If it’s not one thing in this province, it’s another. I’m beginning to wonder if the BC Liberals are deliberately making it so expensive to live in British Columbia, that the riff raff are forced to move to a cheaper province, hence killing two birds with one stone.
Not only do we have a carbon tax in this province, on top of the highest baseline gasoline prices in the country, but it goes up every July 1. Then we have mandatory medical services premiums which, for a family of three or more, costs an extra $1,368 in taxes. Those rates were raised for this year as well. Then there’s the new Harmonized Sales Tax, due to kick in on July 1, which will likely heave our housing market into the dumpster. Not that it matters anyway, since the average cost of a home in the lower mainland is already beyond the reach of the average person.
And if you live on the islands, it’s bad news for you. BC Ferries just raised their fares again, up by $1.75 more between Vancouver Island and the mainland. They even have a helpful chart on their website showing just how high fares have been raised since the BC Liberals turned it into a semi-privatized monopoly in 2003.
BC Hydro will be adding a little more pain to the equation if the Crown corporation has their way with us. The company will be seeking a 9.11% rate hike on electricity to cover new infrastructure costs, and provide a larger revenue cut for the BC government coffers.
BC Hydro says the increase would apply to all rate customers, whether residential, commercial, or industrial. The application will be filed with the BC Utilities Commission and should be approved for April 1.
That hike would increase your hydro bill by up to $0.25 a day on average, or as much as $7 a month. This, on top of previous increases totalling 11% over the past two years. The pain won’t end there either. The budget projected additional rate increases for the next three years of 6%, 12%, and 6%. The plan is to score a massive one-year increase in capital spending in order to repair hydroelectric dams and generating stations at a cost of $1.6 billion in 2011, almost three times the expected $566 million cost in 2010.
Although BC electricity rates have been fairly stable during the BC Liberal government, increasing just 17% from 2000-2009 while average rates in the U.S. have gone up 41% during the same time period, that could all change if BC Hydro gets its way. Documents from the Tuesday provincial budget project increases that would raise rates 33% by 2013 if all hikes are approved by the Utilities Commission.
The infrastructure upgrades include a 500-megawatt expansion of Revelstoke Dam, two turbines totalling 1,000-megawatts at nearby Mica Dam, and other regional upgrades.
But that’s not the full story here. The government is facing structural budget deficits until 2014, and we learned today that the BC Liberals pilfered the $778 million surplus from the optional insurance side of the public auto insurer, ICBC. The government will use $487 million of that money this year, lowering the actual posted deficit from $2.19 billion to $1.7 billion.
The Hydro rate increases give the province an increased divided, up to $150 million more each year for the next three years. That has to have figured in the massive 9.11% rate increases.
If BC Hydro’s rates are below the market value, then they are doing the right thing. Investment in infrastructure now pays off later. Of course, competition in a free market would be better. Same with BC ferries; cheap transport is not a right. Hail privatization!
And would you please knock it off with the HST whining? There is not a decent economist on Earth that would oppose. Best economic policy to happen to Canada this decade.
Well, of course the question then becomes, what’s the market value in a monopoly? Same with BC Ferries. So these are private monopolies. Some free market.
As for the HST, I’m not particularly interested in what economists think about the long-term effects. I’m writing about the immediate destructive effects on the average resident which are a concern to the housing, restaurant, and tourism industry. Not to mention construction, home renovation, and building materials.
Living on the Island, I am continually revising my limited budget (I’m retired!) to account for increases in things like BCFerry fares. Drive-on becomes a major factor as it is about $150.00 return, so I just don’t go unless it is a specific event and I can arrange for a walk-on. I pay a 2 tier Hydro rate for my personal use and a 2 tier rate for the condo use. As a strata chair, we spend more time discussing the cost of light bulbs than anything else. We “delay” fixing things and it costs us dearly in the long run (leaky condo – $90,000) but we have no other choice. My money no longer grows on trees!
I did the “one ton challenge” when global warming was in vogue and discovered that my usage was less than 1 ton so I couldn’t reduce very much and yet we still pay the silly carbon taxes with very little benefit … to anyone!
Tough living on an Island but then again, I didn’t shovel any snow this past winter!!
Teddi,
That carbon tax is really an unnecessary additional expense that really doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s particularly upsetting that it’s applied to things that, even by AGW science standards, are “clean energy”.
