Independent Power Producers, Run of the River, Biomass, Site C, Waste to Energy….There’s been a lot of activity in the government concerning the emerging energy economy in BC. The central piece of legislation to help usher in this ship in provincial energy policy is the Clean Energy Act and today, Michael rose in the House to address it.
Below you will find the draft transcript of his speech and as always the official Hansard will be posted when available.
2010 Legislative Session: Second Session, 39th Parliament
HOUSE BLUES
This is a DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY of debate in one sitting of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. This transcript is subject to corrections, and will be replaced by the final, official Hansard report. Use of this transcript, other than in the legislative precinct, is not protected by parliamentary privilege, and public attribution of any of the debate as transcribed here could entail legal liability.
DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(HANSARD)
HOUSE BLUES
MONDAY, MAY 31, 2010
Afternoon Sitting
MONDAY, MAY 31, 2010
Second Reading of Bills
BILL 17 — CLEAN ENERGY ACT
(continued)
M. Sather: It’s indeed my pleasure to join the debate on Bill 17, the so-called Clean Energy Act.
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You know, it’s always fun to follow the member for Shuswap. Hey, it’s a beautiful place that I had the opportunity of visiting recently. The flowers are looking great there in Salmon Arm. I didn’t happen to see the minister around. I didn’t see the member around, though, and I guess B.C. Liberals aren’t going out in public that much these days.
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I mean, obviously the member might have had the chance, if he dared to go out today amongst the people, to talk to them about the HST, or he might even want to talk to them about the Clean Energy Act, because there are a lot of fishermen in his area. I’ve talked to a lot of fishermen. They’re not happy with the arrangement that this government has with the private power producers.
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They’re not happy about what’s going to happen and what is happening to their access to their fishing spots. They’re not happy about the loss of sovereignty — that’s what it amounts to — over our rivers and streams.
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I don’t know if he wants to talk to them about big corporations. He can do that too, I guess, but the main thing is he ought to go out and talk to them about how they feel about what this government is doing around the private power producer act, which is essentially what this is.
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It’s the consummation of a long relationship between this government and the private power producers. They have been in bed for a long time. The money keeps rolling in; it keeps rolling in. That makes them happy, as long as those donations to the B.C. Liberals are coming in, and they must be, because it seems that the minister is very pleased. And so it goes on and on.
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But knowledgable observers have called this the worst legislation in the last decade, and I think they’re absolutely right. It’s simply a giveaway to private power producers being disguised as a clean energy bill. It’s anything but a clean energy bill.
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Speaking of large corporations, the Joint Industry Electricity Steering Committee, which represents all of B.C. Hydro’s largest customers, had the opportunity to make a submission to the government’s Green Energy Advisory Task Force. They calculated that the export plans — yes, this is all about export, and we’ll talk about that a little bit more, I’m sure — are going to cost British Columbians $450 million per year in money-losing sales transactions.
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Now, the previous speaker talked about, “Well, you wouldn’t want the NDP in, spoiling relationships with corporations” — making the case, I guess, in a roundabout way that they’re good managers of the resource. But how can they say that when they have put out a bill that the largest customers of B.C. Hydro say will commit B.C. Hydro — force B.C. Hydro, under this bill — to pay private power producers twice what their power would fetch on the open market?
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Now, there’s a good deal. There’s a really good deal. It’s a good deal if you’re a private power producer, for sure. But what does it do for the taxpayers of British Columbia?
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[1545]
It sticks them to it — 120 bucks per megawatt hour to buy and about $60…. That’s what the people that are the biggest customers of B.C. Hydro say they’ll get — probably about 60 bucks, for 20 years. Over 20 years, at $450 million, that rounds out to about $9 billion. That’s a lot of money that this government is giving away to their friends in the private power industry at the cost of taxpayers. It’s really quite shameful.
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I do hope that the member for Shuswap, the Minister of Aboriginal Relations, does go out and talk to his constituents and to all British Columbians about this bill. I know we did — a lot — during the last election, and as my colleague said, people are not happy with what this government is doing. They certainly won’t be happy with this bill and aren’t happy with this bill, even though they are perhaps more focused right now on another bit of legislation that was just recently passed by this government.
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You know, the Energy Minister said: “Well, we have the right to pursue our agenda.” I think that says it all. This government feels that they have the divine right to pursue their agenda, whether or not it’s in the best interests of British Columbians, our environment or our energy supply. They have a divine right to pursue their energy. That’s what the minister said, and they did that.
