Once again, columnist Tom Fletcher reveals his deep political partisanship (his wife does public relations for Christy Clark) in his most recent column, claiming that Site C must be built, and that resistance to it by other political leaders is wrong.
His comments seem directly drawn from his wife’s employer’s PR scripts.
Fletcher makes demeaning remarks about the judgment of everyone except Christy Clark’s political allies, like BC Hydro’s leadership, and MLAs Bill Bennett and Mike Bernier – both fracking industry promoters.
B.C. electricity demands have stayed static over the last decade. As a result, Harry Swain, the head of the joint federal-provincial task force which reviewed Site C several years ago, has emphatically stated that it should not go ahead. Several leading Canadian economists have agreed.
Prof. Karen Bakker’s team at UBC’s Program on Water Governance recently completed a detailed review of the project; they recommended mothballing it now, and possibly forever.
Fletcher flatly dismisses such expertise out of hand.
Wendy Holm, who has pointed out the agricultural value of soil in the potentially flooded Peace River Valley, is a senior award-winning agrologist.
Fletcher mocks this position as “outlandish.”
Some years ago, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) indicated, in writing, that it was eager to use most of the electricity from Site C to power fracking operations in northeastern B.C. Former Liberal Environment Minister Mary Polak dropped broad hints about this arrangement when announcing her party’s ill-advised Climate Leadership Plan.
Fletcher obscures this with misleading language, focusing on Christy’s favourite “LNG,” not “fracking.” But dirty fracking extracts the gas used to make LNG.
Tom Fletcher acts like a resolute anti-science denier of man-made climate change, echoing one political party’s propaganda.
Propaganda is fact-poor emotional language, designed to twist your mind.
His remarks should be recognized as such.
Warren Bell