April 30, 2013

No. 4

Continuing Privatization of BC Hydro

Oppose Liberal Government's Wrecking of BC Hydro

Continuing Privatization of BC Hydro
• Oppose Liberal Government's Wrecking of BC Hydro - Charles Boylan
• The Run of River Scams

April 28 National Day of Mourning
• Greater Vancouver Ceremony at Steveston 
• Vancouver District School Board Recognizes Day of Mourning
• Events and Memorials on Vancouver Island

Whose Resources? Our Resources!
• NDP Leader Speaks Out Against Kinder Morgan
Pipeline Expansion to Vancouver Harbour
• Who Decides? The Need for Public Control of Natural Resources

May Day 2013
• All Out for International Day of Working Class Unity and Struggle

Continuing Privatization of BC Hydro

Oppose Liberal Government's Wrecking of BC Hydro

- Charles Boylan -

The Liberal government's 2007 "Energy Plan: A Vision for Clean Energy Leadership" was a continuation of its 2002 "Energy Plan" to pay the rich on the backs of BC home and small business electricity users. The major features of the Liberal government's 2007 plan were as follows:

- BC Hydro to acquire private power to meet arbitrary energy self-sufficiency targets by 2016 based on lowest rainfall years with huge costs assumed by BC Hydro;

- BC Hydro to acquire an additional 3,000 GWH of "insurance power" by 2026;

- Promotion of small power projects (up to 10 megawatts) by a Standing Offer Program at a set purchase price;

- BC Transmission Corporation directed to build transmission lines to service additional power from the private sector;

- Zero greenhouse emissions from coal fired electricity generation;

- Zero greenhouse emissions from existing thermal generation plants by 2016;

- Discontinue using Burrard Thermal for energy planning by 2014;

- Find 50 per cent of BC Hydro's new energy needs through conservation by 2020;

- Extend Heritage Contract in perpetuity;

- Begin consultations on Site C.[1]

The government plan was to step up the enforced purchasing by BC Hydro of private power at over-priced rates. Manipulation of public opinion was carried out through TV advertising suggesting BC needed to become "self-sufficient" in electricity, which could only be accomplished through private power production. A false image was presented that BC was dependent on imported power, when in fact BC Hydro had been making effective use of purchasing power from Alberta, which is one hour ahead of BC, and selling power to the U.S.

A rational pan-Canadian electrical system that makes sense and guarantees Canadian sovereignty would be to build a public east-west power grid so that peak power can shift along the four-and-a-half time zones from east to west, and secondarily, by entering into a mutually beneficial power exchange arrangement with various U.S. states close to the border.

In opposition to a rational public plan, the Liberal government politicized the private interests of certain investors by guaranteeing a market for their private power production at absurdly high prices. The government forced BC Hydro to enter into long-term purchasing contracts with private power producers to meet a fabricated self-sufficiency target and even provide a surplus. To exacerbate matters, the targeted self-sufficiency was set at the lowest rainfall levels and the Burrard gas thermo-generating plant in Port Moody near Vancouver was taken out of production.

In an example of pay-the-rich neo-liberal politics, an exaggerated demand for private power was imposed on BC Hydro by executive dictate from the Premier's Office. Neo-liberal "smaller government" does not mean an elimination of executive rule, which politicizes privileged private interests; it means depoliticizing the public interest through elimination of social programs, public services and enterprises required by the people and society. It means a refusal to meet government's social responsibilities.

"Big government," executive rule and private interests dominate when it comes to siphoning wealth from the public to hand it over to the monopolies like General Electric, Rio Tinto Alcan and Teck-Cominco, three of the largest private producers of electricity from whom BC Hydro has been forced to purchase over-priced electricity.