The best Premier we ever had here was W.A.C.Bennettt, whom his detractors like to call “Wacky”. As in most nicknames,Bennett was the opposite.
He believed that if taxpayer’s money had to be used to develop a resource,the taxpayers should then benefit by having CHEAP access to that resource, rather than having the money go to government for them to pour down the black hole of General Revenue.
B.C.Hydro and B.C. Gas were set up with public money and W.A.C. promised us we’d always have power and gas as cheap as possible. This was for him, a point of great pride, and we loved him for it.
Though he was a capitalist, Bennett had a bit of a socialist side, and in the case of power, he delivered for US,the taxpayer. Ferries, same logic, publicly owned,cheap rates for the people who support it. When I moved here in 1966, ferry rates to the Island were $5 for a car and driver.
Bennett considered the ferries part of the highway system, supported by the taxpayer, so the taxpayer should benefit by having cheap access to them. It worked beautifully. He bought out a private firm that had previously provided the service and expanded it to a first rate fleet.
B.C. Ferries back in the 60′s had a dining room where the service and food were excellent. People taking the ferry would make reservations in advance just to dine there on the two hour trip.
Subsequent governments using a variety of excuses, changed WAC’s system, for the better, we were assured. I know we’re all supposed to believe that monopolies are anathema to a well run system, but it depends on who runs said monopoly,I guess.
Since WAC’s time, we’ve seen all these “improvements”but the reality has been more costly and poorer service, accompanied by some astounding salaries paid to the head honchos of these “free enterprise” monopolies.
Sometimes I think of the old saying,”if it ain’t broke,don’t fix it”. It applies very much to the way this Province has been run for the last forty years.
Having a hard time imagining dining on those ferries. Must have been quite the experience. I used to pick up that crappy coffee on the Bowen Island ferry and the overpriced cookies. Course, my ride was only 30 minutes.
Adrian,the BC Ferries had a first class dining room,with all male stewards serving, and all Chinese cooks in the kitchen. A friend of mine was a steward on the ferries.
The service was excellent,the food the same. Their clam chowder was legendary.
Sounds like a good experience. I suppose the idea of a luxury class ferry would be rejected outright these days?
Yeah, well McGuinty is spending $400 million to ‘attract’ a company to Ontario to provide electricity at over twice the current rate. Guaranteeing this company a price for their electricity that is double the current rates.
What a nightmare you have to deal with McGuinty. Just knowing he’s still premier is enough to keep me out of Ontario.
Well figuring out the market value of electricity is easy. You just what they can sell it for on the market. I believe California has significant power needs and pays well for it. I’d guess that BC Hydro could probably get a higher price selling to California than they’re allowed to charge domestic consumers.
And Adrian, you know darn well that saying that the carbon tax doesn’t accomplish anything is ridiculous. You complain about how much money it takes from consumers, so clearly it must be accomplishing significant revenue generation for the government’s budget. It’s no different in this respect than the tax on the Merlot in front of me. I’m not thrilled that I had to pay more for my wine than I otherwise might have, but the revenue to cover government expenditure has to come from somewhere.
I think where I disagree with you is in attacking the revenue side of the equation. If governments are spending too much money, and I suspect they are, we need to attack the expenditure side first, if only because we have debts to pay off.
dmorris,
You’re not describing capitalism with a “bit of a socialist side”, you’re describing a system with massive government intervention in the market. It can work for some things, but it annihilates any pretense of a free market.
I dimly remember a time when, monopolies were not permitted. When citizens have no other alternatives, there should be no price gouging. However, in BC we have our own government, gouging the citizens. We need to know, how much it costs the tax payers for, government expense accounts. They seem especially reluctant to do so. Corruption costs the little guy, he is the one who has to foot the bill. There is evidence, the little guy, no longer has a job, and he has lost everything he had. There, is no longer enough little guys working, to pay the way. That is the cause of the taxing frenzy in BC. That will only cause, hundreds more citizens to become homeless. The thousands of homes in foreclosure, should tell Campbell and Hansen something. Oh well, there are none so blind, that will not see.
It really has become pretty expensive here. Well, in Vancouver anyway. What I find particularly painful is this Medical Services Plan you have to pay whether you can afford it or not. Whoever said health care is free in Canada is wrong.