Full text of this excellent piece by Konrad Yakabuski in the Globe and Mail, March 4, 2021

Misery loves company. And so it was that taxpayers in Manitoba and British Columbia found themselves commiserating last week with the release of separate reports detailing the mismanagement and dissimulation that has left them to foot the bill for uneconomic hydroelectric projects championed by provincial monopolies with dreams of empire.

The reports on Manitoba Hydro’s Keeyask dam and B.C. Hydro’s Site C generating station were eerily similar in how they enumerated the factors that led to massive cost overruns on both projects, beginning with complacent politicians and a lack of independent oversight at the government-owned utilities that had promoted them. The reports also read much like the findings of an earlier inquiry into the financially ruinous Muskrat Falls project in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In all three cases, provincial premiers allowed their better judgment to be clouded by a desire to build personal legacies in the form of gigantic dams that they perhaps hoped might one day be named after them. They allowed the heads of their respective Crown-owned electrical monopolies to indulge their own empire-building instincts to pursue those projects based on rosy assumptions concocted to dazzle unsuspecting taxpayers and avoid scrutiny.

Politicians of all stripes fell into this trap. In Manitoba, it was former New Democratic premier Gary Doer’s government that authorized construction of Keeyask dam and Bipole III transmission line, the costs of which have ballooned to $13.4-billion from an initial estimate of $9.7-billion, and led to a tripling of Manitoba Hydro’s debt in 15 years.

In 2008, Mr. Doer declared that “hydroelectricity is Manitoba’s oil,” suggesting his have-not province might get rich by exporting power to midwestern U.S. states hungry for clean energy. This was always a pipe dream, since continental electricity prices were already then beginning a steep descent because of a glut of cheap natural gas and the increasing attractiveness of alternative sources of renewable power. The oil-electricity analogy was also highly misleading. In 2019, for instance, Canada exported $87-billion worth of crude oil. Electricity exports totalled a mere $2.5-billion, mostly from Quebec.

As last week’s report from an independent review of Keeyask and Bipole III, led by former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall, concluded: “The incomplete analysis of the projects, driven by government endorsement, a construction contract that deferred construction risk to Manitoba Hydro, and a lack of effective project oversight at the corporate level, led to project delays and significant cost overruns.”

As a former right-leaning premier of an oil-producing province, Mr. Wall may not have been the best choice to lead the review commissioned by Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister. But his exhaustive report, which runs more than 14,000 pages with appendices, should put to rest charges by Mr. Doer and others that this was just a partisan exercise.

In B.C., former provincial deputy finance minister Peter Milburn’s report on the Site C fiasco found a similar story of politicians rushing to sign off on a megaproject without due diligence. In this case, it was former Liberal premier Christy Clark’s government that gave the go-ahead to Site C in 2014, forgoing a prior independent review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Premier John Horgan’s New Democrats, which had opposed Site C in opposition, put in place a “project assurance board,” or PAB, that was supposed to keep tabs on B.C. Hydro. It also hired consultants Ernst & Young to provide an additional layer of oversight. But the PAB, Mr. Milburn found, was stacked with B.C. Hydro board members, while E&Y appears to have been systematically kept out of the loop by officials at the provincially owned utility.

“Ultimately, B.C. Hydro determined the amount and type of oversight they would receive from EY,” Mr. Milburn wrote. “This appears inconsistent with the concept of independent review and with B.C. Hydro’s commitment to government.”

Astonishingly, Mr. Horgan has chosen to make only cosmetic changes at B.C. Hydro in the wake of Mr. Milburn’s report and a jaw-dropping revision to Site C’s budget. The project is now slated to cost $16-billion, or almost twice the $8.7-billion it was estimated to cost in 2014, with no guarantee that further problems won’t still arise as B.C. Hydro seeks to reinforce Site C’s shaky – literally – foundations.

Mr. Doer and Ms. Clark may have thought they were following in the footsteps of the visionary premiers of the past – Manitoba’s Duff Roblin and B.C.’s W.A.C. Bennett – by developing their provinces’ hydroelectric potential. But those earlier mid-20th-century projects were pioneering feats that paid off because of the unbeatable natural attributes. Keeyask, Site C and Muskrat Falls were subpar in comparison.

That all three projects were allowed to proceed speaks to the rot within Canada’s Crown-owned electrical utilities. It is beyond high time someone cleaned house.

The post Reports on Hydro fiascos in Manitoba and B.C. expose the rot at Crown-owned utilities appeared first on Stop Site C.

Also see story here.

WEST MOBERLY FIRST NATIONS

PRESS RELEASE

Court Motion Brought to Access Site C Safety Risks Kept from Public

First Nation “actively considering” new court injunction if work on “unsafe, unnecessary, and unlawful” Site C dam continues

January 25, 2021. Moberly Lake, B.C: In an open letter to the Premier and his cabinet, Chief Roland Willson of West Moberly First Nations has called for an immediate suspension of work on the “unsafe, unnecessary, and unlawful” Site C dam until there is a cabinet decision on cancellation.