Another factor used to manipulate the artificially high quantity of electricity BC Hydro had to purchase was to discount the important downstream benefits accrued from the Columbia River dams located in BC. Some 4,300 GWH are an entitlement from agreements with U.S. power producers for the water storage dams built during the 1960s. That block of power was deliberately not included in BC's reserves, which gave the Liberal government an opportunity to force BC Hydro to over-supply itself with private, over-priced electricity, which guarantees private gain for the monopolies at the expense of ordinary ratepayers.

An illusion was created that those high-priced long-term private power contracts would not be a burden because the higher prices were factored in year by year. The expensive private power has been mixed in with the low-priced public power but as the high prices begin to dominate, as they are now, British Columbians are experiencing a pricing shock for their power. To mitigate this public shock and discredit any opposition, the Liberal government has handed over millions of dollars in public funds to TV monopolies and other mass media to disinform the people and stop public opinion from forming that would demand a pro-social direction for the economy and specifically on the issue of electricity production.

The Liberal government from its own record during its over one decade in power does not deserve a single vote on May 14.

Note

1. Material on Liberal government's Energy Plan based on John Calvert's power-point lecture presented February 28, 2012 to the Simon Fraser University Dean of Environmental Studies Lecture Series. Video of his lecture available here.
Calvert is also the author of Liquid Gold.

The Run of River Scams

Construction of Ashlu River run of river IPP project. It is owned by Innergex Renewable Energy and is expected to produce 265,000 mWh annually. The power is sold to BC Hydro on a long-term contract at exorbitant rates.

The run of river private power projects are a major aspect of an elaborate scam drafted by the financial oligarchy to plunder BC Hydro and the energy resources of the province. The Liberal government has allowed "Independent Power Producers" to seize hundreds of rivers for their personal gain. Those rivers can produce power only during the spring run-off. Their small hydro projects, which cost BC Hydro a lot of money to connect to the power transmission grid, produce electricity at precisely the same time a surplus of power is generated by the Peace and Columbia River dams, when their reservoirs are also overflowing during the spring runoff.

The run of river projects do not have storage dams. This is supposed to make them "clean energy," even though in practice evidence has shown that they regularly run streams dry and destroy fish stocks. When energy is required during low water months, many of these private projects do not produce power to provide BC Hydro.

Click image to enlarge.

 Another aspect of this pay-the-rich scam of the Liberal government is that the long range contracts signed in this period, from 20 to 60 years in duration, dictate the price BC Hydro must pay, which averages out to about $100 a kWh. Yet the average export price for the same power, if BC Hydro sells it to the U.S. has been $25-$30 a kWh!

For good measure, the private power sale contracts contain a clause to guarantee that BC Hydro must pay the private sellers a "cost of living adjustment" (COLA) over the years. Compare this with the attacks on retired workers who have had their pension COLA clauses arbitrarily reduced or eliminated. At this moment, Canadian steelworkers at a U.S. Steel-controlled mill in Nanticoke, Ontario are locked out, as the boorish "ugly American" owners have returned with vengeance demanding anti-worker concessions, including an attack on the workers' wage COLA. Yet General Electric, Rio Tinto Alcan and Teck-Cominco among others have a COLA clause to ensure their gouging of BC ratepayers and the public treasury keeps up with inflation!

The people of BC need to respond to this robbery and destruction of BC Hydro with one voice: Stop Paying the Rich! Defeat the Clark neo-liberal regime on May 14!

April 28 National Day of Mourning

Greater Vancouver Ceremony at Steveston

Irene Lanzinger, Secretary-Treasurer, BC Federation of Labour, addresses Greater Vancouver Day of Mourning Ceremony.

The National Day of Mourning in Greater Vancouver was held at Garry Point Park in Steveston at the monument honouring the fishers who have perished at sea on the West Coast over the past century. Held right next to the swirling muddy brown Fraser River in the midst of a fast outgoing tide, in the wind, under broken clouds, with patches of blue sky and intermittent sunshine, the setting enhanced the sombre mood of the gathering. The Fireman's Band led a solemn procession to the podium. Vancouver and District Labour Council President Joey Hartman opened the ceremony abd emphasized that "all workers have a right to work in a safe workplace." The participants then stood for two minutes of silence to honour the dead.

