Dear Bill Bennett, MLA: I am one of the 60,000 B.C. residents and Canadian citizens that has expressed my right to not have an information transmitting device installed on my home.
You have stated that “the remainder of B.C. Hydro customers has agreed to have a Smart Meter installed on their property.”
This is an outlandish overstatement.
I would like for you to present documentation that proves that every person that presently has had a transmitting device installed did so willingly. I am positive not one person in British Columbia was ever asked if they agreed to have one installed.
I live in a gated community of 300 homes owned and occupied by seniors. There are several of us that have refused the “Smart Meter.”
Many others were blindsided by having a transmitting device covertly installed without notification or permission.
I ask if you have personally read up on any of the research done both pro and con with regards to these meters? You are being told they are harmless by your friends and political hacks. They are deceiving you.
All you have to do is read the latest word from the World Health Organization which has agreed, “wireless radio systems, including smart meters, cell phones, Wi-Fi routers and a host of other wireless microwave consumer products, all of which emit toxic EMR (electromagnetic radiation) which the World Health Organization (WHO) now classifies a “Class 2B” carcinogen, (i.e. a possible cause of cancer.)”
I also ask if you are aware of the European countries and U.S. states and many cities that are reconsidering the use of these transmitters.
Your governments supposed change of policy is apparently the next step in the bullying process.
You are trying to convince us through financial threats and penalties to accept these devices.
I feel I am being held hostage and must pay a monthly fee for the same services that I have been receiving for 50 years.
By my calculations this means $20 times 60,000 equals $1,200,000 per month or $14,400,000 per year.
We will be paying these same meter readers who already exist and have existed since the first meter was installed, and they will only read the meter every two months or six times per year just like they do now.
My old meter will last 50+ years (it is now 20 years old) vs. only five years for a Smart Meter which is the life time as stated by your Corix (Hydro) representative.
My present meter costs $50 vs. $500 and according to your estimate will cost $100 to $200 to service.
I ask you what is going to be the cost to BC Hydro (us) to repair and replace the “transmitter.”
Will the cost be the same as the present cost, one billion dollars, and who will end up paying for this? The sad and unconscionable part is that this will go on for the foreseeable future.
In essence the 60,000 holdouts are saving Hydro $30,000,000 at $500 per transmitter.
Perhaps you should reconsider and credit us with the savings instead of penalizing us for standing up for our right of choice.
Are you kidding? Is this what the Liberal Party interprets as saving us money?
This thinking is worse than the fast ferries auction. For a system that your government said would save us money you have already changed the goal posts and have publicly stated, “that we will be paying more”.
It is government policies like yours that give politics a bad name.
Jim Mellors
Vernon
