Open letter to all BC residents

The sale of BC Gas to Terasen Gas and now to Kinder Morgan of the USA is a matter of great concern to me and I am sure to all British Columbians. Here are a few points we must consider before this important business transaction is approved by all levels of government and all commissions.
1. According to my knowledge, the BC Utilities Commission is a regulatory body ensuring the supply of utilities to BC residents at cost and reasonable profit. What is the definition of cost? And what amount or percent is reasonable profit? Let us say cost is all costs of a company, which includes office overheads etc. It means we, the BC residents, will be responsible for Kinder Morgan’s US head office costs.
2. A province or country should never sell its essential services or resources without which residents cannot live, in this case the sale of Terasen Gas, a BC company, to an American company. What does it mean to our future generations? They will not have the right of access to natural gas in their own homeland and we will be dependent on the mercy of Kinder Morgan to supply BC residents with natural gas. One can argue that if Terasen does not supply us with gas we can survive on electricity, but is this what BC residents want? If yes who gets to decide? BC residents, a few commissioners or Premier Gorden Campbell? If we continue to allow takeovers of resources and services, we become economic slaves.
3. Premier Campbell and all concerned – Haven’t we learned a lesson after losing $5 billion on softwood lumber? How may more billions of dollars do we have to lose before we will wake up?
I understand that Premier Campbell has an MBA; it does not make any sense to me to sell our natural resources to a private company and then buy them back at higher rates? What part of his education taught him that this is sound economics? Government has to buy this resource for its infrastructure use. Is it any wonder Mexico refused to sign the energy sharing part of NAFTA that Canada signed. Under NAFTA we can never reduce the amount of oil and gas we ship to the US.
Let us hand this project over to a sitting MBA class at UBC or SFU or any university in Canada and have students analyze if the sale of Terasen to Kinder Morgan is a good business transaction for the long run. Remember natural gas prices in BC have gone up by almost 25 percent just since January. What do we want to leave behind for our children and grandchildren? The decision to act is yours, act now. Write letters and emails to your MLAs and MPs to stop this now before it is too late.

Rajesh Chawla