03) BC COMMUNISTS CONDEMN HYDRO SELLOUT

(The following article is from the May 16-30, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

"The Communist Party of BC condemns the Campbell Liberal government's privatization agenda for BC Hydro," said party leader George Gidora on the evening of May 12, as the Liberals won re-election. "Now that the Liberals are back in office," he warned, "the fight to block the sellout of BC Hydro must continue."

     The legacy of public power in BC in 1961 began with the unanimous passing of Bill 5, the Power Development Act which merged several bodies into what became BC Hydro.

     "This profitable, publicly owned energy utility provides British Columbians with some of the most affordable electricity in all of Canada while generating billions of dollars in revenue for social services such as education and health care," said Gidora in a statement during the campaign. "The energy it produces is renewable and green-house-gas free. Despite this, the Liberal government is currently carrying out a programme of incremental, stealth privatization of BC Hydro."

     The first phase of this programme involved the secretive contracting out of one-third of BC Hydro to Bermuda-based Accenture Business Services. The government then formed the BC Transmission Corporation, removing BC Hydro's responsibilities for the transmission of electricity.

     The Liberals' BC Energy Plan stipulated that no new electricity generation facilities could be built publicly by BC Hydro (with the possible exception of the controversial Site C project on the Peace River). All new energy needs would have to be fulfilled by the private sector. This Plan heralded the start of an energy gold rush, with private corporations scrambling to grab up water licenses for public rivers and streams for the purposes of generating hydro electricity through "run-of-river" power projects. Today there are applications for over 700 points of diversion of rivers and streams, 139 of which have been approved.

     Gidora calls these "environmental disasters which require the construction of thousands of kilometers of transmission lines and roads, clear cutting, damming and diverting rivers, disrupting or destroying wilderness and aquatic species habitat, rock blasting, tunnelling and more. Already BC Hydro is locked into over $30 billion worth of energy purchase agreements with private companies.

     "These agreements will see BC Hydro purchase energy from private sources at prices which as drastically higher than the cost of energy produced by BC Hydro and in some cases are even double the predicted market price. This means BC Hydro will be forced to increase electricity rates by as much as double or face being slowly bankrupted. Either outcome will help facilitate the final privatization of the remaining shell of BC Hydro. Since the profits produced by private power companies return to private hands, the public revenue produced by BC Hydro will be lost. This will further starve BC's social services of funds and open the door to more privatization schemes."

     "The destruction of BC Hydro," says Gidora, "is a get rich scheme for private corporations, who have funnelled over $800,000 to the BC Liberals through campaign donations. For working people, it is a move in exactly the wrong direction at a time when the capitalist system is ridden with crisis and desperately seeking new sources of profit."

     The Communist programme for BC's energy resources would halt this privatization agenda and re-organize BC Hydro as a publicly owned and controlled utility. The party's demands include:

- Cancel the BC Energy Plan and work with communities and First Nations to develop a new plan based on public ownership and development of green, renewable energy.

- Cancel the Accenture contract and return its operations to BC Hydro with no loss in jobs. Launch an investigation into the details of this secretive deal.

- Stop the sale of water licenses for public rivers and streams to private corporations, cancel existing contracts and applications.

- Put existing private power operations under public ownership and control.

- Lift the ban on the investigation and development of new electricity sources by BC Hydro.

- Keep all existing and future transmission lines publicly owned and controlled.

- Promote energy conservation and energy efficient technologies.

- Put all new power developments through a rigorous environmental assessment and public consultation process.

- Rescind Bill 30, which took away the rights of municipalities and First Nations to reject power developments.

- Ban the private export of electricity.

- Create publicly funded university research programs to investigate and develop environmentally friendly technology

- Pull out of NAFTA, TILMA and other "free trade" agreements which compromise Canadian sovereignty with regards to energy, water and other resources.