About 150 workers and families gathered to commemorate the 181 workers in BC who died in 2012 including four young workers killed on the job. Over 100 died of work-related illnesses. Ed Salinger, President of the BC Professional Firefighters Association, spoke about the 10 recognized cancers that are killing firefighters because of toxic chemicals associated with contemporary blazes.

Malcolm Brody, Mayor of Richmond, emphasized the past economic importance of the BC wild fishery marked by the tragic reality of hundreds of fishers who have drowned throughout the century in the turbulent waters and weather of the West Coast.

Irvin Figg, representing the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union linked the tragic deaths of BC fishers with the West, Texas explosion of a fertilizer plant killing many workers and residents as well as the criminal massacre of Bangladeshi garment workers a week previously. He said in BC the fishery and forestry industries rival one another each year for the greatest number of workers killed on the job, adding that even with the greatly diminished size of the fishery, some 13 fishers die each year in BC.

Irene Lanzinger, Secretary-Treasurer, BC Federation of Labour, spoke about the high number of work-related deaths in BC. She emphasized the need to increase pressure on governments to enforce both criminal prosecutions for those violating various regulations and the laws meant to guarantee workers' safety.

Marcel Marsolais, President of theNew Westminster Labour Council, said safety at work is both an individual and collective right. He spoke about ongoing cases of mesothelioma, a lung cancer caused by asbestos. He recalled how "Grant's Law," that calls for two workers to be on shift in all-night gas stations and other such places, was abrogated by Christy Clark to appease the "business community." The law was named after a youth working alone in a gas station who was killed trying to prevent the theft of a small amount of gasoline. Marsolais also noted how big business gave former Liberal Finance Minister Kevin Falcon the "golden scissors" award for "cutting red tape" and making industries "self-regulating" in the name of "small government," i.e., politicizing private interests while over-riding the public interest.

Bob Jackson, BC Regional Executive Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, spoke about a meat inspector in Saskatchewan who died of cancer from working in asbestos insulated buildings. He also talked about the bitter fight to keep open the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station in Vancouver which was closed by the Harper government in the name of austerity. Jackson said too many lives have been lost on the BC coast from inadequate Canadian coast guard services.

Concluding the event, Joey Hartman called on everyone to take a rose and place it on the fishers' memorial to honour all the workers' killed at their workplace or from workplace contracted diseases. In the course of the event, workers and trade union officials expressed thanks on receiving the special issue of TML on Day of Mourning and made generous contributions for its production.

Missing however, were representatives of the younger generation of workers, a large portion of whom are non-union, working on dangerous constructions sites, in warehouses, and driving trucks on treacherous highways throughout the province. They, like the four young workers killed on the job in BC in 2012, face the dangers posed by reckless and socially irresponsible employers served by equally socially irresponsible governments.

Vancouver District School Board Recognizes
Day of Mourning

The following notice was sent by email to all schools in Vancouver, BC by Steve Cardwell, EdD (Doctor of Education), Superintendent, Vancouver School District.

***

Re: Day of Mourning -- April 28, 2013

I am writing to you to acknowledge that Sunday, April 28th is the National Day of Mourning. This date commemorates workers who have been killed, injured or suffered illness due to workplace related hazards and incidents. The numbers are staggering. In 2011, 919 workplace deaths were recorded in Canada -- a decrease from 1,014 in the previous year. This represents more than 2.6 deaths every single day. In the nineteen year period from 1993 to 2011, 17,062 people lost their lives due to work-related causes (an average of 898 deaths per year).

