As we await the release of ministerial mandate letters, and with the first sitting of new B.C. legislators a month or so away, one thing has become abundantly clear…life will not be getting more affordable.
After opening my monthly trauma missives (also known as bills), I note both Fortis BC and BC Hydro hiked their rates beginning Jan. 1, 2025.
While annual increases are understandable – costs of everything continue to rise after all – compensatory salary bumps or better paying jobs are not materializing at the same rate.
And, let me be clear, adding good-paying government jobs is not a sound economic strategy. That’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. One small mercy despite the ballooning deficit, the minister of finance placed a moratorium on adding public sector jobs.
Pondering the annual utility rate increases led me to consider who uses the utilities, who is most impacted by the spike in costs, and how expanding our energy sources could reduce expenses across the province.
Electricity can only take us so far
On the topic of energy sources, Premier David Eby and his ministers green-lit nine new wind generation projects last month. Citing the urgency of meeting B.C.’s escalating power generation needs, they granted those projects, and all future wind farms, a blanket exemption from the provincial environmental assessment process.
“We need to do more to get larger projects online faster,” said Environment Minister Tamara Davidson, explaining projects will bypass environmental assessments and instead undergo a “rigorous provincial permitting process.”
First Nations across the province will become majority owners of these wind power generation projects and “full partners in our shared, sustainable future.”
How these new projects will affect British Columbians is an open question.
Right now, the majority of electric vehicle sales are driven in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. This makes sense. Their climate and travel distances align with the capabilities of electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles in central and northern B.C., on the other hand, are less practical and in some circumstances could be dangerously unreliable.
Transportation needs in the north often exceed the limitations of electric vehicles. Temperatures are colder, with less access to charging infrastructure, much further travel distances, and more challenging terrain and weather conditions.
Home heating demands are also more onerous outside the urban density of greater Vancouver and southern Vancouver Island. No matter how many people wear Canada Goose jackets during the ‘winter’ in Vancouver, it’s no comparison to a -30C cold snap in central B.C. and the north.
When the mercury falls below -10C, natural gas usage necessarily increases, and -10C is just a starting point. With regular winter temperatures falling well below that mark, our rural furnaces are churning hard 24 hours-a-day.
The totality of these differences means that, once again, central and northern B.C. carry a disproportionate amount of these gas and electricity increases.
Rural British Columbians actively fund the hydro infrastructure that supports the electric vehicles and natural gas bans in the south, while paying higher and higher rates to heat our own homes. And we have no choice but to rely on natural gas to do so.
Let’s also not forget that our food is travelling longer distances to reach us, which jacks up food prices outside immediate distribution centres.
Nuclear energy is a viable option
The solution lies in developing wide-ranging energy production from a variety of sources.
We have energy options in B.C., such as small modular nuclear reactors. And despite the challenging framework of CleanBC, we have the opportunity to make those options a reality.
If we choose to do so.
Instead of relying solely on energy generation that can only serve part of the province, let’s develop additional clean forms of energy to fuel all of B.C.
Nuclear energy is a clean source of energy that, when managed in a framework as progressive and tactical as B.C. is capable of doing, could help us become the leaders in nuclear energy production, exporting our clean energy to other parts of the world and expanding our energy generation revenue.
Between LNG and nuclear power options we can create good-paying private sector jobs that help to stabilize our economy. A combination of wind, LNG and nuclear would support our growing electricity needs while enhancing pathways to economic reconciliation throughout our towns, villages, hamlets and cities.