Anyone know where a person can get a copy of the reasoning behind the judgement? I would like to see the justification the judge used in making his opinion against sign agreements.

I think Northern BC was sold out for the benefit of some politicians in the Lower Mainland.

Slightly off topic here...but what a beautiful town...and a shame its slowly coming unravelled for the people there.

I have spent some time in Kitimat for work, and pleasure...just a nice town!

SAD DAY FOR KITIMAT..
SAD DAY FOR NORTHERN B.C...

-- ALCAN RULES --

I also find this judgement just a bit stinky!I have never agreed with judges not having to give their reasoning behind some of their verdicts.How that so called impartial judge came to this conclusion is beyond reason!There has to be more to this.

They do have to give reasoning. It is called the decision which spells out the reasoning for the decision. I have not seen it.

It can be appealed.

I find it strange that an agreement which says **excess** electricity can be sold gets turned into **any** electricity can be sold. I was always under the impression that the fundamental principle of the agreement was that the primary purpose was to generate electricity to run a smelter. Justice Brenner now seems to have said that is not the case.

I believe this is a decision from the BC Supreme Court. I hope Kitimat challenges the decision by taking it to the Federal Supreme Court. BC decisions have been overturned before, including some based on very fundamental principles. I think this principle, that signed agreements actually are binding, is too important to just let drop.

slight detail, the court of appeal is the highest BC court. After that the Supreme Court of Canada.

http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/Jdb-txt/SC/07/04/2007BCSC0429.htm

that is the decision posted on March 28, 2007 on the BC Supreme Court site.

Alcan is a BIG business, a multinational corporation, these outfits have no concience, it is all about increasing the value to the shareholder, every three months. A loss, even on one quarter, is unacceptable. They must always make more, more, more. How long can they sustain this type of action?
metalman.

Thanks for the link to the website with the decision.

It took me an hour to read. Very interesting, indeed. Especially all the historical references.

Of course, the decision can be appealed and it would be equally as interesting to know on what grounds and how any eventual reversal would be arrived at.

Alcan sold power for four decades and nobody took issue with it. The decision goes a long way to explain why and how it happened.

It was a bit of a slog to read the decision and I did note some points, but I am not a lawyer. I presume those working for Kitimat will be going over it with a fine tooth comb in the next few weeks for any inconsistency.

One point did strike me. This is an early PPP (Public Private partnership) to produce electricity for use and sale for the benefit of BC. BC got taken advantage of quite clearly in the long term. Will government take notice of this with regard to Site C development? I think likely not.

Sickening.
Public company = Legal obligation to make money for the shareholders.
Alcan is doing an excellent job for their shareholders.
Maybe we should elect them into our provincial goverment.
[(I'm shrugging my shoulders :-)]

diplomat .. "Alcan sold power for four decades and nobody took issue with it."

That is the key to the decision the way I read it as well. Common law = common practice.

Not much different from walking across a field in merry olde england for decades and centuries and then an owner coming along trying to reclaim the right to "his property". The view over centuries, as far as I understand, has been that common practice has created a de facto "easement" on private property.

The judge can only rule based on the words of the historical documents. When he/she finds something which does not make sense, the judge has to look to see who it was that let something be, that maybe should not have been allowed to happen.

The assumption is that a government, or a government agency has a high level of competency in such matters and would have written agreements differently had they not intended them to be the way they appear to be by a third party who was not “in the room” when the agreement was made. So, it looks to me that if this is not the outcome that the various governments in power wanted, then Alcan had some good legal advice.

Assuming that these agreements are looked at in a similar way as simpler contracts are looked at, I would say that the appeal is related to “intent”. If it can be shown that the intent by either party was different than the wording of the agreements, then the agreements can be set aside. That could be the argument as I see it. Where the grounds for appeal lie, I do not know. Perhaps that the judge did not look at the intent of the government closely enough, although on first skimming through it, it does seem as if he has.

The government can always enact a law to get them out of the predicament. However, that would likely send a message to others who wish to “invest” and reap the benefit of taking risks (remember the government did not wish to take that risk, Alcan was prepared to) that it would be too risky to do so in BC since anyone who is successful at it could be shut down.

Despite the court decision, it will soon be known whether Alcan was serious about building a smelter there. If it proceeds, companies such as Novagold, bcMetals and such will need this energy for their mining operations, when the Highway 37 Intertie is constructed.

While such a use of electricity isn't money (or jobs) going directly to Kitimat, it may be energy going toward jobs in the Northwest. Jobs for constructing the power-line north to the mines, jobs in mining for Northwest BC and jobs in Stewart and other nearby communities.

