Friday, June 09, 2017

This Doomed Day In Clarkland... The Upshot.

AllYourCrownJewels
AreTurnedToDustVille


A fellow named David Bond, who is a retired bank economist, has written a most interesting column in the Kelowna Courier about the state of play at BC Hydro.

After a detailed preamble about the Crony Party's nefarious accounting practices, Mr. Bond gets straight to the heart of the matter:

...The upshot is that BC Hydro’s pension account is $1.2 billion below what is required for actuarial solvency, the deferral accounts have grown to several billion, and the total debt is over $20 billion. About $2 billion of that will have to be paid down in the next fiscal year. BC Hydro has asked the BC Utilities Commission for an unprecedented 12 years to catch up on its pension liability...



So.

How to deal with this?

Well, Mr. Bond has a four point plan:

First, immediately shutting down the unnecessary Site C would stop much future bleeding.

Second, BC Hydro’s capital expenditures include about a billion a year for new power, over and above the amount needed to sustain existing facilities. Stop that.

Third, many agreements with Independent Power Producers that forced Hydro to pay non-market prices for power are in default. Cancelling these contracts would yield substantial savings.

Fourth, allow Hydro to charge rates equal to their costs and if the rate shock is unbearable, transfer some of the debt to the province.



****

Look.

Cleaning up the mess created by sixteen years of BC Liberal rule is going to be painful.

And, clearly, it is going to be the job of the coalition to start the cleaning and cauterizing.

All of which will lead to howls of derision from the cronies, the quislings, and the bought-and-paid-for sycophants.

But...

The fact of the matter is, as anyone who has been paying attention throughout the length and breadth of the Golden Era knows, sooner or later the citizenry was going to have to pay for the budgetary malfeasance and chicanery that stretches back through de Jong, Falcon, the second coming of the Hansen advantage, Taylor, and the Hansen advantage (the first!).....All the way to he who never testified about the wolfening, Mr. Farrell-Collins.

OK?


______
Mr. Bond also explains how ICBC has been systematically looted in his piece....The entire thing is most certainly worth a read.
Of course, this is not something you will read about in local Lotusland-central proMedia print organs...However, if you want more, and more specifically on the folly that is Site C, Norm Farrell delves into the informed commentary of Harry Swain and Emma Gilchrist....Here...Norm also has Erik Andersen explain the original grift that forces Hydro to keep overestimating demand year after year after year after year despite actual evidence/reality to the contrary.


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35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alan parsons project
CC/BCLibs -wouldnt want to be like you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwFVowEugQ

Eleanor Gregory said...

Bond's article is fascinating and definitely worth the read.

Lew said...

But, but…Rich Coleman assured us six years ago that there was nothing to worry about, and the debt would be repaid once projects like Site C begin bringing in revenue. According to most of the unbiased expert analysis, that will be on or about the 12th of never. Coincidentally, that’s the same date his promised trillions from LNG will pay off our provincial debt. So should we wait until then, or start blaming John Horgan now for mucking up Coleman’s foolproof debt retirement plan?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/auditor-general-sounds-alarm-over-bc-hydro-accounting/article4199754/

Anonymous said...

This information should be placarded all over the net, on every available bill board and every form of print media not owned by black press or post media. The more this info is put out there, facebook and twitter included, the more the general public decree what's truly going on,
What about a call to W5. Title? The destruction of a provincial economy, by Corporations, or how we have all been duped by a photo op Queen and her gang of thieves".
Seriously these folks in the know, coming forward is what has to happen, and the information gotten out to as many citizens as possible.
How about the New York Times? Forget about the post media empire period, Glo bull and the other BC media outlets, who are under a corporate gag order, nothing but corporate propaganda machines.

e.a.f. said...

The Kelowna Courier you say! Well its interesting it made that newspaper first. Good on them. thank you Kelowna Courier

Rafe Mair said...

When examines the evidence it surely cries out fro action. David Bond, Norman Farrell, Erik Andersen and others have been warning that the evidence of political skullduggery is glaringly evident in the absence of some explanation that defied even the most learned experts in matters of this sort. The Attorney-General has been asked repeatedly to cause an investigation and, again. It's difficult to conceive of an answer as to why not other than she is a loyal Liberal hack covering for her mistress and her vlose friend and Chair of BC Hydro, Brad Bennett.

My question has, if nothing else, the virtue of simplicity "When the hell do we call the cops."

