Fright C

At a projected cost of $11.7 Billion dollars, we can't call it Site C anymore.

And now we residents of British Columbia hear of yet another electricity rate increase.
Rates were supposed to increase by 6.85 per cent as of April 1st, but apparently a "Deferral Account Rate Rider" is being reduced from 5 per cent to zero.

B.C. means Bring Cash 

Most people despise the B.C. Utilities Commission who--for the most part--are only an arm's length bureaucratic arm of the provincial utilities who seem to approve everything that comes across their desks--but this move will see our utility bills increase only by 1.76 per cent.

Political spin-doctoring, likely to gain some favour among voters for the Horgan government.
But whatever the gobbledy-gook means, we residents chuckle and remind everyone that B.C. means Bring Cash.

Over the last few years, we were told Hydro rates would increase on average 5 per cent for each of the next five years.  Now Hydro's saying they "need" 8.1 per cent over five years.

Norm Farrell, of Insights online newsletter fame, has done considerable research on B.C. Hydro over the years.  And he's discovered some unsavory examples that smack of corruption and abuse of power by the previous Liberal government headed by Christy Clark.

Recently, Fortis B.C. sent out a notice to their customers that they were eliminating the two-tier system for utility charges.  Lucky Fortis customers.  But their customer base doesn't include the largest cities on the Coast or most of the Okanagan, for that matter.  Here's their service area.

The Global News story led to some interesting comments on March 2/19:

John Galbraith

When this big new dam comes on line and they start selling hydro to other areas will we see the rates go down

Like · Reply · 1 · 7h

Tiffany Mable Gagne

John Galbraith hahaha it will never go down! They aren't going to lower it at all, dont be such a fool to their madness

Like · Reply · 2h

John Galbraith

Tiffany Mable Gagne that was go down the drain, we should have the cheapest rates in Canada with all the water we have

Like · Reply · 1h

Amber White

I live in a fourplex, so a small apartment - my bill for Feb was $417 (with $150 already paid towards it before the bill came out!!!!) We are getting ripped off. They know how cold it is so they rack your bill weather you use more energy or not i swear. we used less than two months ago and our bill was twice as expensive. Fishy fishy.

Like · Reply · 8h

Gern Blanstein

Another dumpster fire. The BC Liberals started the ridiculously expensive IPP run of river projects where the power costs 3 times normal. The contacts go on for 60 years. Everything the Liberals touched turned to poop. ICBC, BC Hydro, BC Ferries, Translink....

Like · Reply · 1 · 9h

Reg Armstrong

Ya, By the way, where is Christy and that ex-flatfooted cop, she had trotting around BC with his beer belly hangiing out, putting out her fires? A match made in heaven. Are even in the country?

Like · Reply · 1 · 8h

Sarah Taylor

What happened to the bail out the government was going to give them to avoid rate hikes?! They get both?

Like · Reply · 1 · 10h

Antonie Leeuwenhoek

They need the money to replace all those smart meters that wear out prematurely compared to dumb meters.

Like · Reply · 2 · 10h

Tom Anderson

Wonderfull, so the pitally inflation increase the pensioners are expected to get in the next few years is gone before we get it. Can we buy our power from the states like we do our gas ..at half price

Like · Reply · 1 · 10h

Reg Armstrong

Why not? We sell/give them power to start with. Just got my hydro bill. A 6 month holday in Mexico would be cheaper than staying home. Turn off the water, and varoooom! Fluff up my pillows, Chicita!

Like · Reply · 1 · 8h

D'Arcy Surrette

Typical NDP raising everything once they get voted in. The Liberals were crooks as well.

Like · Reply · 20h

Dale Hamilton

They want green power... be prepared to dig deep in our pocket...

Like · Reply · 3 · 20h

Kollin Hasiuk

They should increase the price on power exports to USA instead

Like · Reply · 7 · 21h

NJ Stroeder

Manitoba seems like a better place for a datacentre

Like · Reply · 1d

Thomas W Betsill

Why even pay the utilities commission? They never say no.

Like · Reply · 8 · 1d

Tom Anderson

Can't help but wonder how much less the increase would be if the uc puppets were terminanted

Like · Reply · 10h

Alfie Mannion

and the contracts that the ipps got from christy, 3 times higher then the going rate for hydro

Like · Reply · 1 · 1d

Alfie Mannion

we can thank the bc liberals again for this, robbing hydros bank accounts to balance there false budgets

Like · Reply · 4 · 1d

Christopher Yong

Again. OMG.

Like · Reply · 3 · 1d

Jose Perez

The problem is monopolizing the market which both companies do. It's time for change and time for competitive marketing in both sectors. Or we will keep paying for their mistakes and the government's mistakes allowing monopolization.

Like · Reply · 1d

Barry Marshall

So another political promise made by the NDP goes down the drain. Site C, Major LNG Line, Power Bills. Higher ICBC rates. Those slush funds that the Liberals were squirreling away was the money that the liberal crooks took out of ICBC and BC Hydro and should have been put back into both Crown Corps, not used to made the NDP look good. Now we have to pay them all over again. When the hell are we going to vote is someone that doesn't screw us over?

