BC Hydro’s long-standing culture of deception
Serious storm clouds lie ahead. The only customers that create positive cash flow for BC Hydro are the residential, light industrial and commercial consumers. Political commitments have been made to…
Norman Farrell
Radioactive
We already knew the oil and gas business was poisoning land and water and polluting the atmosphere. Most people, including workers in the northeast gas fields, are probably unaware that…
Unmeasured GHG emissions ignored
One of the pre-election promises made quietly by the BC NDP to me and other concerned citizens was to apply best scientific practices in regulating British Columbia’s northeast gas fields.…
Perverse leadership in ‘immunity via collective failure’ globally.
Effective mitigation now must mean a regulated managed decline of fossil fuel production in Canada and globally. No new infrastructure; no new production facilities – oilsands or LNG; a Green…
Next generation wind energy
Those of us who opposed construction of the Site C dam—including the BC NDP until May 2017—argued that rapid advances in alternative energy systems meant flooding the Peace River valley…
Canada’s shame
Lost in the fuss as governments of British Columbia and Canada act to expropriate rights and lands of the Wet’suwet’en people is a sad situation that already gave proof to…
Natural gas production up, public revenue down
Citizens of BC are misled by government about economic returns from natural gas. Relevant statistics are not readily available and the ministries prefer to conceal them. Since government does not…
Ruled by climate change deniers
Both the Horgan and Trudeau governments made symbolic commitments to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Neither was sincere. Horgan passed UNDRIP into BC law…
Delusion, deception, inertia
Faced with a choice between respecting Supreme Court confirmed indigenous governance and serving foreign financial interests (Shell, Petronas, and PetroChina), BC NDP joined with the land polluters, not the land…
Deficient
Failures and reversals of John Horgan’s government mount. The NDP promise to apply UNDRIP is proving as hollow as acknowledgments NDP members make when meeting upon unceded indigenous territory in British…
Enough said
Regular readers will be aware that BCI has a long history of extravagant rewards to insiders. These measure 3x to 5x amounts paid to top people at the similar organization…
Public consultations, sincere or fake?
Transparent decision making and promises of public engagements have been common in British Columbia. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell’s 2001 platform undertook to: Hold open Cabinet meetings at least once a…
Hopeful change?
Today, Premier Horgan gave Energy Minister Michelle Mungall a new job, replacing her with Bruce Ralston. I am encouraged, anticipating (perhaps naively) that leadership of the department responsible for BC…
We’re fracked!
Remember when mendacious BC politicians spoke of massive wealth from natural gas production? Eight of the last ten monthly sales of petroleum and gas rights rank amongst the worst in…
To be or not to be
Recent inactivity at In-Sights may be a prelude to discontinuation. When I began eleven years ago, neoliberalism had ascended and mainstream public interest journalism had descended. Access to corporate media…
NDP energy promises now forgotten
Most business managers are drawn to new low-price means of production, particularly when costs of innovations are trending steadily downward and costs of conventional methods are rising. Not at BC…
Revenue from natural gas rights hits 23 year low
Were timber companies offered similar levels of cost relief as gas producers, the province would not have thousands of forestry workers hungry for employment. Politicians seem to believe that non-renewable…
Good old days
Politicians, not too long ago, feared the press. Much has changed, not because corporate media owners are suffering financially, since most are not. Good journalism is available, much of it…
BC Hydro, by the numbers
In the preceding article, I suggested BC Hydro was a sinking ship, ineptly managed. Numbers taken from 25 years of annual reports provide the evidence…
Steady as she goes
The 40% demand growth over 20 years is a fantasy spun for so long that it is baked into BC Hydro’s DNA. No surprise. Not spending billions of dollars to…