Tart rebuke
Revelstoke Times Review

05-Mar-2008

By Richard Neufeld

Regarding the column headlined “We are giving away our rivers” in the Feb. 27 issue of The Times Review: I was disappointed to read Norm Macdonald’s recent editorial and am writing to correct a number of factual errors.

Regarding the column headlined “We are giving away our rivers” in the Feb. 27 issue of The Times Review: I was disappointed to read Norm Macdonald’s recent editorial and am writing to correct a number of factual errors. He’s just plain wrong when he claims BC Hydro is not able to invest in electricity generating facilities. In fact, BC Hydro and another publicly owned Crown, Columbia Power Corporation are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new turbines and expansion at Revelstoke, Mica, and Brilliant. That’s clean, green, publicly-funded electricity.

Macdonald is pontificating from the tired old NDP dogma that anything “private” must be bad. Fortunately we take a much more balanced approach, recognizing there is room – and a need – for both public and private.

Macdonald is pontificating from the tired old NDP dogma that anything “private” must be bad. Fortunately we take a much more balanced approach, recognizing there is room and a need for both public and private.

Macdonald doesn’t seem to understand Independent Power Producers don’t own the rivers, British Columbians do. In fact, IPPs must apply for and receive water licences and pay water rental fees that typically amount to millions of dollars over the life of the project.

He also wilfully overlooks the fact that building new projects today costs more than it did several decades ago, regardless of who builds them. And BC Hydro is investing some $3.4 billion in capital projects over the next two fiscal years alone

We’re moving ahead to provide electricity security and sustainability for British Columbians and have committed to becoming electricity self-sufficient by 2016.

We are ensuring a reliable energy supply through a combination of ambitious conservation targets, investments in alternative energy and a commitment that at least 90 percent of our electricity continues to come from clean or renewable sources. This is a prudent, forward-looking and balanced approach, and Mr. Macdonald would do well to take his own advice and get all the facts.

Richard Neufeld
Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
Victoria, BC
Copyright 2008 revelstoke