To the editor:
I'm responding to the fabrications and nonsense in Gary Young's letter to the editor about Site C in the March 30 edition of the 100 Mile Free Press.
Mr. Young is either ignorant of the facts or is simply an agent of the NDP hoping to mislead the public. Either way, saying the Site C project should be stopped after two years of construction is saying the two thousand, mostly British Columbian people working there should be sent home to collect employment insurance.
Just like the other big dams in B.C. that provide cost-effective electricity to us, Site C will be a source of clean, renewable and affordable electricity in B.C. for more than 100 years.
The independent federal-provincial panel that reviewed the project stated that Site C will provide the lowest cost electricity compared to alternatives and that "Site C, after an initial burst of expenditure, would lock in low rates for many decades."
We're not building Site C to sell power to California or anyone else on the export market. We're building Site C to meet the long-term electricity needs of British Columbians as our province's population increases by over one million people and our economy grows. B.C.'s economy is growing faster than any other in Canada and people are moving to B.C. faster than in any other province. This adds up to a growing demand for electricity.
BC Hydro's load forecast, which is currently part of a public review process in front of the B.C. Utilities Commission, shows that Site C is needed with or without demand from the LNG industry to meet an increase in electricity demand of almost 40 per cent over the next 20 years.
It's worth noting that this winter, on Jan. 3, BC Hydro set a new record for power consumption.
By the way, Mr. Young might be interested in knowing that trade revenues for Powerex for the nine months ended Dec. 31, 2016, were $497 million, an increase of $34 million or seven per cent compared with the same period in the prior fiscal year.
We're certainly not forcing LNG producers to buy power from Site C. In February 2017, supporting government's commitment to building the cleanest LNG industry in the world, the Province announced a new eDrive electricity rate to LNG proponents that choose to use electric drives for compression as part of their final investment decisions.
To be clear, this is not a subsidy for LNG plants.
The eDrive rate is exactly the same rate that other industries like mining and pulp and paper pay for their electricity. The eDrive rate creates an incentive for LNG developers to use electricity instead of natural gas to power their facilities, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
More than 99 per cent of Class 1 to 5 agricultural lands (land capable of crop production) in the Peace Agricultural Region will not be affected by Site C. Overall agricultural production in the region is expected to benefit from mitigation measures, including a $20 million agricultural compensation fund that will support agricultural programs and projects such as irrigation and drainage improvements.
I'll conclude with another fact that Mr. Young chooses to ignore: construction of Site C is progressing on time and on budget with over 2,100 people working on the project, including more than 1,700 workers from B.C. making up 81 per cent of the workforce.
Bill Bennett
Minister of Energy and Mines