Open letter to Greg Reimer, Executive Vice-President Transmission and Distribution, B.C. Hydro.
Definitions:
Coercion: The use of force to obtain compliance.
Extortion: 1. The crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the use of office; 2. Oppressive or illegal exaction, as of excessive price or interest; 3. Blackmail.
Mr. Reimer: I am signing this consent form for smart meter installation not because I agree to this action, but because of coercion by BC Hydro. I would like to keep my old meter, but as a pensioner cannot afford the outrageous $35 per month added cost that Hydro is blackmailing us with. This qualifies under the definition of extortion, and I think a class action suit should be brought against Hydro in the highest courts in the land.
And now we hear that we are to be slapped with a rate hike of 28 per cent over five years! About five times the current rate of inflation. Perhaps you should be looking to slash the six-figure salaries that you and the other 17 Vice-Presidents are helping themselves to.
The rate hikes are said to be necessary to upgrade the system. Why wasn’t the money for this saved from the years of Hydro’s massive income? Instead the money was sucked off with forced payments to the BC Treasury.
Our rates still among the lowest in North America? The people of B.C. own the rivers, the dams and BC Hydro itself. Without mismanagement and political interference, our Hydro rates should be by far the lowest in the world!
The people in this, the Arrow Lake valley, have been shoved aside, expropriated and seen thousands of acres of productive land taken from them by the raising of the Arrow Lake due to the Keenleyside dam. And this is how they are rewarded: a pittance is dribbled back to them through the Columbia Basin Trust. The people affected should enjoy free, or token, hydro rates!
BC Hydro a Public Utility? More like Public Enemy No.1 from our viewpoint.