News of serious problems with the dam’s foundations surfaced publicly in July of last year, but documents obtained by reporters reveal that BC Hydro knew of the problems as early as September 2019. Today, nearly one and a half years later, construction continues at a cost of $100 million per month with no safe solution to the problems in sight.

Details of the escalating costs and safety concerns remain shrouded in secrecy, with BC Hydro withholding its two latest progress reports from regulators and the Premier refusing to release the report prepared by his special advisor, Peter Milburn. Chief Willson’s open letter reveals that his First Nation will bring a court motion to obtain the information being kept from the public. This includes Peter Milburn’s report, two new expert reports commissioned by BC Hydro, and all draft reports, terms of reference, emails and geotechnical information.

The open letter warns that West Moberly is “actively considering” a return to court for a new injunction if the Premier allows construction to continue. In October of 2018, the Court denied a previous injunction but stated that a new injunction could be granted if there was an “unforeseen and compelling change in circumstances” before trial.

In the letter, Chief Willson urges the Premier to make good on promises to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to uphold the rights guaranteed by Treaty 8:

“You can reject the madness of ploughing ahead with this unnecessary, unsafe, and unlawful project. You can choose instead to immediately suspend the project. You can work with West Moberly and other Indigenous treaty partners to provide truly clean energy alternatives that meet the needs of all British Columbians. You can show Canada and the world that the only way to escape our colonial history of neglect and betrayal is to act boldly and honourably in the decisions that lie before us today.”

Read the open letter here:

https://issuu.com/sagelegal/docs/2021_01_25__ltr_chief_willson_to_premier_re_site_c

The post BREAKING: West Moberly First Nations Threaten Court Action Regarding Site C Safety Risks appeared first on Stop Site C.

Have a look at the clean energy plan the BC NDP promoted while in opposition before 2017: “PowerBC.” It stands in stark contrast to the NDP’s current “CleanBC” plan, which unlike PowerBC, involves both fracking/LNG and the Site C dam, with the latter functioning to greenwash the former. PowerBC has somehow nearly been scrubbed from the internet, so we are uploading some materials from it here for the historical record.

Download the PDF: POWERBC: John Horgan’s energy and jobs plan for BC | New Democrat BC Government Caucus

In the 2017 election, it was assumed that PowerBC was the energy plan that the NDP was running on. It’s mentioned in the NDP’s long 2017 election platform, but only a meager six times. However, and chillingly, the phrase “Site C” is not mentioned ONCE in that election platform. Have a look and try it yourself.

Nevertheless, the BC electorate was under the impression that the BC NDP was running on the PowerBC plan, which excluded the Site C dam.

PowerBC explicitly excludes the Site C dam as an energy source, even using images of an undamaged Peace River Valley in some of its key graphics. It doesn’t pretend that fracking and LNG are “clean energy” but speaks instead of solar and other renewables, retrofitting buildings, increasing capacity on existing dams (Revelstoke Dam still has an empty bay for a major turbine that was never added!), and much more.

You may enjoy this page from PowerBC’s promotional materials, where an academic who then became a lobbyist for Site C, SFU’s Marv Shaffer, is on record saying that BC doesn’t need Site C. How priorities change at the drop of a hat, or election, or lobbying contract…

The section below is interesting, because for BC Hydro to pursue adding renewables like solar and wind and geothermal, Horgan and the NDP would have to have reversed some legislative changes made by Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals which:
• restricted BC Hydro to only hydroelectricity
• forced BC Hydro to build Site C instead of cheaper renewables
• sidelined BC’s energy watchdog the BC Utilities Commission from oversight of energy and Site C
But the NDP noticeably didn’t make those absolutely key legislative reforms, when it would have had Green support to do so. Instead, it didn’t restore our watchdog so we have no oversight, and we can’t pursue far cleaner and cheaper renewables or save a key agricultural and ecologically important valley.

Then there’s this excellent idea: instead of building Site C, increase power generation at our existing dams, which we have not yet even begun to do.

People tend to get politically activated only during elections then fade away. But only organizing and activism between elections wins real change. To all those who campaigned for and/or voted NDP: now help us challenge their disastrous “CleanBC” plan. Please pressure your NDP MLA to cancel Site C, abandon the environmentally disastrous and uneconomic fracking/LNG plan, and return to the sanity of the NDP’s PowerBC plan. It was a good, modern plan. CleanBC, with its fracking and outdated, overexpensive and unnecessary mega-dam, is not.

And sign the new petition if you haven’t already, please. But it’s more important to sink your teeth into the legs of your local NDP MLA (figuratively speaking only) and don’t let go until Site C and fracking are abandoned.

The post What happened to the BC NDP’s PowerBC energy plan? appeared first on Stop Site C.