Dear Editor,
As a local BC Green Party campaigner, I see the incredible benefits for BC Greens, if the NDP Government decides to move ahead with the Site C dam.
I do not only see the benefits, I see an election outcome with the Green Party making great strides in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
Why? Because:
- Cancelling Site C means a $4 billion loss due to poor decision-making by the BC Liberals,
- Not cancelling Site C means a $4 billion loss due to poor decision-making by the BC Liberals, and another $6+ billion loss due to poor decision-making by the BC NDP.
Tied as most of us are to the BC Hydro grid, your future Hydro bills will not be determined by those lower prices for solar, geo thermal and wind energy, unless you have your own energy farm. No, your future bills will only go up if Site C dam goes through.
Harry Swain, a former federal deputy minister and the chair of the Joint Review Panel on Site C in 2013/2014, calculated that electricity at Site C would be produced at a loss due to the $10+ billion construction costs of the project. At the same time it has to compete with other clean energy sources, like solar and wind power, and we can witness the falling in investment costs with every such of those projects being built. We see this especially for solar.
As a campaigner I see the silver lining though. It will make it so much easier to convince NDP supporters to vote Green. At the last election, I have seen many NDP supporters suggesting that a vote for the Greens was a vote for the Liberals. However, so many of those same NDPs are very much opposed to the Site C dam. I see them getting many ‘likes’ and many ‘shares’ on their postings that ‘the Green Caucus is right on Site C.’
Although it will be a shame to see the Peace River Valley flooded, Indigenous rights trampled, BC Hydro bills tripled: the BC NDP and the BC Liberals will be held to account, and we will do so over and over and over and again, and then, again and again.
Yet, when I take off my green campaign hat, I know it is not all about party politics. There are more important things, like clean energy investments that make sense, that are more incremental and local, instead of putting all our money into a mega project like Site C.
In the end, we can only spend the money once.
Sincerely,
Anton Van Walraven
