Recklessly pushing this Site C project through without considering the results of a number of court challenges is pure folly on the Christy Clark governments’ part.

Aside from First Nation challenges to Site C already before the courts, this news about the Peace Valley Landowners Association taking the government to court over Site C just came out 2 days ago.

www .cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/site-c-landowners-challenge-appeal-1.3519495

So what is this government going to do if any of these challenges or appeals are upheld by the courts? Reminds me of the Harper Conservatives forcing legislation though only to have it rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada. First Nations have RIGHTS and so do landowners, again simply ignoring those rights is pure folly IMO.

The courts have already said that these groups had ample opportunity to voice their opposition, including court action, to Site C in the years before construction started as the project went through all the environmental reviews, town hall meetings, information sessions,etc,etc. That the farmers and FN sat on their hands during this time is their loss, had their chance and blew it.

The courts will continue to toss out these actions as Hydro has met all the requirements demanded of them under law. Signed sealed delivered!

To wait until the shovel hits the ground before launching action would mean projects would never get done better know in industry as a ndp project template.

Site “C” will be build , so I can keep on heating my Home or to you want me to use an
Oil Burner or even better an Outside Wood Burner to smoke out everyone ? If we do have Surplus Power we will sell it! Everyone against it , please unplug everything you use right now, no TV and your Wife can wash by Hand .

It is actually refreshing to see that this government on this particular project has made it clear that they are not going to allow some special interest groups to delay, and derail the project indefinitely.
As has been previously stated, the FNs, and the landowners had ample time while this project was in the planning and approval stages to launch their court challenges, but chose to wait so that they could cause further delays. In this case the government is pushing full speed ahead, while the court challenges wind their way through the courts. I would suggest that if government had fallen for the strategy this project would have been delayed by at least 5, and more likely 7 years. BC is going to need the power, and BC’s economy can use the jobs now…push on!

The world’s population is increasing, as is the population of Canada (now 36 million) and British Columbia. All these people need electricity for practically everything that they expect to use in a modern society. A cleaner source of electrical power than hydro has not been developed yet, although scientists are working on it and making some progress in laboratories.

It is a trade-off. Even FNs and groups of objectors like to have a source of electrical power for all the modern conveniences and needs.

In other words – just keep building it!

Just like land was arbitrarily selected and put into an ALR – land can be removed from it if needed and other land can be added into it! B.C. is two, three or even four times the size of some countries which have much higher population densities! We certainly have more than enough land.

Show me one project that is not being blocked or taken to court in this province by special interest groups and FN. Time to move forward.

Happy to see this government standing to the special interest groups.

I as well, am happy to see this project finally proceeding, good to see some good folks who want to work, gett’in her done.

This is great news for the world class electrical and pipe trades in BC. And the jgalts of the area should be supporting these guys, and so should their ndp bosses. Do a bit of research and you will find this ‘pristine’ peace river farmland is marginal at best and at a discovery hearing they will quickly find out they have wasted a ton of taxpayers money (not their own of course).

The big problem is that we don’t need the power. Christy Crunch is providing this power to export and to provide opportunity for her friends to make money. They have been suffering for lack of it.
Cheers

I agree with Retired 02. I am actually getting sick of the comments by those who want to flood this valley so that they can provide a few short term jobs, and make millions of dollars profits for the big construction firms.

Most people in favour of Site C are like parrots and just repeat over and over again what they read in a newspapers somewhere, or perhaps they heard something on the radio, or they work for a construction company that stands to get a contract, or a union that would love to have all the jobs.

The fact of the matter is, this is Canada, and British Columbia. A lot of the land that the Government wants to flood is private property and the Government has a legal requirement to show that flooding this land and building Site C is in the public interest. They are having a difficult time showing this because the BCUC in a previous application by Hydro showed that there was no need for this power. This time around the Government circumvented the BCUC and had an independent review which, also showed that there was no need for this power at this time.

The reason the Government is going full speed ahead with this project at this time is because of the pending election. LNG is in the tank, and Site C is all they have left from all their **stupid** promises in the last election. However this project is a huge cost to taxpayers, and power users, and will cost $8 to $9 billion dollars or more, and all we will end up with is a surplus of power that we will have to sell at a loss.

Those supporters of Site C, cannot give any indication whatsoever as to where this power will be used, other than to make vague references to electric cars, or an increase in the population, or selling to the USA. This falls under the heading of **Horse s..t**.

The population of Canada will peak in 2017 and after that the only way we can grow the population will be by bringing in more immigrants. We presently bring in approx 250,000 per year, and they are spread all over Canada, and BC gets only a percentage of the total, so there is no big increase in population. Industry in BC has **tanked**. If you look at the lumber mills, mines, pulp mills, plywood mills, etc; etc; etc; that have closed over the past 20 years you would see instantly that there is no need for the power. The USA is producing more of its own power, and therefore is less dependent of Canada, and Alberta requires less power, and is in fact building natural gas plants to generate electricity.

So not need for the power. What we have here is a gigantic con game being played by the present Government and I am amazed at how many people fall for the BS.

When we start to think that it is **ok** to remove people from their homes and flood their land, just to create a few short term jobs, we are getting pretty close to being brain dead. It is not ok, unless it is in the public interest, which it isn’t.

