Dear Editor,
BC Hydro has been quietly running up a huge politically engineered debt and without some kind of intervention, rates will have to go up significantly to pay for it.
There are several components to the debt. The first is deferred debt. Under government direction, BC Hydro now uses an American Standard for book-keeping rather than the usual Canadian Standard. The change has enabled ‘creative accounting’.
By pushing unpopular rate increases into the future, BC Hydro has built up a deferred debt of over $5 billion. To that is added the cost of Site C dam, estimated at $9 billion before over-runs. Studies show the dam to be an economic liability and recommend it be cancelled before any more money is sunk into it. Next is $55 billion for the secretly negotiated Independent Power Project contracts brought in under the BC Liberals (although the power is often not needed, it is still paid for). Add on the cost of interest and alarm bells are ringing overtime. Do not let us sleepwalk into this morass.
Please ask your election candidates about the inconvenient truth of BC Hydro debt, and then ask what their party will do to help remedy it.
AJ Vaughan
Black Creek