A2 - Sunday, April 4, 1982 - North Shore News

strictly personal —

by Bob Hunter

IN THE DEBATE over whether B.C. Hydro

should be broken up into smaller corporate .

chunks, either being sold off in part to private
enterprise or re-cast as separate publicaily-owned
utilities, most commentators seem to have over-
looked the case of Karl Rising-Moore and the
Cheekye-Dunsmuir Alliance.

_ Back in the summer of
1980, Rising-Moore and
several other people pro-
tested the construction of
the Cheek ye-Dunsmuir
power line on Texada Island
by placing themselves in
front of the bulldozers and
uprooting survey stakes.

In the end, Rising-Moore
and the .other protesters
were fined. To date, the
power, line has not gone
through, but that’s only
because a massive cable,
built in Italy, hasn't been
finished yet.

I thought the protesters
made an excellent point
during their trial in the B.C.
Supreme Court.

One of them stated that

¢

B.C. had arrived at a “crisis
period” where responsible
public participation is
needed in decision-making
when the health, lifestyle
and economic base of
pepple’s lives are potentially
threatened.

The history of the
Cheekye-Dunsmuir project
showed that the provincial
cabinet and Hydro con-
sistently blocked responsible
participation by B.C. resi-
dents who would be affected
by the project.

This is the essence, cer-
tainly, of the Frankenstein
syndrome built into large
corporations. They get up
from the boardroom table
and shamble off on their

1e hydro monster

own, guided only by a
bottom line.

Some people classify the
idea of dismantling the
Crown corporation as a plot
by Premier Bennett to
balance the budget by selling
off Hydro’s $350 million gas
division, maybe to Inland
Natural Gas, and shovelling
the profit into the provincial
treasury.

On the other side of the
political stage, I note that
the NDP wants to break
Hydro into separate utilities
that would compete with one
another, and submit these
smaller corporate entities to
management by elected
regional boards.

All I know is that some-
thing has to be done.

Hydro has become vir-
tually a state within a state
and the grandiose schemes

of its chairman, Bob Bonner,

become public /policy
without the aC having
any say. ,

The apparent confusion
felt by both the left and the

Planning options rejected

FROM PAGE A1

reached.

Vander Zalm's letter
outlined three modifications
to the land use bill proposed
at a Langley council
meeting. However, in all
three “options”, planning
and zoning power would
remain in provincial
jurisdiction as provided for
in the land use bill.

Mayor Don Bell said: “He
(Vander Zalm) has identified
three alternatives, but I
don’t see those alternatives
he's identified as being
supported by this council.”

POWER SHIFTS

Included in the options
are a shift in land use
planning from municipalities
to the regional district. The
other alternative would be to
metropolitan planning.

Under the metropolitan
scheme, land use planning
would again shift to the
regional district and section
13 of the proposed land use
bill would be implemented
by the GVRD.
Municipalittes would have
only the power to zonc.

Alderman Marilyn Baker

Feory

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supported District’s stand
against yielding to Vacder
Zalm’s plea for support.

“We shouldn't respond to
either option one, two or
three. We should give our
support to the GVRD (who
opposed conceding to any of
the minister's proposals).

Alderman Mary Segal
echoed Baker: “We support
the regional district and it
should be quite clear from

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(letter). ;

“He’s trying to push the
land act through by giving
unworkable alternatives.”

District unanimously
rejected backing any of
Vander Zalm’s three op-
tions. Council members
passed a motion to forward a
reply saying “none of the
three land use amendments
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fight when it comes to

Hydro’s performance is

understandable.

The modern Crown
corporation has only been
around in B.C. for a few
years, and had its beginnings
in the Saskatchewan of
Tommy Douglas.

It is a corporate mutant,
ideologically about as
schizophrenic as you can be.
The idea of a government
company invites comparison
with a cross between a white
elephant and a jackass.

Sure, Crown corporations
are here to stay. Some of
them, like the B.C. Ferry
System, work rather well.
But that can't be said of
Hydro — not recently.

Last month, we had the
spectacle of the big utility
being forced .to retreat in
disarray from the Peace
River Site C hearings when
its power forecasts were
shown to be twice as high as
actual demand.

We also. witnessed Hydro
being ordered by the B.C.
Utilities Commission to
refund 25 million in exces-
sive power rates charged to
industrial customers.

Somebody's computer has
gone wonky. I think there is
simply a point where bigger
doesn’t mean better, it
means worse, although in
some ways Hydro is still very
efficient. —

I refer, of course, to the
hefty wage hikes Hydro’s top
executives gave themselves
just one week before
Premier Bennett froze senior
public employees’ salaries.

Why are these guys giving
themselves a raise, anyway?
What have they done lately
that’s so wonderful?

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