The following is an excerpt from the ECOreport Radio post by Roy L. Hales.
The last of the B.C. Utility Commission’s Community Input Sessions was at the Victoria, on October 11, 2017. Having already covered this story dozens of times, I was not that interested in listening to a repetition of the same old arguments. So I asked Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee, “What do you think Site C is really about?”
“I think it is a pet project of a Premier and a political party, that, once enough of my generation got old enough to vote, we rejected on mass. I think it is about making money for a handful of people. It is about a government that, the corporations that it deals with – be it gas companies or logging companies – can not get social license to do significant development and provide jobs. So they [the previous BC Government] are using their power, as overseers of B.C. Hydro, to force through development,” he replied.
“They are going about it in completely the wrong way. To force this project through on First Nations that does not want it, on a public that does not want it: is not how you build support and trust. That is what I am going to speak to in the hearings tonight.”
“My generation needs a BC Hydro that has the trust of the public. B.C. Hydro can be a really important tool, for the citizens of this province, as a public utility based on renewable resources … That is going to be a huge asset as we move forward in a changing climate. It is not going to be able to that if it does not have any trust or respect from the public and that is what pushing ahead with this dam would do.”
Read the rest of the interview with Torrance and others here.