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Letter: Clayoquot Sound to Site C The NDP Does Not Understand Ecological Economics

Letters to the editor
By Letters to the editor
December 13th, 2017

To The Editor:

Nearly a quarter of a century ago the Harcourt NDP government ignored their own BC Energy Council consultants, when they, Marbek, found that province-wide energy conservation would create 24,050 Full Time Equivalent jobs over ten to twenty years. Fast forward to 2017 and Minister Mungall and Premier Horgan have chosen the needs and wants of an industrial settler society over the treaty rights of First Nations and the Peace River ecosystem’s agricultural, forest and traditional economy.

Just as the Nelson-Creston NDP MLA cannot grasp that developing LNG does not help shift BC off fossil fuel dependency, so does Michelle and her government still not understand that building more hydro dams is not environmentally sustainable either. In addition to diverting $6.7 billion in investment away from utility scale conservation and renewable energy projects, the Horgan government has failed to explain to BC taxpayers and BC Hydro ratepayers that an additional 1 billion plus will also have to be spent building a new transmission infrastructure so that Site C power can be sold.

Why, the Green caucus must be asked, did they sign an agreement with the NDP that only reviewed the economic values of Site C, in isolation from First Nations treaty rights and Peace River Valley ecosystem functions. There are three pillars to building a sustainable economy: economic, social and environment.

The NDP as a party and government have never understood that each component needs to be given equal weighting. So stand by for a reversal on Kinder Morgan pipeline policy by the NDP government next. Instead of switching the burden of Lower Mainland fossil fuel infrastructure costs onto the backs of First Nations and the Peace River Valley ecosystem, the NDP could have maintained the bridge tolls.

Instead it chose to make remote and rural BC pay for its infrastructure cost decisions.

For the Earth

Andy Shadrack, Kaslo BC

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