Despite numerous concerns about the financial, environmental, and social costs of the Site C mega dam project in British Columbia’s Peace River region, the BC Government has decided to continue on with construction.
Premier John Horgan, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Michelle Mungall, and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy stood together in front of news cameras on Monday, December 11 to make the announcement.
Horgan announced that cancelling the project would cost the province $4 billion immediately and have other repercussions such as a credit downgrade, jeopardizing funding for several promises made in the election such as $10/day childcare, and a one time increase of 12 % to BC Hydro rates that would last 10 years. Site C is anticipated to cost $10.7 billion.
Marke Eliesen, former president of BC Hydro, argued that an increase in hydro rates will be a result of continuing with Site C and that as seen in other large dam projects in the country the costs will increase by several billion dollars more by the time it is completed. In his formal submission to the BCUC in August Eliesen desribed Site C as a “reckless” and “illusionary” vision of the former BC Liberal government.
Journalist Andrew Nikiforuk has compared John Horgan’s rationale for continuing on with the project as “the approach of a drunk gambler at the casino for the damned.”
BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver, stated that the $4 billion cancellation costs could have been recuperated from the bridge tolls of the Port Mann and Gold Ears bridges, tolls that the NDP cancelled after getting elected and had already been put in place by the BC Liberals.
Lawsuits and protests are expected to ensue.