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Obviously, we know they did that with the HST — the same. There was the divine right, and they continue. The Premier was up earlier today pursuing that agenda, albeit futilely. Nonetheless that’s his right to do that.
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I want to talk a little bit about B.C. Hydro because this act, Bill 17, forces B.C. Hydro to buy power for export and seek out new export opportunities. Why, in fact, would the government have to have a directive towards B.C. Hydro? It seems that they don’t trust B.C. Hydro that much either. We know that recalcitrant group from the B.C. Utilities Commission kind of stepped out of line a little while ago, and so they got whacked good.
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I think the government is sending this hard message to their “partners” B.C. Hydro: “Don’t you dare get independent. Don’t you dare have any thoughts on your own, or at least if you have them, don’t express them.”
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Who is doing the directing here? What we’re seeing is the cabinet taking over the role that the B.C. Utilities Commission used to have, that B.C. Hydro used to have. But then I guess the brain trust — the Premier and his cohorts — know more about electricity than B.C. Hydro, and they should just go out and tell them how to run the business.
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That’s what they’re doing through Bill 17. They’re absolutely centralizing control of our energy future in the cabinet. Given the lack of confidence that right now, at least, is being expressed by the people of British Columbia about not only the cabinet but the whole government, I don’t know if that’s a very good idea.
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This export plan by private power producers. Yes, we have had export before, but this one is lined up, albeit with very poor financial reckoning behind it, very nicely for the private power producers. California is obviously one of the destinations, one would think, for the power. They’re not particularly receptive. In fact, they’re not receptive at all to power from projects that are larger than 30 megawatts, and most of them or a lot of them out there…. That’s just what they are. They’re much larger than that.
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Again, how is the government going to sell this power that we the taxpayers are going to have to pay for? I wonder.
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[1550]
Another one that’s really interesting, which Bill 17 brings in, directs B.C. Hydro to shape and store power. This is what opponents of the private power movement aided and abetted by this government have been saying for several years was going to happen. Now they’re out in the open about it.
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What they’re going to do is use the heritage assets — the dams that we’ve had for years like at Revelstoke, like on the Peace River — for the benefit of their friends in the private power industry.
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There’s a government backgrounder out there that says that any expenditures associated with exports are not included in domestic rates. The minister referred to that in his opening speech, but that’s quite frankly baloney. This is a subsidy for private power producers.
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These heritage dams that the citizens of British Columbia own could be producing relatively cheap power for domestic use, but instead they’re going to be holding back their water and their power to allow private power producers to export more power. That’s what this shape-and-store is all about. That’s what it’s all about, and it’s totally unnecessary.
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If the projects they were doing could stand on their own…. But they can’t. Thus they’re getting these massive subsidies from this government. I don’t know what B.C. Hydro is going to do if they don’t have much capacity in their dams for this shape-and-store movement. If the dams are almost full, I guess they’re just going to let the water run by the generators so that those who are friends of the government and support them financially and otherwise can have free rein with our power. Certainly, there’s no B.C.-first policy in this province — not at all.
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The private power producers will be using B.C. Hydro staff and expertise to get this work done, and they’ve already been doing that for a long time, actually. A lot of the run-of-river euphemism…. It’s not run of river. It’s dam and divert rivers and streams in British Columbia.
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A lot of that work of finding those places in this province was already done by B.C. Hydro before the opportunistic folks from the private power industry came on the scene. So they’ve had lots of subsidy, and they’re going to have more subsidy while they have B.C. Hydro as their agent doing shape-and-store and then being out there finding the market for them and delivering it to them. It’s all one big happy ball for the private power industry and this completely complicit government.
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We’re already paying. Our hydro rates have gone up 18 percent since 2005. Lots more much worse news to come. They’re going to go up 9 percent more this year and 29 percent compounded over the next three years. Somebody has to pay. Just like the HST, it’s the regular taxpayers that will be paying for this misadventure with the private power producers of British Columbia.
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The government talks a fair bit — or they did, and they still are, interestingly enough — about self-sufficiency. In fact, that’s all we heard for a long time: “Oh, we’ve got to have more private power for self-sufficiency.” Of course, at that time they were still in the closet, and they weren’t talking about private power for export. But now at least, they’re right out there about it. This bill brings them right out there about it, and shamefully so.