Communities farther north, will now have a shot at commercial rates for electricity for lumber milling where timber often goes to waste because its uneconomic to haul round logs to markets.

While it may not all be good news, it may open the way for the more rural regions to establish more sustainable economies in our outlying more northern communities. Time will tell....

Diplomat and others: the issue was never that Alcan sold power. The original agreement gave them the right to sell *surplus* power. The intent of that original agreement was clearly to give the company cheap water access in exchange for jobs in Kitimat.

The Campbell government argued that the original agreement didn't matter and that Alcan could do whatever the hell it wanted with our natural resources. The judge, no doubt seeing that the provincial government didn't care about 50 years of history, decided that history didn't matter.

Is there anyone who believes that companies should have carte blanche to do whatever they want with public resources? If the price of aluminum tanks, Alcan can shut down the smelter, fire all the workers, and turn themselves into a full-time power company. Why wouldn't they? Their primary responsibility is to their shareholders. It's the smart thing to do. Alcan is not the culprit here.

But why would the provincial government, as stewards of provincial resources, make some kind of expectations of a company in exchange for cheap access to water WHICH WE ALL OWN?

Say Ben, the next time you get called to one of Shirley, Pat or John's photo-ops, why dontcha ask that question?

The fact that water is a public resource "WHICH WE ALL OWN?" is undisputed. The problem is in order for water to generate "obscene" profits from power generation there needs to be investment to build a dam.

The 1950 agreement basically says that the government wants a dam, but they don't want to take the risk associated with the building of the dam. So Alcan was called. Alcan took the risk, invested the cash. The dam belongs to ALCAN it's their property.

Now they can do with it as they please. If the Peoples State of BC doesn't want to buy the power, at the current market rates, that Alcan determines is excess; they don't have to. They'll find another market, maybe just sell it on the open market through Powerex.

You've got your facts wrong. The government didn't want the dam. The government wanted industrial development in the north west. That's why it was called the Industrial Development Act.

If the government wanted a dam just to create power, it would have built the dam. If you knew anything about history, you'd know that WAC Bennett was not averse to building megaprojects.

What the Socreds of the day knew bloody well was that building a dam for power would have created almost no jobs in the region. So they came up with an agreement with Alcan which gave them cheap water rates. The tradeoff was that the company would build a smelter and create jobs. It was a good deal, made by a government (who I guess in your mind was a group of commies? That WAC Bennett was a real lefty all right...) that believed that public resources should not be given away without some kind of payoff.

When Alcan's rights to the use of the public resource expire (remember that there is a binding legal agreement in place) Alcan will have to negotiate a new contract or an extension of the present one.

Alcan owns the dam(s), the tunnels, the penstocks, the generators, the powerlines and so forth.

Alcan didn't buy the public resource - it is only using it temporarily, renting it, so to speak.

Yes, Alcan will have to negotiate a new agreement with the provincial government - a provincial government that sent a lawyer to court to argue that the company can do whatever it wants with the resource. Does that seem like a reasonable opening negotiation strategy?

My beef isn't with Alcan, who, although they're not exactly an example of a good corporate citizen, is just responding to the needs of its shareholders.

My beef is with the Campbell government, who has shown no willingness to get the best possible deal for the people of the north west.

I didn't hear or read that government lawyer's arguments - so I would personally refrain from saying that he/she made a case on the company's behalf insisting that it is the government's position to support an alleged attempt by the company to be allowed to do whatever it wants with the resource.

In fact, in the published decision I have seen the judge's reasoning during/ after examination of the arguments of all three sides.

You seem to have very little faith in our courts and the legal system and the integrity of those who convened to reach a verdict based on all the evidence presented.

There is always the recourse of an appeal, not to forget.

However, perhaps a government other than the Campbell one could consider nationalizing the power generating facilities that make up Kemano and compensate Alcan with billions, plus other billions for future decades of lost power generation opportunity.

It ain't going to happen, of course.

There's a middle ground -- a great gaping chasm -- between nationalizing anything (which no credible person has suggested anytime in recent memory) and giving away the water resources at ridiculously low rates. It requires some backbone on the part of the government to negotiate a decent agreement which would get something back for the people who live in Kitimat.

Nothing will happen since Alcan is happy with the present agreement and shows no interest in negotiating a new agreement.

It seems that our previous Governments, last gasp of the Socreds and 10 years of the NDP totally ignored this file, and allowed Alcan to establish precedent over some issues in the Contract. As I understand it, when the Campbell Government was elected, the NDP couldnt even tell them who was responsible for the file. The Mayor of Kitimat gives a good in depth explanation of how this came about.

In any event because our Governments were playing ** Rip Van Winkle** and Alcans lawyers were playing **Dirty Pool** we lost.