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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Gordo getting ready to sail off, pillage, rob and
rape his way acoss B.C.

Neocon-Liberal Piracy of The People's Treasure...
BC Hydro, Our Creeks and Rivers

Below is an article sent to me by a reader of Freedom of Speech.ca, from a published source unknown to him or us. It is of an issue we have dealt with here many times of recent, and of sufficient interest that I am going to print it anyway. Should the author come across this article, contact me at jerry_coyote@yahoo.ca , and if he or she disapproves, I will certainly withdraw it. Otherwise I will put up such additional credits and links as this author might wish.


by Austin Boyd


A select few industrialists and their politician friends are withholding vital information about BC Hydro that could destroy the Crown corporation and send power prices soaring. Billions of dollars worth of electric power contracts are being negotiated in secret and supporting legislation passed through orders in council, with no public debate.

Premier Gordon Campbell is not allowing the public, or even municipal governments which most closely represent the public, to have input on any private hydroelectric developments, following passage of Bill 30. As a result, various stakeholder and citizen groups are now organizing their own meetings to examine the facts.

On March 22, World Water Day, we need to talk about dividing resources among the populations of Earth as corporations increasingly “buy” public water assets. Canadians are no different from the people of Congo or Bolivia. To believe we are immune to water thefts will cost us dearly. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney started it when he agreed to a NAFTA provision which included water as a commodity, after promising Canadians he would never sign away our water.

If readers take nothing else from this article, they should be aware of this: The people of BC have been receiving 100 percent of the benefits from BC Hydro because of a system put in place in the 1950s. Now we will get only three percent because of private power purchase agreements. BC Hydro is being loaded with enormous debt, enough to eventually bankrupt it as future income from hydroelectricity is being diverted into private contracts.

The BC energy plan was imposed on us without debate and utility rates will never stop rising because of it. The Ashlu River power licence, for instance, was sold to Ledcor for $10,000. The public overwhelmingly rejected Ledcor’s zoning application to the regional district. The BC government signed a power purchase agreement between Ledcor and BC Hydro that guarantees that the people of BC will buy power from the licensee at inflated prices for 40 years. After that the licence holder can sell BC power for whatever the market will bare anywhere in North America.

Water licences come with ownership of adjacent lands plus the dams, turbines, tunnels and other facilities will belong to the company in perpetuity. If the Ashlu River project gets connected to the grid, it will initially generate at least $50 million per year in income to the private owners.

Whether or not you know about TILMA, SPP, NAFTA, WTO or the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, BC is very close to an energy catastrophe. Hundreds of rivers are at risk and we will never get back to an efficient, functional BC Hydro if we don’t act now.

The BC Utilities Commission found that the premier’s offer of $203 million per year in perpetuity to Alcan for power was not in the public interest. The profit was 1,320 percent and there was an extra gift of $100 million as a signing bonus for Alcan.

Currently, there are private purchase orders with BC Hydro worth $24 billion, which need public scrutiny. The rule of law makes us different from other places in the world. It is time to invoke the rule of law. A fully transparent inquiry is necessary to avert what has the potential to become BC’s crime of the century. In the simplest of terms the people of British Columbia are being defrauded of their energy sources and their water.

All across the province, work crews are assembling for an assault on more than 500 wilderness rivers and the premier is still trying to give Alcan the Nechako River. When Campbell announces his next move soon, he will say the Natives are supportive of the government. A public inquiry would allow time for the truth to come out, which is that the indigenous people of BC are not nearly as supportive of these private hydro deals as the government would have us believe.


Replica of Actual Flag of Blackbeard

Time for Citizen Concern
About the Betrayal of
The Province and The Country to US Corporate Interests

Resources:

www.worldwaterday.org
www.ourrivers.ca
www.hydrofactsbc.ca
www.publicpowerbc.ca

www.canadians.org

www.citizensforpublicpower.ca


More


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow...Blackbeards flag..is that a wineglass in his right hand?
That really should be gordos flag...fly it above the parliament.
The devil piercing hearts while holding a wineglass..how perfectly apt...

bruno the barbarian, boxcar bum/ quasi mystic, and wannabe wobbly.

Larry Gambone said...

I think calling Cambull a pirate is an insult to pirates, at least those pirates of the late 17th and 18th Century in the Caribbean. Piracy was often a form of working class revolt and pirate ships were organized on democratic lines. A pirate republic was formed in Madagascar called Libertaria and was the first nation to abolish slavery.

But anyway, I do get the point...

Coyote said...

True, and your point is taken as well, but a lot weren't these "working class heroes" as well, and acted under the protection of a number of major European royal powers of the day, enriching themselves and the royal ruling class coffers they served. It was out of the wealth accumulated by especially these latter pirates of the day that the wealth foundations were laid for that class that rose up in the 17th and 18th centuries especially, to overthrow the landed aristocracy and become the modern "old wealth" capitalist class.

The age of piracy contained a number of different, and even contradictory and competing strands. No less than does the complex class system of capitalism.

In my inexpert read of the age and what has followed upon it.

Anonymous said...

yes I get what you mean too Larry ..Campbell and crew are an insult to Pirates..or any other living entity

bob

Anonymous said...

actually my use of the " Jolly Roger" was meant to imply "Plunderer", "freebooter"..or just a plain ole deaths head. Maybe the warning sign for toxicity would have been more appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Buckminster Fuller wrote about " The old Pirates"..how they and only they knew the big picture from sailing about the planet.
How it was they who set up the Popes and Kings and Queens to look after things ...the Old Pirates are gone but their institutions still remain.

Coyote said...

An interesting perspective that I would enjoy hearing more of. I'll have to check out the book.

Anonymous said...

`yote...the book is " Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth" Buckminster Fuller

I`m gonna search it out for a re-read
myself