B.C. Liberals incumbent Richard Lee was in the hot seat at an all-candidates meeting at Gilmore Community School Wednesday evening.
Burnaby North candidates Lee, Peter Hallschmid (Greens) and Janet Routledge (NDP) took questions from the audience of around 40 people for one-and-a-half hours on a range of topics from grizzly bear trophy hunting, the Site C dam and the Kinder Morgan pipeline, to hospitals, seniors’ care and education. Several questions directly addressed grievances with the sitting Liberal government. Some aimed directly at Lee himself, such as a question about Big Bang Theory posters and photos at his constituency office.
A member of the audience asked Lee why the B.C. Liberal government chose not to have Site C reviewed by the B.C. Utilities commission, suggesting doing so was against the law.
“I believe the government has the power to decide to give the go-ahead,” Lee said.
The audience member followed up by asking why the commission exists if the government does not use it.
Lee said some projects go through the commission and others do not, and about the government: “They have the right to decide.”
"If anyone believes that the government has violated the law, that person can bring the government to Court," Lee elaborated in a tweet Thursday.
UBC Professor George Hoberg re-iterated Lee's comments.
"There's no justification to say avoiding BCUC review for Site C is unlawful. The Clean Energy Act specifically exempted Site C and several other major projects," he said in an email. "Prior to the Act, Site C would have had to been reviewed either on its own or as part of a broader long term plan. The Act also changed the law to exclude long term planning from BCUC review."
The B.C. Utilities Commission was created in 1980 to give independent oversight to utilities projects through unbinding recommendations. In 2010 the B.C. government enacted the Clean Energy Act, however Site C was explicitly exempted in that same law.
