Answer of the Save Our Rivers Society to the so-called

“white paper”put out by The BC Citizens for Green Energy
by SORS

The BC Citizens for Green Energy (BCCGE) are shills for Private Power producers and have just issued an unbelievable statement about the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in response to what Save Our Rivers Society has been saying on the subject.
 
The statement says, in essence, that there is nothing in NAFTA that would compel BC to permit the export of water (Save Our Rivers Society has never said there was); that nothing in NAFTA forces BC to permit continued use of Crown land beyond the termination of a lease (Save Our Rivers Society never says there was); that NAFTA panels are reluctant to find government legislation to be an expropriation of an investment and are reluctant to award substantial damages if such happens, (Save Our Rivers Society has offered no speculation as to what NAFTA panels might or might do but raises risks of what they might do, risks that prudent and democratic governments ought to consider and advise the citizens about. We do not raise these capriciously but based on what experts in the field tell us.)
 
In fact, instead of leaping to conclusions based upon an expert who supports them, SORS uses expert opinion to call attention to all risks that should be acknowledged and dealt with.
 

BCCGE completely misses the point and does it by contortions of basic English grammar. The question is not what NAFTA compels or doesn’t compel – NAFTA is a trade document, not a code of law. The question is how a panel of NAFTA would interpret the treaty when asked to do so – quite a different thing. Based upon expert advice Save Our Rivers Society has raised risks, risks that should be put forward by any responsible government for debate and analysis by its citizens.

 
It’s critical to remember that because NAFTA is an international treaty its rulings probably trump any federal, provincial or local laws and likely trump private agreements too.

 
The BC Citizens for Green Energy ought to have read the document they used as the basis of their argument (an argument prepared by: David Johansen, Law and Government Division on 20 February 2001 (the website is long and contorted but Google gets it for you easily).

 
Mr. Johansen does indeed argue the case for BCCGE but in doing so concedes that there is much expert opinion to the contrary. The argument turns on whether “water” is a “good” and whether the definition by a signatory to NAFTA is definitive of the matter. Mr. Johansen observes that; “Critics such as Wendy Holm and the Council of Canadians contend that section 7 of the implementing legislation is insufficient protection without an amendment to the NAFTA itself and that only such an explicit exemption can protect Canada’s water resources from U.S. interests.  These critics claim that the domestic legislation is not binding on NAFTA panels and that currently the Agreement itself would be given precedence over domestic legislation.”

 
On 3 and 4 April 1993, the Victoria Times-Colonist devoted its lead weekend editorials to the NAFTA and water resources.  It stated that the testimony of Ms. Holm in her appearances before the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Trade and the British Columbia Select Standing Committee on Economic Development, Science, Labour, Training and Technology, “shows clearly that under NAFTA, water will be treated as a ‘good,’ subject to the same rules as the other ‘goods and services’ under the FTA and the NAFTA.”

 
Here, then, is what Save Our Rivers Society says: there is a very distinct conflict between what Mr. Johansen says and what Wendy Holm and others say. Because the experts disagree, this clearly means that the provisions of NAFTA are open to debate thus pose a risk, a real risk when American interests have been given rights to our water.

 
Save Our Rivers Society doesn’t say that these and similar things will happen but that there is a very distinct risk that they will.

 
The government sin is in not alerting the public of the risks of NAFTA, as usual believing that they’re not to be trusted with uncomfortable facts or unpleasantness, especially during an election.
 
 In conclusion – unlike BC Citizens for Green Energy (“green energy” being the “New Speak” of George Orwell’s 1984) Save our Rivers Society has no monetary interest in the outcome of this debate. We take no institutional funding of any sort and rely upon the generosity of private individuals. We support public power and simply want all the issues surrounding private power development placed before the public of British Columbia; and we seek the truth.

 

 

 

Postscript: BC Citizens for Green Energy persist in saying that BC is a net importer of energy. This may be true of BC Hydro (the figures they use) but when all the power sources are counted, including Alcan, Teck Cominco and Fortis (which all produce for domestic, export or both) BC is a net exporter.

BC Hydro is our public energy utility and we’re envied the world over for it. Its unique ability to store power in the form of water behind our large dams enables Hydro to buy power inexpensively at night from Alberta and re sell it the next day during peak periods thus our publicly owned BC Hydro makes a neat profit by, in effect, “flipping” the power. This is turned on its head by BCCFP which claims we must import power from Alberta.

One last thing – BCCFP dismisses the research we use as being “a couple of students”; when you deal with arguments with off hand, ad hominem attacks directed at young students that should tell us something about the integrity of their argument.
Remember, private river schemes, by reason of mother nature, only makes the vast majority of its electricity during the spring run-off at the very time BC hydro has full reservoirs and can’t use it. Therefore virtually all of this power is destined for export right from the beginning.