A supplementary, if I may, has this not been done because in addition of the danger of the AG herself being implicated that the past two premiers and - believe me this is hard for me to write - the son of another might be under investigation. The legal duty of an attorney-general to investigate prima facie evidence of wrongdoing is a duty thst's scarcely nullified for reasons of party loyalty or personal fear. A third sepplementsry if I may to John Horgan, so silent thus far on this matter, et tu John? Is the matter of a bankrupt BC Hydro with many who profitted and stand to profit forgivable under some "new pitcher, new srrikes" rules of the Old Boys and Girls Club? Hmmmm

John's Aghast said...

Thank you Mr. Bond. But where have you been for the last decade? It's probably too late to come to our senses but this article is well worth hanging on to for another 6 months when the caterwauling will commence about the NDP dragging the economy down.
I was going to say that I didn't understand how Chrispy managed to haul in 43 seats, but I do. This information, if available, certainly wasn't shouted out to the masses. Horgan, did you know this? And how far back? Norm Farrell has been reporting for as long as I've been on the net. Why no noise.
Pretty scary!

Anonymous said...

I'm sure Mr. Bond misspoke.

We just went through a General Election here in B.C. and we were told all the books are balanced.

Surely the Corporate Media would have alerted us to any shenanigans!

Anonymous said...

diminish public assets so they can be sold off

Keith. said...

It's a foregone conclusion when the dippers and greens get the hot seat, the predictably first thing to be said is "we didn't know the finances were as bad as this".

At which point those that have been paying attention will say "yup" those that haven't or those that have willingly suspended disbelief will roll their blinkered eyes and say " yeah sure".

My thoughts would be to use an independent auditor free of political interference and connection in B.C. to examine the finances of all crowns, agencies and government entities to hopefully give an unbiased and complete picture of the Provincial finances.

cristy's seat is in Kelowna, any chance she read the article.?

Hugh said...

The mess at BC Hydro was foisted on us by the BC Liberal government, by basically lying to us for the last 16 years.

"In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal doctrine that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt

e.a.f. said...

If the pension fund is short $20 Billion I wonder if the Unions representing B.C. Hydro workers know about this little short fall.

If Christy sells B.C. Hydro what happens to all those employees and their pensions. what happens to all those retired from B.C. Hydro? what happens to their pensions.

$20 billion missing from a pension fund, I'd suggest that is the biggest fraud case in Canadian history, well perhaps not,. there was Canada Post who forgot to pay their share to the pension fund for 19 years, but then the federal government makes good on the pensions. wonder who will make good on the pensions of thousands of B.C. workers and former workers.

Given the New York times said we were the wild west with no rules regarding political fund raising wouldn't surprise me if there were no rules regarding missing pension funds.

wonder who will be first to ask the B.C. Lieberals and Christy Clark about the missing $20 billion.........

davemj said...

special prosecutors, special forensic auditors from out of Province, somebody get a hold, New York times for the real truth.Audit all the M.L.A.S MORE SO the Ministers??!!!!Dirty rotten scoundrel's Horgan, Weaver bring this shit up get the Auditor General involved Publicly.Bond is a brave man!! the way the Lie Libs are so dirty.

bcwaterboy said...

With Brad Bennett living in Kelowna, expect a 1, 2,3.. smear against Mr. Bond. The next challenge is going to be getting this information out loud and clear as the reformer-soc cred-not liberal crony party tries to make this all about lay offs.

Sickening stuff.

Anonymous said...

Great article by David Bond! (Thanks Ross!!)

Great to see some good analysis in a newspaper (of all places) about the state of the BC economy and the devastating role of the BC Liberals "governing" for the past 16 years. (Actually looting the province for their cronies would be more accurate).

Rumor has it that the big money types refuse to accept the democratic alliance between the Greens and the NDP, with 44 seats and 57% of the popular vote. All that big money can't afford to have the NDP and Greens govern even for six months and start cleaning up the province.

I predict a snap election this summer.

The BC Liberals must be pretty confident that the "independent" LG is going to fall into line since they are in election mode right now with campaign style tweets, campaign style events and raking in the dough from their corporate henchmen.

---otr

Scotty on Denman said...

Would pillorying the BC Liberals for the wrongs they've done be a case of two wrongs not making a right? Certainly incessant anti-socialist rhetoric featured for decades when the CCF-cum-NDP wasn't in power. However, I don't recall either NDP regime reciprocating with alarming anti-capitalist rhetoric whilst in power, a favour the vanquished Social Credit party probably didn't deserve. Yet, as sure as any official opposition resorts, short of real power, to heightened ideological rhetoric from time to time, the opposition BC Liberals not only made it a full-time habit (Christy and Kevin being the most zealous), but continued through each of four majorities, not simply during intermittent elections, perfunctorily as a matter of course with volume and vitriol that makes Wacky seem a quaint gentleman. Indeed, I've often rankled at the dipper habit of not punching back but, really, isn't it plain everybody's tiring of partisanship bumping more important things off the agenda simply for its own sake?