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But when the government…. They spun this web of us being dependent on imports for power, and the whole thing is…. I don’t know what other word to use in a sham. It’s a sham. They don’t talk about the power that’s produced by Alcan or Teck Cominco or Fortis power. They provide 20 percent of our power needs in this province, but those bits of power don’t get to be part of the equation of whether or not we’re importers or exporters. Remember, the government has had that long discussion over the past few years before they came right out with it, to develop this bill for their friends.
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[1555]
Then there’s the Columbia River treaty, where we provide the capacity for the folks south of the border to produce power, or we can — in which, of course, we get paid for what we do for them…. On the other hand, we have the capacity through the agreement to take that power and use that power ourselves, but we don’t do that. That’s not considered, either, in the whole miscalculation about self-sufficiency that’s been going on with this government.
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The Columbia River treaty downstream benefits, if realized, would provide over 10 percent of our current need. We would be, if we did that, in a 5.1 percent surplus position rather than a 1.5 deficit regarding electricity in this province.
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The fact is that over the last 32 years, there have only been five years in which B.C. actually brought more power into the province than we sent outside the province. But the government has been carrying on this…. They like to talk about misinformation with the HST, but they’ve been carrying on this misinformation for a long time, and it’s an inconvenient truth — the reality of it.
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I think it was the Environment Minister who earlier today talked a little bit about Burrard Thermal. B.C. Hydro has to assume that Burrard Thermal really doesn’t exist, even in extreme low-water years. On the other hand, it has to be maintained, because all of that private power that they’re trying to get out there just might not be out there fast enough to provide for the needs they have at the time.
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You know how the government is always berating Burrard Thermal? It’s not like it’s running on dirty coal. It’s actually running on natural gas. The government in some respects is very fond of natural gas, but not in the case of Burrard Thermal, which produced in 2008 less than 1 percent of B.C. Hydro’s power.
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The minister, the previous speaker, wanted me, wanted us to talk about Site C, and I’m glad to indulge him on that. Site C — now, there’s an interesting example of, again, a miscast group, including the Premier, that went traipsing by airplane up to Hudson’s Hope recently to basically announce that they were fully embracing Site C, that it was the best thing since sliced bread, and on and on. “So what if we haven’t done any environmental assessment yet. So what if we don’t have any consultations done yet with First Nations. Nonetheless, we’re foursquare behind it.” So they want to talk a lot about that.
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Again, they don’t need this energy for so-called self-sufficiency. They want it for export. It’s interesting where some of that export would go. There is in the works now a pipeline to the northeast shale gas deposits in this province.
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The final destination for a lot of that gas out of the shale gas deposits is going to be the tar sands in Alberta. Talk about clean energy. There’s no clean energy coming out of the tar sands. That’s the dirtiest energy you can get on the planet, and yet it’s being sold as clean energy. So there’s no way that we can take seriously much about Site C.
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Speaking of natural gas, the government recently approved of the massive Cabin gas plant in the Fort Nelson area. That one is to process the very gas that comes from the shale gas deposits, but the company has said, “You know what? We can’t really do the carbon capture-and-storage process up there” — EnCana, to wit. And this is going to be a major polluter, actually one of the major polluters. In fact, by the time all is said and done, the gas plants up there are going to be producing more pollution than any other source in British Columbia.
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[1600]
Yet the Premier runs around talking about how green he is, and he has a green energy plan and a bill that’s supposed to be green. It’s anything but green.
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There are actually other facilities up there. Spectra gas is actually going to employ that technology, and they have been working for the past 20 years on reducing their emissions. But that doesn’t count for EnCana, I guess. The Premier said with regard to that particular bit…. They talked about contributing to a net overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on a continental scale.
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Well, it’s interesting how interested the government now seems to be in what’s going on in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States but not very much interested, clearly, in terms of their action and what’s going on with greenhouse gases in our country.
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B.C. Transmission Corporation. Bill 17 shelves — essentially guts — B.C. Transmission Corporation to pave the way for B.C. Hydro to be the complete service agent for the private power producers. That’s what it does. It’s shameful, but that’s the facts. They don’t really need the power they’re calling for. It’s up to 8,000 gigawatts per year. There was a cost too, which actually Will McMartin mentioned in an article about closing down B.C. Transmission Corporation, at $65 million, but that’s chump change for a government that says they’re so efficient and they’re looking out for the best interests of British Columbians.
