it is to monitor these things) demonstrate that B.C. has been a next exporter of energy for eight of the last 11 years!

Not only do we not need the power, if we did it could hardly come from private power projects that only produce electricity during the spring run-off when BC Hydro's reservoirs are full!

We now know for sure that which we always suspected. These environmental cesspools the government calls "run of river" are producing power for export only and have nothing to do with B.C. needs. The government and industry have been lying to us about BC Hydro's import and export figures as they have about everything else in this area. Remember the "tiny environmental footprint" and the "Mom and Pop" owners?

Add to that the fact that the money the B.C. Treasury used to get, in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually from BC Hydro, will now go into dividends to shareholders of General Electric. BC Hydro, already forbidden to generate new power sources, and faced with at this writing over $30 billion in contracts the Campbell government has forced them to sign, will go under.

One must ask, judging from Campbell's faded business acumen and his trouble with terminological inexactitudes, whether one would buy a used car, or perhaps I should have said stocks and bonds, from this man?

Alexandra Morton's triumph

Moving along, Alexandra Morton has just won a famous court victory when Mr. Justice Hinkson of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that a fish farm was a fishery not a farm and that the federal government could not offload their responsibilities onto the province. The Constitution, said His Lordship, was clear -- fisheries are a federal matter and these are fisheries.

This decision does not mean very much in a practical sense since the federal government has a year to re-establish its authority and the decision will likely be appealed. It was, however, a huge moral victory. And a lot of people who care for our fish stood a little taller. You could sense that people were coming around to understanding the issue.

We who have watched Alex Morton fight for the wild salmon of the Broughton Archipelago were delighted to see her win this case for all of us. It's she who raised this issue a decade ago and it's she who has taken nothing but abuse from both senior governments, including being threatened with prison, ever since. It is she who has never wavered; it's she who, to most of us in the environmental movement, is our leader. (Would that the province and the country have leaders like her.)

As I'm wont to do, I look to Churchill; what he said after the Battle of El Alamein in July 1942 seems apropos -- "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Campbell doesn't seem to care

The private power issue and the issue of fish farms are related. Both speak to the indifference of the Campbell government to environmental concerns. With the fish farm issue, the premier has fed us the most awful rubbish and not only has he refused to accept the unanimous word of independent scientists, he has said he has independent scientists of his own, none of which can he name.

On the private power issue he's been utterly unable to come close to demonstrating that we need the power and again, the facts have belied his claim. What he has been saying is demonstrably untrue.

The premier knows that he has created enemies of the entire environment movement, which is why the Liberals have started their campaign early, leaning heavily on the fast ferry issue of the Clark government. (Needless to say they don't mention the Vancouver convention centre and other fiscal messes of Mr. Campbell's making).

This means that the battle lines are drawn and we'll have to decide whether we'll vote for a man who, against all the evidence, claims to be fiscally superior to the Opposition and an Opposition that must live down the '90s but cares for our environment and the legacy we leave to those who follow.

My answer is simple: if a new government screws up fiscally (and I see no reason why they won't at least improve on the record of the Campbell government; after all, that standard is pretty low), a new government can fix things up.

If we re-elect the Campbell government, we will perpetuate an environmental desecration that can never be repaired, and a sick unto death BC Hydro.

Massive assault

The evidence is all there. We're not dealing with leaky pulp mills, beehive burners or shoddy forest practices, reprehensible though they are. This is a massive assault on our fish and our rivers and streams that make up our precious ecosystems. This isn't creating a bit of competition for BC Hydro, this is the assassination for our public power company that has served us so well for nearly 50 years.

The sad fact is whether it's the private power issue or sea lice killing our salmon, Gordon Campbell is incapable of belief.

The May 12 election will be, pun intended, a watershed election. Whether we have a "supernatural" province or a never-ending gold rush for our precious water depends on how we vote.

Our slogan at Save Our Rivers Society is simple: If the government won't change, we'll have to change the government.