VICTORIA, B.C. – Statement from BC Green MLA for West Vancouver–Sea to Sky Jeremy Valeriote on Bill 31, the Energy Statues Amendments Act:
“This bill represents a fundamental choice about who gets power—literally and figuratively—in British Columbia. It’s déjà vu: the government is giving themselves unchecked authority, just like with Bills 14 and 15.”
“We fully support the part of this Bill that enables Indigenous co-ownership of the North Coast Transmission Line with BC Hydro. However, it is being used as a disguise for this government to gut the B.C. Utilities Commission’s established role of a non-partisan body making independent, technically robust decisions in the public interest. The Premier decided unilaterally that there is ‘no debate’ about this transmission line, without a transparent assessment of whether that is the case.”
“At its core, the North Coast Transmission Line is a public subsidy for resource extraction, not a long-term investment in BC’s clean energy future. When the Minister talks about the need to support industries that create jobs and revenue for British Columbia, we need the criteria to be transparent and independent, not piecemeal energy rationing for political purposes. The bill purports to enable an Energy Allocation Framework, with the details to be determined in regulation, behind closed doors by Cabinet. With no detail on this framework or the criteria for decision-making in Bill 31, we are concerned that the Minister could be the one making these consequential determinations under the influence of friends or lobbyists.”
“We need to see the evidence-based analysis; after all, BC Hydro is a public utility and should be transparent to the public and ratepayers who will ultimately pick up the tab. The consolidation of power that this government is introducing has us concerned on who the government will deem to be the haves and have nots. The wording on AI and cryptocurrency is so vague, that the government—or a future government—could still decide to divert massive amounts of power and water to those industries without accountability or transparency.
“This government has painted itself into a corner: it has LNG projects that need to connect to the grid, and it doesn’t have the power to supply them. LNG ultimately creates fewer jobs than what the government predicts and more revenue for shareholders than for British Columbians. This government’s effort to greenwash methane gas export as the lowest-emission LNG is like claiming the retirement of the guillotine is the end of capital punishment—it’s a change in the execution, not in the result.”
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Media contact
Ryan Hook
Press Secretary
BC Green Caucus
+1 250-882-6187 | ryan.hook@leg.bc.ca