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Well, the B.C. Transmission Corporation, according to the minister, still has power. Hey, they can set domestic rates, but they can’t oversee the price of private power if they did. In fact, they did do that, and that’s exactly the reason why they no longer have much power at all.
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They told the government in their clean call, their long-term acquisition plan, that we don’t need all that power. “You haven’t made a case for it.” They were quickly given the shaft by the government, and the minister says: “Oh well, BCTC gets to vet the energy purchase agreements.” I don’t know what “vet” means to the minister, but I expect it’s going to be the old rubber stamp. That’s the only vetting they’re going to get to do — to say yes and say it often.
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So no public oversight of power-for-export at all. It’s lost through the virtual elimination of the B.C. Transmission Corporation. The minister can go around in his constituency and talk to his constituents about that, and I’m sure he’s going to find out that they’re less than amused. It’s part of the deregulation agenda that this government is so fond of.
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One of the win-win for the government too, by having everything private, is that citizens don’t get to know what’s happening. In fact, the Canadian Newspaper Association’s annual audit of Canadians’ access to government-held information found that B.C. has the worst access in the country. Not very surprising to us on this side of the House, but I think it might be pretty disappointing to the citizens of this province.
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That’s the way it is. It’s a win-win for the government. They privatize our power, and then people can’t find out the details of what’s going on. It’s the privatization, deregulation and secrecy agenda that this government is pushing through with this legislation. They really ought to, as has been mentioned by my colleague, go back to the drawing board and think again.
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If the HST hasn’t driven the B.C. Liberal Party’s fortunes completely into the ground, this bill is going to finish them off. Really, this is bad legislation that the people of B.C. won’t like at all.
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[1605]
It doesn’t matter how long the minister goes on about big corporations. It’s the lack of transparency. It’s the lack of respect for public assets. We see it in the fish farm industry, and we see it through Bill 17 with regard to energy.
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You know, it’s the same idea with harmonizing the environmental assessment — the one project, one process that the government has come out with. At least those PAB guys come out with some pretty catchy slogans. I’ll give them that. They’ve got to get paid for something.
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Again, it’s deregulating and lessening the environmental oversight, not increasing protection at all. We had a bit of that in the discussion in question period. When it comes to a leak from a gas-processing facility, there’s just no concern of the government to get out there on the ground and do something. Really they should, but that would be interfering. I guess the government feels that would be undue interference with a corporation.
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“My goodness, we wouldn’t want that. After all, we’re the government,” they say, “that got rid of all the red tape.” It would be red tape if you go out there and start asking questions of all these private power producers and those in the energy industry.
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The Premier made it clear that he’s certainly not going to live up to any greenhouse gas reduction strategies when it comes to EnCana or when it comes to offshore oil and gas. What did the minister say about offshore oil and gas? People were asking, of course, about what’s happened down in Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico. He said: “Well, they don’t know yet what caused it.” That was his response — that we don’t know yet what’s the cause of it, not that this is a real clear indicator that we should have some concerns. No.
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I think one of my colleagues said earlier it’s the only government in the west that’s pushing offshore oil and gas. Where is the clean energy in that? None whatsoever. The government has a lot of audacity to come out with this bill and call it the Clean Energy Act. There are a lot of uncomplimentary names, and some of them have perhaps already been used. But clean energy is not what this is all about.
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You know, in my community it’s interesting to watch the discussion around incineration in the Lower Mainland. I think it was in the throne speech that the government said they weren’t going to allow the Lower Mainland to export their garbage. This sounds like a laudable deal. I mean, you should look after your own garbage. That’s a good idea. But I didn’t believe it, and the more I see of it, I don’t think that’s their motivation at all.
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These incineration projects are going to be private power projects. You watch. I asked the folks from the regional government, from Metro Van government: “What’s going to be the nature of these? Are they going to be owned and operated by Metro Vancouver? Are they going to be private?” He said: “Well, we don’t have a business plan for that yet.” Wherever they can find an opportunity to privatize, this government does so even when it’s an issue of our rivers, when it’s an issue of our birthright, when it’s an issue of protecting salmon and other fish.
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This government doesn’t care. First and foremost, they want to privatize and invite in bad deals that have to be propped up by our public resource to even make it work at all. I remember the private power producer in my back yard saying at the open house: “Oh yes, we intend to sell this power locally.” They never intended to sell locally. It’s always been intended for export. It’s always been a bad deal for British Columbians. It continues to be a bad deal for British Columbians, and I will oppose it all the way as long as I can.
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[1610]
