NDP Want to Take BC Back to Dark Ages

April 17, 2009

Today in Burnaby, Carole James continued to promote her reckless energy plan claiming B.C. doesn’t need more power, and that the NDP would put a moratorium on all clean power development. 

Here are the facts:

• B.C. is currently a net importer of electricity and relies on dirty power imported from the U.S. to keep the lights on.
• The BC Liberal government is committed to making B.C. electricity self-sufficient, and to ending the reliance on U.S. power.
• To achieve this, the BC Liberal government is meeting the demand for new electricity through conservation, investing $9-billion to expand BC Hydro’s assets and contracting with clean energy companies to provide power.
• Three different governments have contracted with IPPs for power because of the benefits to ratepayers.   
• The IPP industry has already fostered $2.4-billion in private investment in B.C., and has created 1,100 jobs, with billions more in potential investment to come.
• The NDP want to stop the development of these projects, destroying thousands of jobs and billions in investment and leave B.C. dependent on dirty American power.
  

For Carole James to stand in front of a BC Hydro facility and claim BC Liberals are privatizing BC Hydro and suggest that BC doesn’t need more power is simply incompetent.

• The facility Carole James held her event at is owned by BC Hydro.
• In fact, it was the BC Liberals that passed legislation to ensure that facilities like this remain publicly owned.
• NDP TV ads (falsely) claim that we have, “sold water rights on over 200 rivers”. This morning, a Carole James news release claimed that the BC Liberals have “sold the water rights to 120 rivers”. At least the NDP is getting closer to the truth; not a single river in B.C. has been sold.
• Furthermore, for Carole James to stand in Burnaby and claim that B.C. doesn’t need more power is simply incompetent.
• The City of Burnaby’s official community plan says that by 2021 they are expecting an additional 30,000 housing units.  Carole James energy policy assumes these homes will not need electricity.
• If the NDP get their way, communities across the province like Burnaby will be left in the dark.
  

For more information, the NDP’s dishonest and reckless plan read the Real Story.