Still, it's an irrefutable fact the NDP never got ahead (the past two contests in comparison should settle the matter convincingly) by affecting 'positive politics,' as much as dipper egg-heads might wish it so.

Nevertheless, nobody condones perfunctory slaying of political enemies as a first order of business for victors of democratic elections, reminiscent, as it is, of a bygone time when political opposition was equally as violent, the check and balance on any new government nowadays being the whim of half a disaffected and uninformed electorate which can just as easily expose the party to vengeance as cold as any settling of scores, especially those executed for the sake of partisanship only.

Now subtract partisan vengeance and see if the plain old rue of law applies. This is really the situation with the BC Liberals: partisan ideology aside, the plain breaches of public trust have to be addressed else they licence even more---by any governing party--- and, in the case of the worst government BC's ever had, else they licence deeper and deeper forays into the pit of iniquity in order to frustrate opportunities of investigation and prosecution of wrongs if and when a new regime finally breaks this unproductive, downward spiral.

To be just and prove nonpartisanship, public inquiry into BC Liberal sabotage of public enterprises like BC Hydro needs to be carried out by a competent court, judicial or quasi-judicial mandated to recommend prosecution if and where required. If the GDP forms government, it only has razor-thin room to manoeuvre and there are so many other things needing attention. The main thing is to show more clearly than BC Liberal-friendly MSM and good but noise-ensconced social medium that the rules apply to all parties and people regardless partisanship.

Never mind that man slopping the results of forensic inquiry up on highway-side billboards so the disaffected can't avoid seeing how justice and the rule of law works for everyone, not just for left or right; never mind that the sextons hum jauntily as their shovels clank through the stones of the boneyard---it works just as well for any party and if it just happens to be the BC Liberals' funeral, it means they deserved it and it was proved. Never mind that the electorate might also condemn the MSM enablers of a blatant and vicious cycle of neo-right perfidy: they'd deserve as much if they'd been critics instead of proclaimers. Citizens might approve throwing them in there too.

"I'll follow your casket/ On a pale afternoon/ I'll watch while you're lowered/ Down to your deathbed/ And I'll stand o're your grave/ 'til I'm sure..."

excerpted from "Masters of War" by Bob Dylan

RossK said...

bcw--

Members of the Crony Party have tried to push back before (this is not Mr. Bond's first rodeo).

Somehow, I don't think he gives a hoot in heckfire.


.

e.a.f. said...

If the MSM won't report the news we all could put this out on our Face book pages, so people do know. I for one will be writing my nearest B.C. Lieberal MLA, and Christy and ask her about this short fall of funding for the pension plan. I won't be holding my breath for an answer. However, it alerts the B.C. Lieberals to the fact, some of us do know.

We might want to advise our friends and neighbours who work for B.C. Hydro that their pension funds is missing $20 billion.

I will also be asking my NDP, MLA if they can ask the Premier about this once the Leg. sits. The province is in huge debt but for working women and men to perhaps loose their pensions, just isn't on.

We might all want to write and thank the Kelowna Courier for printing the article.

North Van's Grumps said...

Interesting

http://stevethomsonmla.bc.ca/about/

Steve Thomson, MLA, Kelowna-Mission, no longer has the tag line MINISTER

He currently chairs the Environment and Land Use Committee and is a member of the Treasury Board. Previously, he served as Minister of Natural Resource Operations, Minister of Energy, and Minister of Agriculture and Lands.

What's interesting is that as a member of the Treasury Board he's the one who gives the green thumbs up for Site C before June 22, and before June 30th

RossK said...

NVG--

The 'Thumbs-Upper-In-Chief'?


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davemj said...

I would like to know how the people who voted for crooked claptrap Clark how they feel about their Queen of Sleaze after reading David,s article more so in Kelowna? Geez its really tough not to use the word hate when you think of her, Colman,DE Jong,Andrew Wilkinson now there is a rotten egg those squinty eyes a evil b.s.Bastard,Fassbender a true religious hypocrite i call him the roof.B.S Bill Bennet Brainless,Molly Maid Mary and Todd Stoned,the rest dishonest sheeple. bloody criminals

Anonymous said...

