Last time I talked about selling BC Hydro by bankrupting it and I suspect many of you wonder why it will happen if I’m right.

My colleague on CBC’s early Edition Monday political panel – and good friend - Erin Airton will tell you as she told our audience. Those who oppose the “running rivers policy” where private power is developed on public rivers is what free enterprise is all about. Why, she asked recently, are we so opposed to business people generating power instead of an overgrown, bloated public utility? At least that was the gist of what she said.

And if you’re a Milton Friedman pure capitalist who believes that the money generated by instant multi-millionaires all “trickles down” to the needy it does make sense even though you must accept that these “running rivers” will now have roads into them, transmission lines out of them, and a river flow controlled for purposes of creating power not sustaining fish populations. You must also think it’s a good idea to let these water rights go for peppercorn rent ceding temporary use of the surrounding land which can later be converted into titles.

There is a maxim of “free enterprise” involved here, you see – those who take great risks to make money should have those risks eliminated when public property is involved, the word “free” meaning “risk free”.

We all should rejoice, we’re told,  that what was once a moneymaking public enterprise that gave huge dividends to the public purse so we could build schools and hospitals is no more and in its place are 500 plus very, very rich friends of the government. Thus the onetime hero of free enterprise, W.A.C. Bennett has become the anti-Christ.

This is, after all, the 21st Century and we must bid adieu to stupid notions about wild places, streams full of fish and virgin valleys and welcome in BC’s own version of the post communist oil billionaires in Russia – that is, after all, what capitalism is all about.

Isn’t it????.