Workers' Memorial Day was started by the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 1984, and the Canadian Labour Congress officially declared it an annual day of remembrance in 1985 on April 28. The date 28 April was picked because on that day in 1914, the Workers Compensation Act received its third reading. In December 1990, this day became a national observance with the passing of the Workers' Mourning Day Act, so that on April 28, 1991, it was officially the National Day of Mourning. In 2001 the International Labour Organization first observed World Day for Safety and Health at Work on this day. The Day of Mourning has since spread to about 80 countries around the world. Our flags will be lowered to half-mast from Friday and through this weekend.

As we go to work, please join with co-workers throughout our organization in remembering those being commemorated. Let us further strive to establish safe conditions in the workplace for all and renew our commitment to improving health and safety in the workplace to prevent further deaths, injuries and diseases from work. It is as much a time to remember lives lost and injured as it is a call to protect the living.

This year, in particular, I wish to also take a special moment to remember the tragic deaths of people around the world who work in educational settings who have been injured or killed due to the senseless acts of others.

Please take a moment to reflect on this important and somber time. Thank you.

Ceremonies and Memorials on Vancouver Island

Campbell River and Courtenay

In its call for the 2013 Day of Mourning, the Campbell River Courtenay and District Labour Council pointed out, "Over 1,000 Canadian workers die every year because their workplaces were not safe. Some die on the job. Others die because of injuries sustained at work or occupational diseases, including some types of cancer. Too often, their employers failed to ensure their safety at work. In addition, there are many others whose deaths are not reported because they die of a disease that wasn't recognized as an occupational disease.

"The number of people killed at work each year in Canada has been increasing for the last 15 years. This is in contrast to almost every other OECD country where the incidence of workplace fatalities is declining. In many jurisdictions, including BC, monitoring of safety standards has been cut back or replaced by 'voluntary' industry compliance."

The Campbell River Courtenay and District Labour Council, along with the BC Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress, is calling for stronger legislation to protect workers' safety, as well as increases to the number of health and safety inspectors, and for employers to be criminally prosecuted when their actions cause death or serious injury.

The Day of Mourning Ceremony in Campbell River was held April 28 at 12 noon. Guest speakers were NDP candidate Claire Trevena and Labour Council President Andrea Craddock, featuring John Fitzpatrick on bagpipes.

The Labour Council hosted a Day of Mourning ceremony in Courtenay at 11 am on April 28 at Sims Park. Speakers included United Steelworkers Local 1-1937 President Darrel Wong, Labour Council Vice-President Anne Davis and NDP candidate Kassandra Dycke.

Joseph Mairs Memorial in Ladysmith

Joseph Mairs was a BC mineworker born February 4, 1892 in Airdrie, Scotland. Mairs was part of the pitched battles to organize coal mines on Vancouver Island in the early 1900s. The website josephmairs.ca writes, "A bitter struggle started that September in 1912 which lasted until the start of World War I. The Vancouver and Nanaimo Coal Co settled in 1913 but the other three owners would not. They brought in strikebreakers and evicted strikers from company housing. Clashes broke out between strikers and the police and strikebreakers at all the mines. The AG William Bowser sent in the militia and they remained until the end of the strike. [...]

"Joseph was arrested on August 15, 1913 after the Militia retook the Town of Ladysmith from striking miners. Miners had held the town from August 12th to 15th. They stoned the residences of scabs and drove them out of town. He was sentenced to one year in jail and a $100 fine. In January, Joseph became ill and receiving no medical attention died on January 20th, 1914."

Forest Workers Memorial Park in Lake Cowichan

The Forest Workers Memorial Park was built by the Cowichan Lake Community Forest Cooperative to honour all forestry workers, including those who worked on the railway, in the Cowichan Lake area. It was inaugurated in May 2007. The website tim-ber.blogspot.ca, describes the memorial: "Key features of the park are a chunk of concrete foundation from the CNR bridge over the Cowichan River, which symolizes the many logging railways around the lake; a fountain which recognizes the mountains, lake, and rivers in the Cowichan Lake area; three interpretive panels richly carved in yellow cedar and depicting historic scenes from the forest industry; and the commemorative bricks recognizing workers and companies past and present. Special brown-coloured bricks with a tree emblem recognize workers who lost their lives on the job."

