An open letter to Premier John Horgan of British Columbia   

12th January 2018

 

 Premiere Horgan.

 

 

A few years ago, I attended a screening of a movie called “Gasland” at the Edward Milne Community School in Sooke, BC and you were in attendance.

 

After the movie you spoke ardently and vehemently against fracking, announcing how you intended to fight it happening in BC.

 

Whatever happened to you that you could change so radically in such a short time?   Did your promise of that evening mean anything at all to you or were you just courting those in attendance for the viewing? 

 

During the previous regime I asked Rich Coleman numerous times to tell me where the water for the Petronas LNG plan was to come from and of course, he did not reply – no surprise there.   Then we hear that the answer he should have given was from hundreds of illegal and as environmentally unsafe dams as the infamous Mount Polley Mine tailings pond dam were being erected on almost every body of moving water in northern BC.   Are they still up?  I bet so as it appears you have been drinking the Petronas cool aid even after they pulled out claiming it didn’t make business sense to continue.  What makes LNG Canada think they can do what Petronas decided not to do, and I noticed that in announcing the joint venture between Shell, PetroChina Company, Korea Gas Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation, Andy Calitz, CEO of LNG Canada, said the consortium would work closely with the provincial and federal governments but made absolutelyno mention of even considering the people of BC either aboriginal or settlers.

 

Of course not, we do not matter do we, Mr Horgan?

 

We are very used to BC politicians lying to us, manipulating us and flat out ignoring our wishes for decades, but particularly during the dictatorship of the Libertarian/Conservative government which you just replaced.

 

The vast majority of people in BC believed that you would be different.   How wrong we were!

 

Of course, we were happy that you asked the BCUC to hold public hearings on the Site “C” fiasco, and I was one of the presenters at the Victoria meeting.    Of all those who presented whilst I was there only three presenters who argued that this unnecessary and overpriced dam should proceed to completion. It was clear that they were representatives of the construction companies and therefore financially biased.

 

I read the reports from the BCUC and as they were not asked to make a clear recommendation they did not, but it was very clear to me that they and the vast majority of presenters thought this was a mistake from the start and should be scrapped as soon as possible to save billions of dollars being spent for an unneeded and yet limited amount of Hydroelectric power.

 

You have with your decision pandered to the corporate interests over the interests of the people of BC, put BC Hydro on a par with all those crooked power companies in the SE of the US where billions of dollars are being charged to their customers for power plants that have not been built and will generate no electricity.   Just as with BC Hydro future usage is being charged for now, and when that is gone without the increase in usage and no extra hydro available from an incomplete dam we can bet that you will approve yet more rate hikes to pay for a price overrunning and way behind schedule dam.  

 

This is not the way to start to mend BC from the years of BC Liberal (Libertarian) destruction Mr Horgan.

 

So, Mr Horgan, what price truth and honesty?   What is the value of your word and what makes you any different from the infamous Christy Clark who so diligently continued Gordon Campbell’s intentions to destroy BC by giving away all our carefully crafted commons to private enterprise?

 

I have difficulty in believing anything you have said recently as you have proved that you do not represent the people of BC.   I would like to think we could go back to the polls very soon, however, I happen to think that neither Rich Coleman or Andrew Weaver are any more interested in what the people of BC want to do with our once beautiful province than are you.   

What a mess.

 

Jeremy Arney

PO Box 52008, 

RPO Beacon

Sidney, BC

V8L5V9

250-216-5400

 

 

Actions, not words, are the ultimate results of leadership.

Bill Owens

 

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

Winston Churchill

 

As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever:

Clarence Darrow