New Democrats love to hate Site C even as their climate goals require all the electricity it will generate and more
B.C.’s Site C dam mega project hit a major milestone this week and there was nary a peep out of the BC NDP government.
The premier didn’t congratulate BC Hydro for completing the largest clean energy project in provincial history. No cabinet minister swooped in to cut a ribbon. There wasn’t even a self-congratulatory press release — something the political arm of the government does for itself regularly when it doles out as little as a few hundred dollars to a local community cheese festival.
Such is the history of Site C — a project New Democrats love to hate, even as they prepare to use all the electricity it will generate (and then some) to power their climate push away from fossil fuels.
BC Hydro finished filling the 83-kilometre-long reservoir northeast of Fort St. John on Thursday, covering 9,330 hectares.
“Reservoir filling for the Site C project has been safely completed after 11 weeks, with the water level at the dam site increasing by about 43 metres,” BC Hydro said in a dry press release, filled with no congratulatory remarks or even the slightest hint of accomplishment.
Just a couple of weeks prior, the first of the six generating units at the dam went live, feeding actual generated electricity from Site C into the provincial power grid for the first time since former premier Christy Clark approved the project in 2014.
“Affordable, reliable, clean electricity is the backbone of British Columbia’s economy,” Clark said at the time. “Site C will support our quality of life for decades to come and will enable continued investment and a growing economy.”
Initially against Site C, Horgan later supported it
You won’t catch a New Democrat saying anything even remotely as complimentary about Site C.
That’s because the party fiercely opposed the idea in opposition, saying it was too expensive, would flood valuable farmland, harm Indigenous territory, damage the environment and become a financial boondoggle.
But then the NDP took power in 2017 and premier John Horgan faced a choice: Lay off 4,500 workers and lose billions cancelling the project mid-construction, or see it through to lifting B.C. power production eight per cent annually, or 5,100 gigawatt hours, of new clean electricity.
Horgan chose to keep going, begrudgingly.
“I want to stress this is not a project that we favoured, it’s not a project we would have started, but we’re three years in,” he said in 2017. “I was not prepared to foreclose on the future generations by making a decision today that would make me feel good.”
The cost of the project would spike several times from the original $6 billion budget — starting at $8 billion under the NDP and then almost doubling to $14 billion in subsequent years. The governing party blames the previous Liberals for fabricating an unrealistic budget.
Despite that, Horgan grew to support Site C.
“Is there a consequence for the valley? Absolutely. But the benefits are substantial.”
John Horgan
He was a veteran of the hardhat-wearing, blue-collar, working-class side of the NDP. He bragged about the many new skilled trades jobs generated there. He visited the massive project in person, calling the sheer scope (enough earthfill was used to build a metre-high wall across the entire country) an “engineering marvel.”
“We need the electricity if we’re going to decarbonize our economy. Having 1,100 megawatts of firm, dispatchable power on a river that already has two dams on it, I believe, is in the best interest of British Columbia,” Horgan told the Alaska Highway News in 2022.
“It will allow us to accelerate electric cars and other electrification of the gas fields here, for example, in the Peace. There’s nothing but positives that come from it. Is there a consequence for the valley? Absolutely. That can’t be dismissed. But the benefits are substantial.”
Urban NDP environmentalists still oppose dam
The Horgan New Democrats built Site C’s power into their CleanBC plans, co-crafted with the BC Greens. Incentives for heat pumps, electric vehicles, and eco-friendly renovations were all made possible by the new, reliable, power to be provided by Site C.
That underpinning is still there under current Premier David Eby’s CleanBC plans. But long gone is any enthusiasm for the jobs, economic generation or engineering fortitude that Horgan admired.
Eby comes from the urban environmental side of the NDP — the kind of New Democrats who get their construction gear from Arc’teryx.
Cost overruns outrageous, says Rustad
“The NDP government is embarrassed by the fact it’s $16 billion as opposed to the $8 billion it was originally supposed to be,” BC Conservative leader John Rustad told me in an interview.
“That speaks to either incredible incompetence by BC Hydro, or what exactly did the NDP do to jack up that price tag?”
Rustad, who was in Clark’s cabinet when Site C was approved, said the power is critical, but the cost overruns are ridiculous.
“Site C is an important piece of additional power to come on stream,” he said. “I’m outraged at the cost. But it’s important to have that online.”
Eby silent on major LNG milestones
Site C is just one of four major projects at or nearing completion in the province, including the LNG Canada project, which began receiving natural gas from recently completed Coastal GasLink pipeline in September. The NDP, which, under Horgan, offered $6 billion in tax and regulatory relief over 40 years, in exchange for an estimated $22 billion in revenue to the provincial treasury, hasn’t said one word about any of these progress milestones.
That’s partly because Eby doesn’t support LNG.
He’s also emerged from a close-fought election campaign with a bare majority, and is trying to cut a support deal with the BC Greens, who oppose LNG outright and want a ban on both natural gas and fracking.
“Eby isn’t going to change who he is.”
John Rustad
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, another generator of thousands of jobs, was also completed earlier this year without any government praise.
B.C.’s business community has been calling on the government to scale back Clean BC, recognize the gravity of the completed projects on the provincial economy, and chart a course toward future economic growth.
And the NDP is under tremendous pressure to show some type of support for rural British Columbia, after losing two cabinet ministers from the north and interior in the election.
But Rustad said, don’t expect the NDP to actually change its positions, even if it does emerge from its silence on the massive projects.
“David Eby isn’t going to change who he is,” said Rustad. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots.”