BC NDP slips up on Site C power dam

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On Dec. 11, British Columbia’s New Democratic Party Premier John Horgan announced that his government would complete the third massive power dam on the beautiful Peace River in northeastern BC at a cost of $11 billion. Andrew Weaver, leader of the BC Green Party— who signed a “confidence and supply” agreement with the labour-based NDP allowing it to form a minority government after 16 years of right-wing rule by the BC Liberal Party—condemned the decision. But Weaver said he would not force an election over it.

The Site C go-ahead tramples the rights of Indigenous peoples in BC. It mocks the promise of the BC NDP to respect those rights. The dam will flood 80 kilometers of forest along the river and bury over 6500 hectares (14,000 acres) of prime agricultural land (BC Hydro es­ timate), along with the history, cultural treasures, and burial grounds of the Native peoples.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs stated that “a nod of approval doesn’t guarantee that this project will, in fact, happen. Certainly, there are thousands of people that are bitterly disappointed.” Bob Botterell, attorney for the Peace Valley Landowners’ Association, said that his clients viewed the NDP gov­ ernment review process preceding the “go” decision as a sham. He predicted that his clients would use every The cause of death of billionaire Barry Sherman, 75, and his wife Honey, 70, on Dec. 15 in Toronto remains a mystery.

Murder or suicide, the outcome is truly a tragedy. But the outpouring of adora­ tion for the super-rich couple by the big business media and politicians, the gushing praise by Canada’s elite for the two is not only disproportionate by any objective measure; it obscures a harsh reality.

Behind the veneer of philanthropy, Apotex, Sherman’s drug firm with an­ nual revenues of $1.2 billion and 10,000 employees in Canada and abroad, launched hundreds of lawsuits against competitors.

Amir Attaran, professor in the Facul­ ties of Law and Medicine at the Uni­ versity of Ottawa, told the Toronto Star that Sherman’s public relations machine portrayed his court battles to overturn patents as his attempt to pro­ vide cheaper drugs for Canadians in the form of generics.

“That is outrageous fabrication,” said Attaran, “Because for all his efforts be­ ing the biggest generic drug company in Canada ... Canada pays among the high­ est prices in the world for generics.”

A 1998 Toronto Star story described Apotex as “a pit bull,” constantly look­ ing to expand its territory in the phar­ maceutical world and beating off at­ tacks by its competitors.

In one of Apotex’s most high-profile battles, the company went to war with Dr. Nancy Olivieri, a blood disease spe­ cialist at SickKids Hospital in Toronto. Olivieri was researching the drug de­ feriprone as an alternative treatment for thalassemia, a disorder that can lead to unsafe buildups of iron.

When Olivieri raised concerns about potentially life threatening risks of the drug, Sherman’s company initiated le­ gal action and pulled funding for her clinical trial. Years later, in 2014, Ol­ in Canada can be written off over as much as 30 years.

The original project cost estimate in 2012 was $6.6 billion; it is now $11 billion. No one really knows what it will cost to proceed. All of this will be financed by high grade BC bonds—a boon to the financial brokers and bankers of Canada. Instead, $11 billion could finance 100 new schools or 20 new hospitals.

Environmentalists point to rapidly falling prices of so­ lar, wind, and geothermal power, and to the geometric increases in battery storage capacity. If the project were stopped today and simply re-mediated, and the prov­ ince proceeded instead with solar and wind projects, the power could be generated more cheaply and with no violation of the rights of Indigenous people or any destruction of the fertile Peace River Valley.

ivieri and Apotex settled their mutual lawsuits.

Research integrity and patient safety were at the heart of the issue, said Ar­ thur Schafer, a University of Manitoba professor and founding director of the school’s Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics. “The Olivieri scandal was the greatest ethical scandal I would say in Canadian corporate history and certainly in pharmaceutical history,” he said. “It’s included now in bioethics textbooks, it’s a standard illustration of how drug company power can be used to subvert the integrity of research hospitals and universities when the profitability of the company and the ef­ fectiveness and safety of their drugs is challenged by a researcher.”

Sherman’s defenders may still point to the billionaire’s donation of millions of dollars to a variety of charities. He could certainly afford to do so. In a 2007 Na­ tionl Post article, Apotex revealed that it spent roughly $60-million a year on le­ More recently, Michelle Mungall, the BC NDP’s new Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, stated in Vancouver, “Our position has always been sup­ portive of LNG, as long as the industry meets our four conditions. And what I think is important to remem­ ber is that conditions are not roadblocks; they’re road maps.” Mungall’s job description letter from the premier includes a directive to nurture the sector, based on four criteria: a “fair return” for the province, accommoda­ tion of First Nations’ interests, protection of the envi­ ronment, and guarantees of jobs and training for British Columbians.

Given the Site C decision and the loose approach to the facts and the reasons for proceeding, can the NDP be trusted to negotiate these conditions in good faith? Basically, jobs and royalties are likely all they consider worth fighting for. If the LNG dream becomes reality, it would put the BC NDP government squarely on the wrong side of the struggle for environmen­ tal sanity—right alongside the tar sands oil industry backed by Alberta’s NDP govern­ ment.

The Site C decision makes it abundantly clear that the struggle to defend Indigenous rights and the environment is not centred in the parliamentary arena. It must be waged and won in the streets—by mass action. In­ digenous peoples, environmentalists, deeply disappointed New Democrats, young people, and trade unionists who understand that planetary survival is the only way to defend workers in the medium term, should unite to stop this sellout to big oil and gas, and to the financial institutions that fund them. n gal fees alone. On the subject of philan­ thropy, the final word goes to Oshawa autoworker and political commentator Corey Weir, who inscribed this in his December blog: “I’m so sick of people praising billion­ aires as ‘philanthropists.’ When work­ ing class people donate to charitable causes, they are donating their own labour essentially; when billionaires act as philanthropists they are donating stolen labour in the form of exorbitant profit they’ve leeched from their work­ ers. At the end of the day, working class people are still responsible for putting that money towards any given cause— their labour created it—a fact that is obfuscated by the bosses’ appropria­ tion of it. “Even in charity they are parasites. If they felt a true moral obligation to the world, they couldn’t allow themselves to accumulate wealth at the expense of the suffering and death caused by poverty they themselves create. Stop cheering for ruthless scumbags who are only trying to avoid the pitchfork and the guillotine.” n