Independent Power “news” not newsworthy

Sunday's Province newspaper cover sponsored by a labour union?

When it comes to the topic of independent power in British Columbia, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I laugh because I find the attacks against it by the BC Hydro union, COPE 378, so disingenuous. I cry because of the pathetic job the industry does trying to get its message out.

Sunday's Province cover story was, well, how do we put this gently…inflammatory? Innuendo-filled? Uh, not news.

Here's what you will learn from Sunday's 2-page spread (!).

1. Plutonic Power's stock price went up when the BC Liberals formed government. Really? Did it by any chance go down in the weeks before Election Day at the prospect of the NDP forming government? We don't know that if you read the story. Hell, if I had the money to throw around on small company stocks, I might have bought Plutonic a couple of days before the election given that the polls showed Campbell would form government again, and the NDP assured us they would "review" (read: kill) IPPs.
2. Former government staff now either work for or advise independent power enterprises. More innuendo from The Province, as in "the fix is in." Where is Minister Blair Lekstrom's comment about ALL projects being subject to independent review before being approved, and the strict environmental standards projects must abide by? Buried in the last paragraph. Where are former government insiders supposed to work? McDonalds? Then the story will be how the BC Liberals are conspiring to make our kids fat.

All these facts don't matter one iota to the projects' detractors. This has been framed as a "sell out" of BC's resources, and that our famously "cheap" energy prices will skyrocket thanks to this injection of private business into public power.

Where is the serious discussion about conservation? How is it that so many of us can use electricity so carelessly? Why aren't consumers demanding that the products they buy use less energy? Why aren't home-buyers asking that their homes are built smaller and more energy-efficient?

It's because our energy is CHEAP. It's cheaper than it has ever been relative to our incomes. We have no incentive to reduce as long as we continue to have North America's lowest energy costs.

That's the story, gang. Not this power play by a trade union and a bunch of entrepreneurs.