Those people who are in favour of Site C would be the first to bitch, bellyache, and complain if it was their land being expropriated, and their houses that were being torn down.

Time for some people to wake up and smell the roses.

Palopu it is you that has to smell the roses. You, I mean you have never given up any facts to back up your claims and you are deriding others, amazing. Your fixation is amazing.

I find it interesting that people raise concerns about removing land from the ALR for site C, and I suspect most of them live in the lower mainland. I have been working temporarily in the Vancouver area, and noticed that the last farm on marine way in Burnaby is being covered with gravel for more industrial buildings. The best farmland in BC is in the fraser valley and it is being paved over as fast as possible. We wont be able to grow our own food. But heaven forbid we should flood some hay fields to make green renewable energy for our future.

Palopu, many of those land and home owners that you mention SOLD their land and home to Hydro many many years ago!

They have continued to farm the land and live in the house with Hydro’s consent even though they no longer owned the land and house!

The amount of farmland currently under cultivation in the affected area is a fraction of fraction of a fraction of a drop in a bucket of the land currently under cultivation throughout the Peace River farming district!

We are paving over the lower Mainland and the Okanagan Valley at a much higher rate and at a much greater percentage of the arable land available in those regions. Perhaps your efforts to save farmland would be more fruitful and more appreciated there?

I wonder how interesting things will get when Alberta announces that they will build a dam on the Peace River?

Rachel Notley’s NDP is shutting down Alberta’s coal-fired electrical generating stations. It’s not a very big stretch of the imagination to think that in addition to building gas-fired electrical generating stations, they will, if they aren’t already, be considering a hydro-electric dam on the Peace!

Permanently destroying an entire river valley and the wildlife habitat it contains is “gittin ‘er dun”. Destroying that valley is worth a few jobs for “world-class” (whatever that is supposed to mean) pipefitters. Land is being destroyed in the Lower Mainland so what is the big deal with destroying thousands of hectares of wildlife habitat in Northern BC. Like an environmental crime committed in the LML makes it okay to vandalize the land up here.

All of the above is exactly why the human species needs to go extinct. Either the human species disappears or this planet does.

Hart Guy. You continue to repeat the baloney put out by BC Hydo, the Government etc; If no one in the Peace was concerned about flooding this farmland, just who is taking the Government to court???

Seamutt. What kind of facts are you looking for. Don’t be naïve. Look at Prince George for example no increase in population in over 15 years and nothing to indicate the population will grow in the next 15 years. This applies to the whole Northern and to some extent the Southern Interior.

I notice when I ask for specifics as to what industry is going to be built in BC to use this power I get a wall of silence, so this should be your first hint that there is nothing big in the plans for years to come.

Also when I point out the huge downsizing of industry in BC once again I get a wall of silence, because (a) Most people on this site did not know that the industry existed in the first place, and (b) others have no clue as to what industry is actually located in BC.

Seamutt. I can tell from your posts that you are fully aware of the Hydro facilities in BC, and where the power produced goes,. So you know that the pulp mills produce a lot of electricity with their co-generation plants. You know about IPP’s projects, you are aware of the Columbia River treaty and where that power is sold, you are aware of the ability to add turbines to the Revelstoke and Gordon Shrum power plants, you are aware of the huge co-generation plant in Williams Lake and the one in MacKenzie, and you are aware of the import/export arrangement with Alberta in regards to power. Furthermore you are aware that Alcan Kitimat produces it own electricity for its needs, and sells the surplus to Hydro. You are aware that any proposed LNG plants will produce their own electricity with natural gas electrical generating plants.

So Seamutt. Seems you know all the so called **facts** so why, or how can you in good conscience support the Site C fiasco.??

Do you perhaps work for Hydro?? or are you working for some firm that stands to make some big bucks building Site C. Either way, you have no argument for this project that actually shows a need for this power.

I wonder if the trades people who are going to install these turbines get a wage cut like the ones building the camp?!

Way to go Pal. Love your post.
Cheers

“I notice when I ask for specifics as to what industry is going to be built in BC to use this power I get a wall of silence, so this should be your first hint that there is nothing big in the plans for years to come.”

I know, Palopu, if you had been here in 1916 you would have wondered who would ever want to populate this region beyond the pioneers here at the time.

We had an increase from say 2,000 to 80,000 in this immediate area over that time. That is a 40 fold increase. So tell me, where is the crystal ball that you have that tells us that there would not be a 10 fold increase over the next 100 years to say 800,000?
You want to be conservative? Try 5 fold for 400,000.

And, BTW, the Peace river power generation stations will still be churning out the power with new generators in place by that time while the price of natural gas will have skyrocketed. …

Further to palopu asking for specifics. Every time this issue comes up he brings up sawmills and plywood mills that have shut down. One has to look no further than every skytrain station to see the highrise apartment buildings popping up like weeds. Combined they would use as much power as a sawmill…..times how many stations.

The transmission line to Bob Quinn lake will open a quarter of the province for exploration and development. Who knows what they might find but I bet there are more geologists with their little pointy hammers poking around.

Alberta would love to buy clean green hydro power. The oil sands is a major user of natural gas and would they would lower the carbon footprint by a significant amount switching to electricity.

And perhaps the biggest potential future use of hydro… when cultivation of pot for private use becomes legal there will be a few mini grow ops on every block:P