Like · Reply · 8 · 1d

Thomas W Betsill

Never.

Like · Reply · 1d

Dave Ball

Barry, you have that slightly backwards. It was the Liberals along with Crusty Clark that raped and pillaged ICBC and BC Hydro. Anywhere they could find a penny, they grabbed it to "balance" their budget and made themselves look good to the public.
Unfortunately, the NDP inherited this mess and is doing it's best to try and fix it. Give them a freaking chance. God knows the Liberals have screwed up the province bad enough.

Like · Reply · 12h

Barry Marshall

Dave Ball The money that the NDP found that had been squirelled away didn't come from just anywhere. To much was involved, in the billions. It either came from the Crown Corps or it came from BCLC, which I doubt. More than like the Crown Corps. If the paper trail was there it should have beem followed back to source and the money follow.

Norm Farrell has written some excellent articles on B.C. Hydro for Insights.
After reading all of them, it's obvious that British Columbia does not need the extra electricity from Site C.

Seems we don't need the power!

Decide for yourselves.

"Then send Norm Farrell a thank you card," Kia would've said.

 

Liberal Robber Barons

Mismanagement by British Columbia's previous government?
I should say so.

It's no secret that the B.C. Liberals have for years considered ICBC--and B.C. Hydro--their government's piggy bank, with "surplus" funds routinely pilfered to supplement the empty echos emanating from "General Revenue".

The Robber Barons are B.C.'s former Liberal government led by Christy Clark.

An ICBC $400 annual premium hike?
That's what may be necessary for every B.C. driver as ICBC's deficit is now slated to be $1.3 billion.
Yes, billion.
Unbelievable!
Especially since a mere three months ago, the ICBC deficit was expected to be a paltry $200 million.

But that was before the Liberals robbed ICBC of $1.2 billion!

Mike Smyth's story in the Province tells a horrific tale of not only mismanagement, but deceit, in particular by former Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong, who "stripped the controversial recommendation (for not acting on an Ernst and Young report in 2014) and keeping the information away from ICBC."

"Years of bad decisions and mismanagement by the former government have meant a fiscally unsustainable position at ICBC," a government briefing note is reported to have stated.  "We never expected to find this level of mismanagement by the previous government."

Crooked Christy Clark.

What's needed is an immediate return to private insurance.
But then what of ICBC's "debt"?

Get it back from former Liberal ministers?
And their highly-placed private donors?
Take it out of their hides?

"The Liberals have continually taken it out of ours," Kia would've said.

 ...and to think I used to be a B.C. Liberal!
My excuse is that there wasn't another choice in those days.

The Sham of "Conserving"

All it leads to is an increased unit cost to you, the purchaser.

Whether it's fuelled by outright lies--as is now known to be the case in the B.C. government's "need" for Hydro's Site C--or unbelievable bureaucratic biases whose strategy to have long-sitting politicians save face--who approved the Master Water Plan in the first place--it's become a contagion.

Government lies.
Bureaucratic lies.
Consultants manipulating data.
Arm's-length appointed committees--over whom the electorate has no control--making the rules.  Cases in point:  the B.C. Utilities Commission, to whom Hydro goes for approval of new rates, and the Okanagan Basin Water Board, who now issue provincial grants to municipalities!

Both the BCUC and OBWB have focused on conservation as a tool to conserve (BCUC) electricity and (OBWB) water.

While this blog would never ever promote wasting either water or electricity, get a load of this story in the local Morning Star today...and think of your Greater Vernon water rate increases while reading.

Its title tells it all:  "B.C. Hydro rates rise as demand slows.  (excerpts only, highlighting by blog author)

B.C. Hydro is going ahead with its planned four per cent rate increase this year and deferring more debt to future years as it revises its electricity demand forecast downward. 

The provincially-owned utility has not asked (BCUC!) for an increase in its government-imposed rate plan despite a revised demand forecast with $3.5 billion less revenue over the next 10 years.  Hydro has filed a three-year plan with the BCUC that increases rates 4, 3.5 and 3.0 per cent in the next 3 years.

That's a 10.5 per cent increase over the additional new rates we've been paying for the last four or five years! 

B.C. Hydro is seeing lower revenues (does that sound familiar, GVW water customers????) due to two warm winters and downturns in mining and forest products.

Critic Adrian Dix states Hydro should have added a sixth turbine to the Revelstoke dam (at $450 million) versus forging ahead with the Site C dam ... a $9 billion project!"


Blog readers...for a wayyyyy more accurate--and damaging expose of B.C. Hydro, and how the B.C. Liberals have been draining its coffers dry (now ICBC isn't the sole victim!), you simply must read this Site C article by blogger extraordinaire, Norman Farrell. 

Then go back to his Home Page here to learn the ongoing deceptions of the B.C. Liberals.

"There's no antibiotic that'll rid voters of the lies contagion," says Kia, adding "look at how it's spreading among politicians and the bureaucracy."

Indeed.
Sadly, they're learning from one another.

Lies, Lies, Everywhere Lies...