A Fort St. John environmentalist has claimed that Senator Richard Neufeld, a former B.C. Liberal energy minister, suggested to her city council that electricity from the proposed Site C dam would help power the extraction of fossil fuels.

“I was surprised that a federal senator would come to a [February 8] city council meeting and urge council to get on the train, so to speak,” Peace Valley Environment Association coordinator Sandra Hoffmann told the Straight by phone from her home. “It seems to me to be out of his jurisdiction as a federal senator. I would think that if the council was going to listen to anyone seriously, then it would be the current energy minister, as opposed to the former energy minister, and it would be Blair Lekstrom there and not Senator Neufeld.”

In a press release issued February 10, PVEA charged the Gordon Campbell government with “hypocrisy” for its February 9 throne speech that promised that B.C. would “lower greenhouse gas emissions within and beyond our borders”. B.C. was the only province that saw its GHGs increase in 2009, the release claimed.

In the throne speech, the Campbell government also promised that it “will optimize existing generation facilities and report on the Site C review this spring”.

Late last year, B.C. Hydro sent to the provincial government its report on the on-again, off-again Site C dam on the Peace River. If the B.C. Liberals give the go ahead, Site C will proceed to the environmental-assessment stage.

PVEA claimed in its release that the throne speech identified the connection of the Horn River Basin petroleum development to the B.C. transmission grid, which would allow “accelerated development of Horn River Basin Gas”.

“This gas is targeted to support oil sands development in Alberta and coincidentally the pipelines to Kitimat and the awaiting super tankers ready to take the oil and gas off-shore to produce more greenhouse gases in Asia”, the release stated.

Jake Jacobs, spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, has repeatedly refused to make Lekstrom available for an interview on Site C.

“I know that there has been some discussion ongoing about the amount of electricity that would be needed in Fort Nelson with the advent of the Horn River Basin, which is in the magnitude of 500 MW [megawatts],” the release quotes Neufeld as having told the council. “Understanding Site C would generate about 900 MW, it’s a significant amount of Site C so I think we can all get some benefits out of this as long as we are all on the same boat.”

(Video of the council meeting is available on-line.)