Whose Resources? Our Resources!

NDP Leader Speaks Out Against Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion to Vancouver Harbour

On Earth Day April 22, BC NDP leader Adrian Dix stated his Party's opposition to the twinning of the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver, which would more than double its capacity. Standing with supporters on the North Thompson River, Dix said, "We do not expect Vancouver to become a major oil export port as appears to be suggested in what Kinder Morgan is proposing. I don't think that the port of Vancouver, as busy a port as it is and successful a port as it is, should become a major oil export port." Dix added he would wait until the proposal is reviewed before making a final stand.

The former Trans-Mountain pipeline now owned by the global monopoly Kinder Morgan was built in the 1950s to provide Alberta oil feedstock to refineries that used to operate in Vancouver. Today only one refinery, Chevron, remains. Kinder Morgan, rather than supplying feedstock for refining in Vancouver envisions turning the Chevron facility into primarily an exporter of raw bitumen to Asia transported in "Suezmax" size tankers (160,000 tons), increasing the number of tankers travelling through Vancouver's Burrard Inlet from five a month to 35.

The NDP's announcement on the Kinder Morgan pipeline was immediately greeted positively by several leaders of the environmental movement in BC. "Residents of Victoria and the Gulf Islands are not willing to accept the risks of a new Kinder Morgan pipeline and corresponding surge in oil tanker traffic off our south coast," said Sarah Cox, BC's Sierra Club spokeswoman in a statement. "The city of Victoria and Union of BC Municipalities have passed resolutions opposing the expansion of oil-tanker traffic on BC's coast. Victoria city council has expressed 'unequivocal opposition' to the Kinder Morgan proposal."

Other environmental activists stated that Dix's stand against the Kinder Morgan project has led them to decide to support the NDP against the Liberal Party, and they declared their intention to campaign for David Eby in Point Grey against Liberal Premier Christy Clark.

In other environmental news, Dix announced an NDP government would liquidate the Pacific Carbon Trust. He proposed to continue the current policy to make BC government operations "carbon neutral," which includes a carbon tax on public institutions. A difference in his policy proposal would be to stop handing over carbon tax revenue directly to large private corporate enterprises.[1] Instead, Dix said carbon tax funds would be used for public transit and other "green initiatives."

"In our plan we've laid out over the next three years an investment of $30 million, $40 million and $50 million that will go primarily from the carbon tax ... to support transit around British Columbia and other green initiatives in communities that don't have a transit system," said Dix.

Dix said schools, hospitals and other public institutions have paid tens of millions of dollars in carbon offset emission levies, while private companies received similar amounts of money for merely listing their inventory of uncut forests or unused gas projects.

"The [current Liberal] government's view on carbon neutral government is to take money from cash-starved hospitals and give it to big polluters," he said. "We think that money should be kept to support public institutions."

Under the proposed NDP carbon offset plan, public institutions will still pay to offset their carbon emissions, but the money will be used to fund public green projects as opposed to giving money to private corporations. Dix said the amount of new money for the environmental proposal would be $36 million over this fiscal year, rising to $60 million by 2015-16, pushing the party's total new spending commitments for this year to $238-million, and to $739-million by 2015-16.

Note

1. For further information on this issue read "Pay-the-Rich Corruption and Attacks on Social Programs," TML Daily, April 16, 2013 - No. 50.

(With files from CBC, Globe & Mail, Huffpost British Columbia, CP)

Who Decides? The Need for Public Control
of Natural Resources

The BC Liberals headed by Christy Clark claim that the province will receive a huge royalty bonanza if LNG plants are built to ship natural gas in liquid form to Asia. Royalties are presented as a form of payment for the resources or economic rent.

