Vaughn Palmer
In Victoria
The B.C. Liberals organized an airlift for Premier Gordon Campbell's announcement on Site C this week, laying on a half-dozen or so planes loaded with ministers, backbenchers, staffers, BC Hydro brass, news media, the premier's security detail and other guests.
The government-assembled multitude at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam also included the so-called Power Pioneers, veterans of the glory days of dam construction on the Peace River.
There was even a Bennett: Brad, son of ex-premier Bill, who'd not previously visited the giant dam that is named after his grandfather, the aforementioned former premier W.A.C. Bennett.
But for all the effort to invoke the past in order to springboard into the future, the entire exercise was readily and effectively dismissed by John Horgan, energy critic for the New Democratic Party opposition.
He began by challenging the scale of expenditure. All that money on staging an announcement at a time when the public service is operating under a strict freeze on travel and other kinds of spending.
The Liberals justified the extravagance by the need to make the news in the region that will be most affected by the decision to build Site C. But Horgan challenged whether the announcement even amounted to a green light for the controversial hydroelectric dam.
As the premier himself acknowledged during his remarks, the government was simply giving the go-ahead for the project to move to stage three of a five-part process.
"That's a two-page press release at most," added Horgan, who chose not to commit his party to any final stance on a project that he has expressed some enthusiasm for in the past but that is a long way from an actual go-ahead for construction.
"Project to create 35,000 jobs, lasting benefits," declared the government press release. But before Site C can spawn even one job in the construction sector, it still has to clear environmental reviews, both federally and provincially.
The government also needs to consult First Nations and accommodate their interests, a separate process fraught with constitutional and legal pitfalls.
Plus there's a range of other issues to be decided. The method of construction on a site with major engineering challenges. The budget, almost certain to exceed the ballpark estimate of $6.6 billion. Whether the power is needed and at what cost.
"We don't believe we need the power at this time," Horgan told reporters, but added that his party was prepared to change its mind "if the review can demonstrate that this is the next best option."
At the same time, he wasn't about to pander to the sworn opponents of the project - the usual suspects who weighed in with the usual press releases Monday - by calling for Site C to be killed before it has been submitted for review.
Horgan's stance on Site C reflects the one urged by party president Moe Sihota on the no-less contentious Enbridge proposal to construct a pipeline to carry oilsands crude through northern B.C. to Kitimat.
"We should trust the environmental assessment process," said Sihota during a recent commentary on the Early Edition on CBC Radio. "I helped craft the environmental assessment legislation and I think you have to give the system some credit for the way it has worked in the past," he said, referring to his time as a cabinet minister in the NDP governments of the 1990s.
"As long as the government doesn't reduce those standards that are applied, then I think environmental assessment on its own will kill this project because it's not immune to considerations around first nations and the environmental risks are very, very high."
As with the pipeline, so with the hydroelectric dam. Until those projects clear environmental review and until they win approval from the affected First Nations, they are no more than possibilities. No need for the Opposition to do more than watch closely as the proponents -- the pipeline company, the Crown corporation -- try to make the case for going ahead.
New Democrats are further inclined to hold back because of the provincial government's severe political difficulties.
The most recent Angus Reid poll, released Friday, had the Liberals trailing the New Democrats by 18 points, the best showing for the NDP and the worst for the Liberals in two decades.
The governing party's credibility is pretty much shot as well. Arrogant, dishonest, secretive and uncaring were just some of the opinions shared by many responding to the pollster.
Most of the blame can be attributed to the government's handling of the harmonized sales tax which was -- well, if the poll fits, wear it -- arrogant, dishonest, secretive and uncaring.
When governments get into this much political trouble, the fallout spreads to everything they try to do. Their better ideas are tainted by association with the really bad ones. Site C has some merit. But there's good reason to question whether a government with these credibility problems can make a case for it with the public.
