The business plan for the province’s next mega project – the $7.9 billion Site C hydroelectric dam – is rife with problems.
A Business in Vancouver investigation has revealed that the electricity forecasts the province is using to justify the project contradict historic increases in demand and the cost to produce electricity from the dam is more than what taxpayers pay for energy today. On top of that, the dam would flood an area of prime agricultural land roughly 13 times the size of Stanley Park, forcing farmers to abandon their livelihood, killing fish, destroying aboriginal burial grounds and animal habitat and increasing the risk of landslides.
The Liberal government has also removed the taxpayer-funded project from the oversight of the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC), a policy that even Site C’s supporters don’t agree with.
And even though the provincial and federal environmental assessment offices have yet to complete independent assessments of the project, Energy Minister Rich Coleman has said the province is committed to building the dam.
“Site C will be a project that’s going ahead,” Coleman told reporters in August. “It’s a project that we’ve already committed to.”
