Rafe Mair sends a powerful message. At least take the time to read this and understand what this old sage is telling you. It is important!

Rafe here, I thought I might send you my last thoughts on the rivers issue.In order to get the message out, would you please send it to your address book and ask them to do the same?Best,Rafe

Rafe's Summary: I've been fighting injustice my entire life. I have long looked with considerable skepticism at those in charge feeling strongly that they must have the closest possible scrutiny. I've been in government and know how the spin is administered to issues so that evils in government policies are disguised. I've long been guided by what I call Mair's Axiom I, namely, "one makes a serious mistake in assuming that people in charge know what the hell they're doing". During my time practicing law I took many cases "pro bono" because I sensed an injustice.As Consumer Minister I battled hard for consumers passing 33 pieces of legislation in two sittings, a record before or since. In the Ministry of Environment I stopped government killing wolves, stopped exploration for and mining of uranium and negotiated the saving of the Skagit River from being made into a lake by Seattle raising the Ross Dam.In radio I fought against two disastrous constitutional exercises, Meech Lake and Charlottetown, the Kemano Completion Project, a gravel pit on the Pitt River, the fish farm issue and recently the private river swindle.I'm now in my 78th year and though I'm pretty fit, the time comes when you have to consider that your place in the front line trenches should be taken by younger people. I've greatly enjoyed speaking all around the province and meeting so many of you on the "rivers" issue but being away from home on the road for many days at a time takes a toll While I have no intention to stop speaking out and writing on environmental concerns perhaps it's time I started supporting causes but not being its torch bearer.In short, I have to face reality.The "rivers" issue I'm now fighting is one of the most important I've ever been involved in and in this fight I include the government's appalling record on the fish farm issue. What's at stake here is the essence, or you might say the very soul, of British Columbia. The return of Gordon Campbell will mean the sale, for money we'll never even see, the British Columbia we love so dearly. Indeed the money will be paid by us through BC Hydro to the very people who will destroy our province!We do not need power - the National Energy Board is authority for that. When we do require more we have four viable ways to get it.1. Conservation2. Upgrading our present generators.3. Putting generators on flood control dams and new ones on existing dams4. Taking back the power we're entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty.It's critical that we all understand that private power depends upon the spring runoff for the water it needs, meaning it mainly produces power for a few short months at best and at the same time BC Hydro's reservoirs are full to brimming. Because this power is of limited duration and at a time Hydro can't use it, it's exported bringing us within the purview of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)A re-election of Mr. Campbell will mean the not so slow strangulation of BC Hydro, our power company that is the envy the world and it will happen this way. Hydro has lost 1/3 of its employees to Accenture, the bastard nephew of the infamous Enron, and its transmission lines to a new crown corporation, BCTC. Meanwhile, what's left of our public power utility, BC Hydro, is banned from developing new sources of renewable energy and is forced instead to buy large quantities of expensive private river power that we don't need and can't use at more than twice the market price. Buy high and sell low! With just a few private projects now up and running already Hydro owes $30 BILLION on long term indexed prices and every private project adds to the total and tightens that strangling noose. Barred from producing new sources of power and still carrying its $7 BILLION Capital debt, Hydro is on its death bed only waiting for Mr. Campbell to administer the Last Rites.As he did with BC Rail, Premier Campbell promises to keep BC Hydro publicly owned - that, if nothing else, must tell us what he intends to do.Of huge concern is that BC Hydro, always able to pay of hundreds of millions a year dividends to the BC treasury, which go towards our schools, hospitals and social programs, now cannot do so. In essence then, the public is paying, through BC Hydro, for the capital costs of private companies like Ledcor and General Electric, while no longer receiving the bounty of BC Hydro's much envied ability to create clean, cheap and constant energy.It doesn't end there, of course. Each plant desecrates the rivers it diverts or dams (the industry prefers we call them weirs) for all time. We must remember that while economic missteps by government can be fixed by a later government, once we've lost our rivers and BC Hydro we can never get them back.This is indeed a "watershed" election (pun intended) where we'll decide if we keep "supernatural BC" or turn it over to large international companies such as General Electric.The Liberal government, in the words of Oscar Wilde knows "the price of everything and the value of nothing"If we re-elect the Campbell government we will, quite rightly, be condemned by our children, our grandchildren and generations as yet unborn.Sincerely,Rafe Mair

What is happening to B.C. Hydro and our cheap power.

