B.C. is an Acronym for Many Things

We residents, when speaking to relatives in other provinces, have always jokingly referred to B.C. as Bring Cash.
The acronym also stands for Bureaucrat Central, for obvious reasons.

Residents and business owners have, for years, struggled to pay massive and never-ending increases in water and property taxes and fuel and hydro, to name only a few.

But it's just not funny anymore.

The price disparity hit home today as I perused a recent story in an oft-read blog by Norm Farrell, blog author par excellence which he entitled "Pushing Back on Site C Disinformation".

This excerpt from the article raised my hackles:

"Power sufficient for 450,000 homes eh? If only we had 450,000 homes that were without electricity. Facts show that demand by BC consumers – BC Hydro’s residential, commercial and industrial customers – has been flat since 2005. In addition, as the NDP knew before they were elected, conservation and small-scale on-site alternative generation offer huge opportunities to reduce demand for grid power.

In fact, BC Hydro’s rapidly rising rates will push more consumers to conserve electricity and utilize self generation methods.

For a few hundred million, BC Hydro could add about half of Site C capacity at Revelstoke. Additionally, even more capacity than Site C could be added by taking back the Canadian Entitlement of downstream power (1,320 MW) generated on the Columbia. We’re selling that now to Americans for 2.6¢/KWh, (my emphasis) which is 20% to 25% of what Site C power will cost."  reprinted without permission from Norm Farrell's blog.

It's the last sentence that sticks in my craw.

We sell electricity to Americans for 2.6 cents a kiloWatt hour?

W h a t ?

While we British Columbians pay 8.5 cents (step 1 to max), increasing to 12.8 cents for step 2.

And my business?
I pay B.C. Hydro's "Small General Service Rate 1300".
And guess what that costs?
11.39 cents per kW hour!

11.39 cents, compared to our electricity going south of the border for 2.6 cents.
Four Hundred and Thirty-Eight Percent more!

My business pays 438% more for British Columbia hydro.

B.C.
Because they Can. 
Because we're Captive.