http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/05/26/WikileaksAlbertaElectricity/
WikiLeaks did it again!! And this time closer to home - cables between the Alberta government and the US Ambassador Celluci say that "Alberta will produce electricity to sell to the USA, and the government will build a new transmission line to do it on, at taxpayer's expense"
But the Alberta government told Albertans the transmission line was for them, not for exporting electricity.
A much smaller line would do for Aberta's needs, and it would cost a lot less. This is a giveaway from the Ab Govt to private industry, again. The $16 billion contract to build it goes to SNC Lavalin, and Trans Alta gets the wires to sell electricity on - good gravy!!
Plus, the Ab govt quietly passed legistlation removing terms such as "public needs assessment" from laws about how government money is spent ["that public good gets to me, I think I have an allergy"]
Also distastefull is the fact that this "excess power" will come from Tar Sands operations because they have huge power plants and they use 1/3rd of Alberta's natural gas production to fire the burners in those power plants, so they want to run it all full bore all the time and sell the excess. Barf!! This is no way to scale down the Tar Sands!! [not that they would, just sayin']
Some people say that this kind of thing is going on all the time in government/corporate dealings. BC rail deal, etc etc. Do we need to have some sort of Uprising? Other options to stop the plundering of tax dollars for Elite wealth people?
--ps:
Andrew Niciforuk got the story out... on the Tyee - Are there any Albertans here to tell us if the story got into Alberta's newspapers? I will google around and see...