B.C. Hydro shares a piece of my history. My Dad worked for B.C. Electric which was the original name of B.C.Hydro. This little video is a bit of fun but gives you something to think about. I actually found it in the ads on this blog. Please take a few minutes to look at it. It is called:
Boardroom Breakthrough: Hydro Heist and can be found at:
http://www.moveforwardbc.ca/ Keep informed!

Protect our wild salmon. Let the government know how we feel on the subject. The Wilderness Committee delivers petition.

This e-mail came in this morning. I would like to help this lady get her message out. It is a good one and follows my creed "Keep informed!" I'm sure any of you who wish to join this group at Canada Place on the 6th of May would be welcome.

Alexanda Morton writes: "To those of you in Vancouver.
The Wilderness Committee will be carrying our letter with its’ 13,000 signatures to Gordon Campbell’s constituency office. They have built a salmon mascot, Tum Tum who will join them and will be also delivering their own petition with 33,000 signatures on it urging government to protect wild salmon from fish “farms.” I am hoping to be there as well.When: Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 12 noon. Where: In front of BC government cabinet offices at World Trade Centre at Canada Place, downtown VancouverIt is remarkable to me that there has been no answer to our letter simply asking for the laws of Canada to be applied and I appreciate the Wilderness Committee delivering this in person. Many of you have received the same email from different Liberal MLA candidates saying that the Province is not allowed to interfere with the BC Supreme Court decision, but this is not accurate. In filing an Appearance they have given themselves the option to send lawyers to the appeal filed by the fish farmers. They may indeed have decided not to fight the decision, but why then has Gordon Campbell not answered our letter?I am hoping that we don’t get to find out. We need someone in government who can answer a question asked by 13,000 people.I learned this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Agency has a ban on importation of food products that have been exposed to the chemical Emamectin benzoate (Slice) that Canadian fish farms use to suppress their sea lice. Fish farmers use this chemical in many places where people collect sea food to eat and despite requests never post notices to the public so we could avoid the drug. There is an article on page 12 in Pacific Fishing on this: http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/North_West_Publishing_Center/PF_May09_1280 <http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/North_West_Publishing_Center/PF_May09_1280> In a remote, wilderness so beautiful it captures your soul, I have raised my children on seafood exposed to a drug banned in the U.S. Alexandra Morton"

Political Subterfuge regarding salmon farms and the water policy relating to the independent power projects

This morning's e-mail brought in a couple of messages that I found both interesting and informative. The first is an article that is in the Times Colonist about Salmon Farming.
The author, Terry Anderson, founder of the Wild Salmon Alliance, states that the government's present position towards Salmon Farming makes no sense for B.C. citizens and our wild salmon stocks. It is worth taking a few minutes to read this at:
http://www.timescolonist.com/story_print.html?id=1559216&sponsor=


The second is a copy of a letter written by the Glen Valley Watershed's Society and sent to the politicians running for election in this area, Rick Coleman, Gail Chaddock-Costello and Travis Erbacher. It is about water quality and gives some issues that we should be bringing to the attention of our political representatives. We and they must remember that is the position they are vying for! I've been told since reading this one that the government will respond that they already have a water policy. The thing they won't mention though is that it will not be implemented until 2012. "Why" you might ask? The reason might just be that by then the Independent Power Projects will all be at the stage where they can be grandfathered in, even through they will not meet the standards in the new water policy. Seems there are a lot of things that we just don't understand.