Once a new coalition NDP and Green cabinet sworn in, orders in councll should be put forward to stop IPP contracts, if in default and as the contractural price is absurdly out of line with average hydro prices.
Site c must undergo a BCUC hearing, regardless of the outcome, the project should be stopped as it will force taxpayers into a financial mess that will last decades.

Anonymous said...

So, my husband had his pension reduced by $400.00 a month, a trade union job. Will the BC Hdyro employees be subjected to the same reduction or will we, the taxpayers pay for the shortfall? Thanks Arlene

North Van's Grumps said...

Relax folks.

If BC Hydro defaults, there is a back up plan.

The British Columbia government has promised, to Moody, that they will cover all bets.

RossK said...

And 'they' is ultimately, of course....


Us.


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Scotty on Denman said...

"Heckfire"---yeah, that's a civil way to put it.

KFB said...

Bend over British Columbians, BC Hydro and ICBC is just a start in the story of the crooked Lieberals with their crooked government, their crooked benefactors and their brain-dead low information mouth breathing supporters.
I am looking at solar panels for my roof so I will be one of the few in BC to watch what's left of BC when the creditors show up to take anything left after all the chickens fly away.

e.a.f. said...

Ken Barry might be on to something there. Electrical rates were up this winter of course because it was colder. But they also went up for people who heated with wood and gas. Expect huge increases if B.C. Hydro has to become solvent. Solar and wind will be the way to go. Of course then we can expect a large increase in the sales tax.

With the debts outstanding at B.C. Hydro it maybe very difficult for the NDP/Green coalition to provide the health care changes we need. Lets hope they first let us all know how deeply in debt the B.C. Lieberals ran this province.

The mayor of Vancouver might want to stop spending money like there was no tomorrow because the city is going to need it once the province is officially Detroit North

Anonymous said...

It's never been about responsible government, just being returned to government. The LNG fiasco was just that, and only that, from the moment it was conceived. There are no markets for LNG, even for those countries who had already built the infrastructure and stockpiled this resource. The Liberal plan was never about sound fiscal management and investment, and the media really had a responsibility to keep the BC voters more informed on this before so much taxpayer money was squandered on fantasy-based "re-election" promises. Hoping the media will be more objective when it comes to the Site C dam and other energy related initiatives.

e.a.f. said...

A. 2:38 p.m. the media????? surely you jest. The MSM in B.C. is paid and bought for by the B.C. Lieberals via the provincial government. The "government" purchased tens of millions of ads promoting everything from a to z in the Vancouver Sun and Province. In some editions there were as many pages of "news" as there were ads by the "provincial government". In turn the Vancouver Sun/Province were silent regarding all nasty matters concerning the B.C. Lieberals. What did we hear after each of the 8 children died in care of Christy and stephane? Not much. did they do an editorial about it so or look into it? Not so much. the Vancouver Sun and Province were more like a press release organization for the B.C. Lieberals. the New York Times covered this province better than the Vancouver Sun and Province. Global T.V. another press release organization for the B.C. Lieberal/Provincial government. All the MSM pundits were silent regarding the carrying ons of Christy and her cabal. Just wait how they come alive once the NDP/Greens are in office.

while the disabled were required to live on $908 per month plus $21 plus bus pass, what did we hear from the MSM, not so much if anything. Did we hear much from the MSM about B.C. having one of the highest rates of child poverty in Canada, not so much, so don't expect anything from the MSM. If you want the news you read the New York Times, the blogs and oh, from time to time the Kelowan Courier.

Anonymous said...

The current government has no social license to authorize BC Hydro to award new contracts. This project violates both Treaty 8 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and construction could and should be stopped on that basis alone.

Trudeau should get ahead of this or he might end up looking like a small fry er little potato?

Anonymous said...

https://www.facebook.com/events/1542762652435433/

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous7:55 am, June 10, 2017
*****************
Calling a snap election would have been more doable before the UK voted in a minority government. The UK election silenced all the critics in BC. In Britain they have to work together now - at least to some degree. If the LG in BC is corrupted that will not prove well for the governing party at the time...calling a snap election because they are throwing a hissy fit. Besides the housing bubble is a problem for any future government. A freak'n time bomb!

How may people will be pissed to having to vote again? I for one.

Anonymous said...

Major developments loom on Port Moody horizon | Real Estate (Burrard thermal hydro shut down for this? site C = site condos?)

https://www.biv.com/article/2017/6/major-developments-loom-port-moody-horizon/

Anonymous said...

BCHydro has to post,annual report, within 3 months of fiscal year end so 17 days to go.(fy end is March 31)