This strong progressive voice in Parliament coming from Quebec was a distinct voice and Harper’s recognition of that distinctiveness was responding to this.

The NDP, as Quebec’s voice in Parliament, is not going to be able to fill the space that the BQ had on progressive issues. I fear Quebec will be simply not be part of the equation whenever social policy is at stake. Harper will simply reject the NDP voice on these issues as socialist programs we can’t afford and since no other opposition party will have the political credibility the BQ had, Harper will be free to do his worst.

Layton and Ignatieff more or less abandoned the issue and did not press Harper about the inefficiency of these cuts. The week before the debate both the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives studies showed that corporations mostly hoard the money they save from the tax cuts and don’t use it to reinvest in the economy or create new jobs, the supposed reason for the cuts.

Munir Sheikh, former head of Statistics Canada and of tax policy at Finance Canada, showed this week that the real winner of the Canadian corporate tax cuts is the U.S. Tax cuts here give corporations bigger profits and because the US corporate tax rate is about twice as high as ours, US corporations in Canada then just pay more American tax on their Canadian profits. This transfer from the Canadian to the US treasuries amounts to between $4 and $6 billion a year.

Harper talks economic conservatism, but the record doesn’t show it, either in deficit reduction or spending actions. When the Conservatives took office they inherited a $13 billion surplus. Cutting the GST by two points turned this into an almost $6 billion deficit by 2008. Now the deficit is over $55 billion.

A deficit isn’t always a bad thing, particularly when a country goes through an economic downturn as we did. But cutting government income during a recession is asking for trouble and that is what we have. Both the IMF and the Parliamentary Budget Office have warned that Canada now has a structural deficit. This means that without big revenue increases the deficit becomes permanent. Since Harper is promising a balanced budget by 2014 cutting programs is about the only solution for him.

Harper is also a big spender and is committed to some expensive projects in the future, including something on the order of $35 billion for new fighter jets and $9 billion for prisons. It’s the kind of economic conservatism typical of the Bush presidency, one that cut taxes at the same time it spent lavishly on the military. But at least with Bush the money was spent in the country, with the F-35 spending the money will mostly go to the U.S. That’s economic stimulus, but not for Canada.

This post was published in The Province today.

Using the pine beetle wood from our forests for rebuilding Haiti seems like an idea worth considering. What it would take would be enormous amounts of government money to make this happen, but if the Premiere truly wants to “re-establish and revitalize our forest industry” it makes sense.

Come to think of it, I can’t remember hearing anything at all about the BC government’s contribution to the Haiti relief effort. BC municipalities have signaled their intention to give support, and Harper is all over the news with his efforts. It would seem that Campbell needs some encouragement in this direction. I’m sure the forestry sector would be on side, and perhaps even the federal government could be.

1) In the introduction there is a reference to ‘ambitious emissions reduction goals for 2050, `’ (good), but goes on to say this will be accomplished through `work to institute flexible, market-based systems to bring about economically and environmentally effective mitigation.’ That is, it will be market incentives for the private sector, rather than planning and regulation, that will meet environmental needs.
2) The section on the Electricity Grid says the Working Group, through `public-private dialogue` will work on several things, including:
• Greening electricity supply
• Developing new grid capacity with smart grid technologies
• Improving system flexibility through a better understanding of existing and potential electrical storage capability. It says specifically that the US Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada ‘will engage industry and other levels of government to improve understanding of the existing storage potential, particularly existing live storage potential, across the Canada-US grid and the role it may play in the expansion of emerging renewable energy capacity across the continent.’

3) The Report also calls for ‘increasing opportunities for trade in clean electricity.’ To do this, it will set up research centres in at least two universities with the objective of expanding and promoting cross-border electricity trade and the modernization of the electricity grid.

All of this seems to indicate that the current cross-border trade in electricity is going to pick up considerably in the coming years, through greater interties between the two countries. It also seems to indicate that it will be the private sector in both countries that will be generating this new electricity. The focus on the existing and future storage capacity is particularly worrisome. It is only with access to expanded storage capacity that wind energy, for example, will truly make sense for private producers. Having access to storage capacity has long been a demand of the private sector in BC. But as the cross-border trade intensifies, the demand for storage access by both domestic and foreign firms will clearly rise. Existing storage will not have the capacity needed, so basically, this means we can expect to see more dams in Canada.

My sense is that in the name of `green energy` Canada is going to see a much greater exploitation of our water systems than we had ever expected. US electricity generating firms will also need access to `storage, ` and Canada still has room for more dams. The restrictions on the interties at the moment act as a protection for our public electricity systems and wild rivers, but as the transmission system expands to permit more exports, we may well see a massive exploitation of our valleys and rivers such as we have never imagined.

Despite these reasons for being against Site C, I now believe that the dam should be built, because the damage caused by Site C would be considerably less than the damage now occurring due to the government’s energy plans.

Under the Energy Plan, instead of the government building new generating facilities, a system of private power projects were to be undertaken, including small “run-of- river” (ROR) hydro projects. There are serious problems with this approach: the private nature of these undertakings, the lack of coordinated planning, and the disjointed nature of environmental assessments that occur for each individual project.

Here is a comparison of Site C with the biggest private project currently under consideration at Bute Inlet:

Site C would have a capacity of 900 megawatts, providing 4600 gigawatt hours per year of energy. It would have a net reservoir area of 5,341 ha, double the width of the current river for 83 km, and impact 10,303 ha of land. The new transmission lines would use and widen the existing right of way. Site C would have 30% of the capacity of The Bennett Dam, BC’s largest dam, with only 5% of the reservoir area. The environmental impact would be significant, but because the dam would be on a regulated river below two existing dams, it would be much less than creating a new dam on an undeveloped river.

The Bute Inlet project is to be built by a private company, Plutonic Power. It will encompass three major drainage areas and 17 interconnected hydroelectric facilities with a total capacity of 1,027 MW. The projects will be connected to a substation through 216 km of collector transmission lines on new rights of way. The substation will need an additional 227 km of transmission to be connected to the electrical grid. The environmental devastation here will be huge because of the enormous reconfiguration of the hydrology of these watersheds.

All of the new “green” private power projects have a negative environmental impact. However, because they are assessed individually, rather than as an interconnected system, they tend to receive environmental approval easily. While small-scale hydro plants (usually less than 30 megawatts) are normally defined as renewable, and preferable to large-scale hydro, size alone cannot determine environmental impact levels. According to the Pace University Center for Environmental Legal Studies, which evaluates the environmental impacts of different sources of electricity, size is an especially poor indicator of the environmental impacts of a hydropower facility. For example, small facilities that de-water river reaches and block fish passage can be more environmentally destructive than larger facilities designed and operated to reduce environmental impacts. Unfortunately, the notion that small is good and large is bad has gained widespread political support.

BC Hydro’s Long Term Acquisition Plan identified 8,242 potential sites for electricity generation in the province. So far over 500 applications have been made by private corporations for the water licenses on these potential sites and 46 projects are now either built or under construction.

Since it is clear that strong regulations reducing electricity consumption will not occur in BC, Site C now makes sense. It would obviate the environmental disasters that occur through projects like Bute Inlet. When new project building is totally in the public sector it receives the oversight that is normal in a coordinated system. This includes transparency with regard to the total impact on the environment, local communities and resources, and Aboriginal people.

This is a shorter version of an article that appeared in BC Studies Number 161, Spring 2009