PEOPLE POWER is a six-chaper 50 minute DVD designed to help activists launch grassroots community-based campaigns to protect public power and the environment.
Misleading BC Energy Plan Will Increase Privatization of Public Power and Raise Electricity Rates While Claiming the Opposite, S
And BC Citizens warned that the BC Energy Plan indicates the government may gut the ability of the BC Utilities Commission to block future sweetheart deals like the Alcan power agreement the Commission stopped.
"By 2020 a full 40% of all electricity will be supplied to BC consumers by private for-profit corporations instead of publicly-owned BC Hydro," said Michelle Laurie, chair of BC Citizens. "This will mean steadily increasing electricity rates for BC consumers as they are forced to subsidize the profits of private power producers."
Laurie said last week's BC Budget outlined that BC Hydro rates will go up 6% next year alone, a clear indication that consumers will pay through the nose for the government's privatization strategy.
And Laurie said an ominous section of the Energy Plan indicates the BC Utilities Commission may have its ability to regulate electricity deals restricted because it blocked the sweetheart power deal between Alcan and BC Hydro.
A section of the Energy Plan reads: "Government will review the BC Utilities Commissions' role in considering social, environmental and economic costs and benefits, and will determine how best to ensure these are appropriately considered within the regulatory framework."
"This statement indicates to us that the BC government wants to remove the watchdog capabilities of the BC Utilities Commission that allowed it to stop a giveaway of tens of millions to Alcan by the BC government," Laurie said. "Once again, consumers could pay dearly for the profits of a major multinational corporation."
The BC Energy Plan shows that costs for large hydroelectric dam power range from $43 to $62 per megawatt hour while private power costs for natural gas, coal, run of river small hydro and other sources are significantly higher and as much as double public power costs.
"This BC Liberal government is reversing British Columbia's legacy of public power ownership and increasingly turning it over to the private sector while passing the costs on to consumers," Laurie said. "The government privatized one-third of BC Hydro's operations in 2003 and today it continues to privatize the supply of power."
For more information: Contact Michelle Laurie at cell 604-312-2185 or Bill Tieleman, West Star Communications, at 604-844-7827 or cell 778-896-0964.