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Letter: Wildfire funding problematic, should be privatized

West Kelowna - “What will happen in B.C. before and after the next B.C. election?”
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To the editor:

What will happen in B.C. before and after the next B.C. election? First, liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson will gain no support with most B.C. voters to scrap the speculation tax. The liberals will lose the 2020 B.C. election. I predicted Christy Clark’s liberals would lose the election in 2017 plus lose her riding. She stepped down as liberal leader which caused a by-election. My prediction was bang on.

Second, will the B.C. forest service be able to continue as a government corporation? It’s obvious they do not know how to put out fires in B.C. for the last 40 years, only mop-up fires after fires destroy millions, billions and maybe into the trillions of dollars of merchant revenue timber. I’m predicting that the B.C. forest service will be forced to forfeit their rights to look after the forest of B.C. They couldn’t blow out a wooden match. Privatizing is the only option to save out B.C. forest revenue.

We must never forget the Okanagan Mountain Park fire in 2001 — one lightning strike near Rattlesnake Island across from Peachland. The fire department in Peachland wanted to do and put it out but the B.C. forest service from Pentiction told them not to act. If I remember right, 147 homes burned down up to East Kelowna along with thousands of acres of forest and no one was fined or held accountable. What a crime.

The California wildfires in the USA are as bad as B.C. President Donald Trump stated the California forest service does not know how to put out fires or prevent them from happening. It’s the same in B.C. The California and B.C. forest service must forfeit their rights to look after our forest.

They’re both totally useless and have not protected our countries from wildfires.

I predicted in 2014, 2015 that Site C dam will never be completed and now I say if it’s completed it will not last long before it will be shut down for good. And who’s to blame? Christy Clark and John Horgan who did not and will not listen to the people of B.C. who did not want Site C dam to flood good agricultural land.

But still much worse is it is should the dam have to shut down and we in B.C. would have a debt to pay back somewhere between $10 to $15 billion for nothing. When in reality we in B.C. don’t need the power and we most likely won’t even be able to sell the power elsewhere and maybe if at low prices, will not profit in the end. B.C., Alberta and the USA are not in a healthy relationship these days.

What B.C. should do instead of going ahead with Site C dam, just to give unions work, was to take that $10-15 billion to clean our forest floor of dead wood, select log only and prevent dead fuel debris giving unions and B.C. people plenty of work. Will site C dam bring down the NDP?

Fourth, this will be a big election battle if I myself could wake up B.C. cities.

Mel Gauthier

West Kelowna