BC Citizens for Public Power reaches out of court settlement in class action lawsuit against BC Hydro privatization

Vancouver - BC Citizens for Public Power, an advocacy group with 75,000 supporters across the province, has reached an out of court settlement in a class action lawsuit it filed in BC Supreme Court against the BC provincial government and BC Hydro over the privatization of one-third of the crown corporation to Bermuda-based Accenture.

Michelle Laurie, chair of the board of directors, says BC Citizens for Public Power faced an agonizing choice after pursuing the class action lawsuit since 2002.

"British Columbians responded in unprecedented numbers when BC Citizens for Public Power began our class action lawsuit to return BC Hydro to full public ownership," Laurie said. "But when the government introduced legislation that undercut our lawsuit we were faced with slim odds of success and the prospect of overwhelming damage costs being awarded against us."

"Although one-third of the company was privatized, key elements remain in public hands," Laurie said. "The government brought in legislation to hamstring our court action. The financial risks that BC Citizens for Public Power would not survive losing the court case were too high to continue, so we have reached an out of court settlement on the advice of our legal counsel" she said.

"Now we will focus on continuing to be a strong public watchdog fighting the ongoing privatization of public power in BC and sticking up for electricity consumers."

"It has been a bitter decision for BC Citizens for Public Power to have to make and it will be bitter news for our many supporters but we have decided to continue our fight in the court of public opinion instead of the law courts and we are intent on winning," Laurie said.

"We hope our 20,000 donors will continue to fund BC Citizens for Public Power so that we can oppose the BC Liberal government's plan that a full 40% of our electrical power supply will come from private companies by 2020 and so we can continue to argue against Bermuda-based Accenture running one-third of BC Hydro's operations," Laurie said.

"There are other important issues like the hundreds of environmentally damaging run-of-the-river private power projects the government is allowing, regular BC Hydro electricity rate increases and government subsidization of power companies," she said. "The need for BC Citizens for Public Power to advocate and inform on behalf of the public has never been stronger and we believe our supporters will agree."

For more information: Contact Michelle Laurie at 604-312-2185 or Bill Tieleman, West Star Communications, at 604-844-7827 or cell 778-896-0964.