EDITORS NOTE:
The letter below is a letter sent to Minister Barry Penner from Rafe Mair. It is s superb letter and no doubt, no one will receive any answers to the hard questions asked!
It has become clear to this editor that if the Liberal party is re-elected, we will loose our BC Hydro and our access to cheap power.
One also must question why many readers of these articles are not connecting the dots? The Run of the River projects are so closely connected to our general water supply and our watersheds, I am hard pressed to understand the non dot connecting. Please think about all of this when you cast your ballot on May 12th, 2009!

Minister Penner

Isn't it just like you bastards to circulate the "NAFTA" criticism of me and the Save Our Rivers Society by the so-called BC Citizens for Green Energy but NOT circulate our reply!

How can your government deny that private power is overwhelmingly for export when it can only be produced in any quantity during Spring run-off when Hydro's reservoirs are full?

How can your government force BC Hydro to give private companies sweetheart deals while only able to get 50% or less of it back when exported?

How do you expect BC Hydro to stay in business when it has obligations to private producers for over $30 BILLION for which they'll be lucky to recover 1/2? And this is only for the private projects now approved. You've taken away BC Hydro's transmission lines, saddled them with spiraling costs for ever increasing private projects, privatized 1/3 of their employees in a secret deal with Accenture, the bastard child of Enron, taken away their right to bring on new sources of power and left them with their ongoing capital debt of $7 BILLION?

Why don't you admit that you and the private pirates are lying about our energy needs saying BC imports power using only figures from BC Hydro; the truth (a stranger to your government) being that if you include Alcan, Teck Cominco and Fortis, all of which produce power domestically, for export or both, BC is a net exporter? And when are you going to stop peddling the nonsense that we must import from Alberta when you know that BC Hydro buys from Alberta in off peak times and "flips" it to the US for high peak prices?

Why do you continue the untrue nonsense that with private power we will be energy sufficient in 2016 when you know that, for the reasons above, private producers can never produce power when we need it? If we will get there by conservation, upgrading Hydro generators, putting in new generators and taking back power under the Columbia River Treaty without private power - and we can - what's your excuse for decimating our rivers and streams to make shareholders in private companies like Warren Buffett of General Electric, richer?

Why don't you level with BC citizens and tell them that they will, if God forbid you get re-elected, be paying the North American market price for energy meaning 3 to 4 times what they pay now?

Why has your government brought in this "Energy Plan" without any input from citizens, Don't try to tell us that these environmental assessment hearings are consultations on the merits of private power because they're not. I've been to them and any attempt to ask questions on the merits is ruled out of order.

Why did you pass Bill 30 taking away the rights of local government to zone for these projects or not?

I'll tell you minister what your game is. Bankrupt BC Hydro, sell off the dams, privatize the dams and Powerex thus keeping your pledge to the Fraser Institute to be rid of publicly owned companies. At the end of your next term - if God forbid you get one - your government will have succeeded in destroying the great instruments of public policy - BC Ferries, BC rail, BC gas and BC Hydro. What a ghastly legacy!

Rafe Mair

Official Spokesperson for Save Our Rivers Society, a former Environment Minister who cared