According to the government, the share of revenue from the sale of natural gas resources is fair compensation to the people of BC and the First Nations for handing over these resources to private interests, mainly foreign oil and gas cartels. Such claims of fair compensation are intended to deflect public opposition away from the sellout of public natural resources and to cover up a reality of massive public payments to private interests involved in building and managing these projects.

The development of natural resources should be a decision of the body politic including First Nations, and the wealth generated should go directly into the public treasury to benefit all the people including First Nations and the general interests of society. Natural resources are a public treasure and should not fall into the hands or control of private interests under any circumstances. This principle includes public control of all aspects of natural resource extraction, transformation into usable products, determination of prices of production and their distribution and sale at home and abroad.

BC Natural Gas

Not only are the natural gas resources handed over to the monopolies with minimal returns, the working class and people of BC are forced to pay the mainly foreign energy cartels some of the investment funds needed for development.

For example, companies fracking in the Montney shale gas region in Northeastern BC are charged less than half the cost of production of the electricity BC Hydro provides them. This subsidy is estimated to be worth $150 million a year to the gas monopolies during peak production. The loss to BC Hydro is made up by raising electricity rates for BC households and certain commercial users, especially small businesses. Another subsidy is provided with the upgrading of BC Hydro's transmission line in the region at a cost of $255 million, a line needed only for the Montney shale gas development.

All this comes with a return to the public treasury on natural gas in the form of BC royalties for the 2012-2013 year of only $144 million on natural gas production of 1.2 billion cubic feet.

Other pay-the-rich schemes include the Infrastructure Royalty Credit Program that provides credits for all-season road projects and new pipeline projects. In February 2013, BC Premier Clark announced that up to $120 million in credits would be provided in the most recent installment from this program.

Also, the Oil and Gas Rural Roads Improvement Program invests in the upgrade of public roads and bridges heavily used and required by the oil and gas industry. The Sierra Yoyo Desan (SYD) road project is a private-public-partnership (P3) to upgrade the SYD Road located near Fort Nelson, providing reliable year-round access to the Horn River and Cordova Basins. All of these developments mainly and sometimes exclusively benefit the monopolies drilling in the Montney.

Whose Resources? The People's Resources!

Natural resources belong to the people. The development and use of natural resources must be under the control of the people and serve their interests and the general interests of society. The people must benefit in full from natural resource development, transformation and distribution. Together with the human factor, natural resources are part of the foundation of modern life and society. The concept of private interests owning natural resources and controlling the land where they are found should be considered as repugnant as ownership of human beings.

Private control over society's land and resources creates monopolies and a privileged class, which then demand the monopoly right to prohibit their use by the vast majority of the people and deprive the people and society of the benefits from their socially responsible development. This monopoly control leads to negative social and environmental consequences. To enforce monopoly right, the BC Liberal government in concert with the Harper dictatorship have politicized the private interests of monopolies and depoliticized public interest.

A big contradiction in private ownership of natural resources is that their development requires vast public infrastructure and other public monies to bring those resources into development and to organize their distribution. Without public monies and other state assistance, private owners would not be capable of exploiting natural resources yet they insist on exercising control over development and the benefits that arise.

Also, the natural and social consequences of such development are also ignored or at least not addressed in a socially responsible manner, as the aim is private gain. The Harper dictatorship's attack on environmental and other regulations and the Clark Liberal regime's irresponsible pushing of mining and fracking on behalf of the monopolies contradict the need for social responsibility surrounding any natural resource project. Social responsibility includes the necessity to investigate, predict and solve any negative social and natural consequences before they occur.

The people demand a new pro-social direction for the economy, which includes public control over natural resource development. A step in this new direction towards humanizing the natural and social environment is to say No! to the sellout and pay-the-rich schemes of the BC anti-social Clark Liberals in the May 14 election.

May Day 2013

All Out for International Day of
Working Class Unity and Struggle

PREVIOUS ISSUES | HOME

Read BC Worker
Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  office@cpcml.ca