Mair says watch for BC Hydro sale

By GERRY WARNER
Townsman Staff

June 16th, 2008

Sell BC Hydro?  That’s what Gordon Campbell’s government in Victoria is going to do after the next provincial election, says former BC cabinet minister and broadcaster Rafe Mair.

Mair was interviewed in Cranbrook Tuesday prior to speaking at the College of the Rockies forum Thursday night for the Save our Rivers Coalition sponsored by Wildsight and the BC Resident Hunters Association.

The two groups oppose an Independent Power project (IPP) proposed for Glacier and Howser creeks in the West Kootenay that would involve a tunnel and transmission line being built to ship power to the East Kootenay.

Mair said the project, one of nearly 500 such IPP’s that have sprung up around BC the past few years, reveals Victoria’s plans to get rid of BC Hydro as a public utility.  Hydro has been hemorrhaging money in recent years and no longer even owns its transmission lines, Mair said.

“Why?  The only possible reason I can think of is so that it can be sold.  It’s not going to be sold before the next election, but I can tell you it’s going to be sold within six months after the next election.”

Mair, the former Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister in Premier Bill Bennett’s Social Credit government, said Hydro is carrying more than $7 billion in debt and can no longer afford to do the routine maintenance and upkeep needed on its dams in the province and the Burrard thermal generating plant.

“What’s going to happen is the debts will be called.  The government, Mr. Campbell, will step in and say my oh my oh my what a terrible thing has happened.  We guaranteed all those bonds.  The province of British Columbia is on the hook for all that money.  What we’re going to have to do is pay off these people and sell BC Hydro.

“There’s no question in my mind that’s the long term plan mainly because they can’t think of another one.”

The legendary former open line host on radio stations CKNW and CJOR says selling BC Hydro would be a major policy departure from previous provincial governments, both Socred and NDP, that saw Hydro as a major instrument of government policy.

“We knew that BC Hydro and BC Rail were tools of government policy and we had to be very careful and circumspect with what policies we developed because we knew we would be watched very closely.  That’s why Hydro is there.  It belongs to the people.”

However now that Hydro no longer owns its own transmission lines and no longer owns its own transmission lines and no longer is interested in building its own dams and generating its own power, but is instead turning to the private sector in the form of IPP’s, the people of BC are losing control of their own power system, Mair said.

“The money, the profit, the power came back to the people.  The rates, both industrially and at home, were kept down …all of these were matters of government policy, which we will no longer have.”

Mair says he doesn’t like the new approach and can only think of one reason for it.  “This is ideological.  This is Thatcher slash Reagan, slash Milton Friedman slash Fraser Institute.  It’s just an ideological commitment against anything public.  I can’t think of another reason for it and it’s certainly lousy business.”