The Liberal Government has already made BC Canada’s most indebted province. Projects like Site C, which Premier Christy Clark is shown announcing here, will only make matters worse (Province of BC/Flickr) Almost four years ago I prepared an article on the financial affairs of BC, musing about the way BC voters
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The Common Sense Canadian: Why BC Hydro always overestimates future power demand: Economist
What BC Hydro says about its own work clearly establishes the forecast as a foundation document for future planning for new generation and distribution investments: Load forecasting is central to BC Hydro’s long-term planning, medium-term investment, and short-term operational and forecasting activities. (1) Because of this importance, the forecast needs
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Evidence shows no need for Site C Dam: Economist to Energy Minister
Energy Minister Bill Bennett Dear Minister; I know you have heard it all so I guess it is now all about the legacy you and your cabinet colleagues are willing to create. Thinking in terms of demand for electricity in BC, the reported record of sales by BC Hydro has
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: With Duke Point incinerator, property values could go up in smoke
The following is a letter from Common Sense Canadian economic columnist and Gabriola Island resident Erik Andersen to Nanaimo city council, which is hearing arguments on a controversial, proposed waste incinerator at Duke Point this evening. Over the past several decades the City of Nanaimo has single-mindedly pursued a course of beautifying
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Economist: BC’s private waste, recycling plan is garbage
Money, money, money. Just like the ABBA song says; it makes the world go round. Our garbage is the newest target for those who love only money and lots of it. A decade ago some of those sharpest guys in the room, runaways from bankrupting Enron, secured legal authority from President
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: BC Budget a work of fiction: Economist
BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong tables a fairytale budget – Feb. 18, 2014 The crafting of a government budget is always fictional because it comes from the minds of politicians who are universally optimistic about the future. All that needs doing is to determine if the exaggerations will
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: BC Budget hides $100 Billion, forces citizens to shoulder debt burden
As the Liberal Government compiles the 2014 BC Budget, it is ignoring warnings of exploding capital borrowing, hiding $100 Billion in taxpayer liabilities, and forcing the province’s least fortunate citizens to shoulder the burden of the province’s appalling fiscal mismanagement – argues independent economist Erik Andersen. It goes without saying that
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Why does BC Hydro get their demand forecasts so wrong?
BC Hydro’s $8 Billion proposed Site C Dam – artist’s rendering Energy Minister Bill Bennett has invited citizens to review and presumably submit thoughts about the recently released BC Hydro draft “Integrated Resource Plan” (IRP), which includes some “bullish” projections of demand. Hydro chronically wrong This BC Hydro forecast for
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: BC Hydro customers victimized again with $750M Powerex settlement
In the year 2000, the price for electricity in California rose almost overnight by nearly 1300%. For its role in this fraud, BC Hydro’s energy trading subsidiary, Powerex, recently agreed to pay back $750 million to the state. Yet Energy Minister Bill Bennett maintains the government and Powerex’s innocence. Independent
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Runaway Hydro Debt: Economist Erik Andersen’s Open Letter to BC Energy Minister
Since 2006/09 BC’s domestic electrical demand has mostly “flat-lined” at about 50,000 GWhrs, making liars out of the many at Hydro and elsewhere who forecasted demand closer to 70,000 GWhrs per year by 2012. The record is replete with examples of demand exaggerations from BC Hydro. Using the narrative of
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: BC’s Crushing Debt Absent From Election Discussion
At the end of fiscal 2012, total provincial liabilities reported by the provincial government were $70.358 billion, or 100% greater than when the Liberal government first came into power. What was even more distressing was the government’s deliberate non-disclosure of “Contingencies and Contractual Obligations”, which the BC Auditor General publicly
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Independent Economist: Site C Dam Numbers Don’t Add Up
Independent economist and Common Sense Canadian contributor Erik Andersen’s open letter to the leaders of BC’s four major political parties on the eve of the May 14 provincial election. “On the evidence there seems no case for the development of Site C. Hydro is financially crippled because it not only
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: BC May Be Headed for its Own Fiscal Cliff
Is BC careening towards the edge of its own ‘fiscal cliff’? Independent economist Erik Andersen believes that may be the case. Here, he adds up a number of troubling financial trends drawing on reports from BC’s Auditor General John Doyle to expose the secret accounting methods and poor financial decisions
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: The Profiligate BC Hydro
BC Hydro used 67 per cent more capital to produce and deliver 5 per cent less electricity when it is normal to gain efficiencies from new investments, not lose them. What have the bubble era and provincial policies produced in liabilities for BC Hydro? Since 2007, liabilities increased by $6
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: BC Hydro’s Exploding Debt – Accident or by Design?
Recent media reports on the massive, unjustified debt crippling BC Hydro have attributed them to mere ineptitude on the part of government and crown corporation executives. Independent economist Erik Andersen isn’t buying that story; to him there are more sinister motives at work – citing a mysterious American corporation with
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian home page: Obscure US Corporation May Be Behind BC Hydro’s Exaggerated Power Demand, Ruinous IPP Contracts
What has been taking place is the rearrangement of control of bulk electricity production in North America by a private US entity. NERC has the power to enforce its will on producers and looks to have the legal authority to by-pass local utility commissions. It is this development that might
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