Response to Minister of Energy Blair Lekstrom

February 27, 2009

Letter to the Editor:

I am responding to the Minister of Energy Blair Lekstrom’s letter published on February 25th.  As the new Minister of Energy he now communicates with the familiar bluster and rhetoric of his predecessor, Richard Neufeld. 

Now I understand that the BC Energy Plan and the development of private river-diversion projects is a very controversial topic.  To date, few local people have been able to accept that the full-scale sell-off of our rivers for private power production is a good idea.  In fact, it is this part of this debate that has most engaged me.

As a previous mayor and town councilor, I feel passionate about the value of the grassroots democracy that one finds around a local government table.  As the Mayor of Golden, I would hear from Golden residents pretty quickly if I was on the right track.  My walk to work in the morning or my trip to the post office often included a discussion about the decisions that council had made the previous night.

I know that the new Minister of Energy, as a former Mayor of Dawson Creek, would have had similar experiences with the residents in his community.  He understands the value of decisions made at the local government level and in his work as an MLA he has voted to protect local decision-making.

I became involved in this issue when the government passed a bill that took away local government’s right to decide whether or not a river-diversion project would be built on a local river.  Bill 30, known as the Ashlu River bill, contained a section that specifically removed the requirement on private power projects to get zoning approval from local governments.

This was offensive to me as former Mayor; it was an assault on local democracy.  It is particularly a problem for those of us that live in rural British Columbia.  All of my colleagues in the Opposition voted against this section of the bill.  That is not particularly unusual.  The Opposition often votes against government’s bills.

What was unusual was that this section also received a nay vote from a government member.  That member was the current Minister of Energy.  He too agreed that local governments should not be removed from the decision making on these projects.

Whether or not the BC Energy Plan is a good idea is a larger discussion, and many across the province are having that discussion.  But the bottomline for the communities in my area is this: Minister Lekstrom, if you want to build a private river-diversion power project on a river near one of my communities, come and make your case.  Then follow your own beliefs about democracy and let the people decide.

Norm Macdonald MLA

Columbia River - Revelstoke