I strongly disagree with Charles Reid, president and CEO of BC Hydro. The proposed Site C dam on the Peace River may be a lot of things — mega boondoggle, waste of money, white elephant to name a few. But one thing you can’t call it is “in the public interest.”

 

B.C. is already losing a king’s ransom selling surplus electricity to an over-supplied out-of-province market that won’t pay us enough to break even. Now we are expected to believe spending $8 billion on the Site C dam to sell even more electricity at a loss is “in the public interest.” All this doesn’t even take into account the loss of family farms and First Nations heritage sites and hunting areas from flooding over 100 kilometres of valley-bottom lands.

 

The Site C dam project should be tossed, and the Peace River Valley protected as a nationally important agricultural and heritage treasure. That would be in the public interest.

 

JOE FOY, Wilderness Committee national campaign director, Vancouver