More than two years after being promoted as a way to finance the $8.8-billion Site C dam, B.C. has yet to issue any green bonds for the project.
Former BC Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong told reporters in April 2015 that the sale of the bonds could happen as soon as the end of that year. However, ministry officials say the province has yet to issue a bond for the dam, now two years under construction on the Peace River just outside Fort St. John.
Green bonds are much like traditional bonds, and are used to finance projects with environmental benefits, the province says. The province issued its first green bond in 2014, raising $231.5 million to help finance the building of new hospitals in Campbell River and Comox Valley through a public-private partnership.
Site C remained in the government's major capital projects listing in the Sept. 11 budget update.
The budget notes that $7.9 billion of the government's plan for $8.5 billion in self-supported capital spending over the next three years will be used for "electrical generation, transmission and distribution projects to meet growing customer demand and to enhance reliability."
Included in that total is the initial construction of Site C, the budget notes.
As of June 30, 2017, $1.8 billion had been spent on the project. BC Hydro is borrowing to build the dam, and has been recording costs in a special regulatory account approved by the utilities commission in 2006. BC Hydro would then amortize and recover those costs through rates when the dam would go into service.
Meanwhile, the government has spent $76 million on rip rap upgrades at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, with an estimated cost of $94 million to complete that project. The budget lists completion for 2019.
