BC's finance minister doesn't read tax briefings

At least, that's what he's trying to tell us.

Hansen insists he never read most of those documents, revealing though they were. "This is not something that was particularly important at the time. If it had been part of our plan -- when we get through the election we're going to harmonize the sales tax -- I would have read every bloody word and studied it."

Didn't study his own briefing notes. Didn't pay attention to the game-changing developments in Ontario. Didn't have a clue really.

Not much of a defence for his own qualifications to serve as minister of finance. But considering that the alternative explanation would be systematic lies and coverup, I guess it was the best he could do.

Palmer is being rather generous there. Rafe Mair is a little less guarded and calls out both Hansen and Campbell for what they are: lying cowards.

Folks, the plain truth is this: Colin Hansen asked for the briefing note more than two months before the election and the issue was not only "on the radar screen", it was well on its way to becoming government policy - a policy that Campbell and Hansen hid from the people during the election.

And why would Campbell and Hansen try to hang on to that increasingly slippery rung on the ladder to the bottom? Well, it would appear that Campbell isn't done shafting British Columbians quite yet. Before he uproots and moves his lying carcass to Maui he has one final move guaranteed to leave a bad taste in the mouths of BC ratepayers.

100 Reasons NOT To Vote For Gordo Ever Again

On BC election night last May, blogger Laila Yuile decided to throw her hat into the ring in her riding of Surrey-Panorama come the next chance we get to throw Gordo's gang out on their sorry asses. This morning she's looking for 100 reader-based reasons and stories why BC can't afford another go-round with this bunch. Here's one from her comments :

Because he doesn’t care about eldery people like me. I am in that care home on tv and my daughter is helping me with this on her laptop. She was laid off two months ago and lives in a small apartment, but I need more help than she can do while she is looking for a new job.
Where will we go? There is no where else to go, and I think his mother would not be proud to have a son who has been so cruel to so many people in need.
Thank you.

Vera.

I don't have a personal story like Vera - yet - so I'm contributing Gordo's Energy Plan - fabricating an 'energy crisis' in BC to be solved by forcing the public utility BC Hydro to buy power at twice the market value from Liberal-stocked independent power producers and then reselling it at a loss to owners of air-conditioners in California .

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Go. Add your own. Grow that list.

And while you're there, check out the vid on how many riot police it takes to help the Owelympic torch cross the road ...

Run-of-river "for profit" gets a kick in the bag

Oh goodness me, hard to believe.

The idea that we could produce self-sufficiency in hydro-electric power gets whacked?

Stunning.

Except, as our own Alison explains, it had diddly squat to do with self-sufficiency.

Oh yes, you thought "run-of-river" hydro power was a little flume-stock on a creek. Not likely. This is a major dam, on a major river, and if they don't get the water they need, they hold it back.

The graphic above is a run-of-river project. Omigod! That looks like a dam!

There ya go princess.

It's not easy being greenwash

A map of proposed and existing run-of-river licences via IPP Watch:

Blue - generating; green - granted; red - application

Large Google map of sites here.

I wonder what the salmon think of it?

So given that we generally generate more power than we need in BC, what are all these for again? Oh yeah - exporting power to the US :

"A key adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said yesterday that B.C. run-of-river power may yet qualify as green power.
Utilities in California are nearly all struggling to meet a requirement that 20% of their electricity come from renewable sources by 2010.
They have only months to meet the target or face financial penalties, and private-sector power producers in B.C., along with the provincial government, are urging California to expand its definition of renewable power to encompass run-of-river projects with up to 50 megawatts of capacity as part of the solution."

Which is interesting in itself because projects of less than 50 megawatts do not require environmental reviews.

Over at Plutonic Power, home of the $4-billion Bute Inlet run-of-17-rivers Project in partnership with US General Electric, environmentalist and executive director of PowerUp Canada "citizens initiative" Tzeporah Berman gave us another reason :

"We're in a recession and calling for a moratorium of the private sector of renewable energy companies would send the signal to the business community that this is not a place for them to invest in."

Certainly Gordo is invested in IPPs. In response to Squamish’s strenuous objections to a run-of-river development on Ashlu River, Gordo passed Bill 30, retroactively removing the right of local municipalities to stop such developments.

And Plutonic Power has in turn invested in Gordo's Liberals :

"CEO Donald McInnes said his company did not donate to the Liberal Party, in response to a caller on CKNW's Bill Good show this morning, but Elections BC records prove otherwise.

When asked why he made that claim, McInnes responded, "I don't consider that to be donations, that's buying a seat at a table."

Quite.

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In comments at Creekside - BC's Watershed Election - commenter Racheal11 left some handy info and links to Liberal party insiders and BC Hydro execs who have recently shifted over to the extremely lucrative IPP industy : Insiders move to IPP industry

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So we're good with all this, are we?

Gordo's government, former BC Hydro execs, private industry, and prominent environmentalists all pulling together ... to export power to California.

The mind boggles.

And if we decide we want our rivers back before these 25 to 50 year leases are up, are we looking at a NAFTA Chapter 11 challenge?

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Cross-posted at Creekside