April 03 2003

BC Hydro and ICBC Survey

ROBBINS/ SCE Research was commissioned and paid for in part by Reform BC, it’s Directors and friends of Reform. Its purpose was to confirm the sentiments of voters in keeping British Columbia’s resources in the hands of the Crown Corporation.

Until the resignation of Jack Weisgerber, Richard Neufeld and Martyn Brown, now special advisor to BC Liberal leader Gordon Campbell, they represented policy and research for the Reform Party of B.C.

When Mr. Glenn Clark, former NDP premier and minister of BC Hydro, wanted to sell off the profitable International side of BC Hydro, neither Messer’s Weisgerber or Brown wanted to intercede on Reform’s behalf in keeping 100 % of Hydro in the hands of the public. It isn’t any wonder that these three former Reformers are all in the BC Liberal’s camp, supporting the privatization of BC Hydro.

The results of the following survey are astounding. It clearly and most certainly shows that the BC Liberal Government does not represent the will of the people. One has to wonder, just whom does the BC Liberals represent on this issue. Certainly not the people. The survey is as follows;

ROBBINS/SCE Coquitlam: A survey of 1,082 respondents throughout 79 ridings in British Columbia relating to BC Hydro, the privatization of administration to the Accenture firm of Bermuda, the privatization of ICBC, contracts involving BC publicly owned Crown Corporations and Corporations outside BC and Canada was conducted.

This survey took place between March 28, 2003 and April 3, 2003. The margin of error is 2.5%, nineteen times out of twenty, at 98% competency rate.

Question #1.
In your opinion should BC Hydro remain a totally publicly owned BC Crown Corporation?
Yes 96.40%
No 3.60%

Question #2
Do you agree with the BC Liberals decision to privatize part of BC Hydro by selling the administration portion of the Corporation to the Bermuda based Accenture firm?
Yes 2.13%
No 97.87%

Question#3
Should the BC government allow contracts involving BC Crown Corporations to go to Corporations located outside the Province of British Columbia?
Yes 19.96%*
No 80.04%

Respondents who answered “Yes” to Question #3 were asked “Should the BC government allow contracts involving BC Crown Corporations to go to Corporations located outside Canada”? Only (2.59%) of the 100% total number of respondents answered “Yes” to this question, with some of these respondents qualifying their answer by indicating that there were only some countries “outside of Canada” that they would agree to involve.

Question#4
In your opinion should The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia be privatized?
Yes 43.25%
No 56.75%

Question#5
In your opinion should The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia give up its monopoly on all aspects of automobile insurance in BC?
Yes 71.35%
No 28.65%

Highlights:

This survey reveals that virtually all respondents want to keep BC Hydro entirely intact as a Crown Corporation. Nearly every respondent to Question #2 does not agree with the BC Liberal government selling off part of BC Hydro to the Accenture firm out of Bermuda.

The first “Yes” response to Question #2 was not achieved until the 281st respondent was contacted, and commented, “This poll must be an NDP poll”.

Respondents in this survey indicated clearly that contracts and jobs relating to government Crown Corporations should be kept primarily in BC, and not outside Canada.

A bare majority of respondents do not want to privatize ICBC, yet an overwhelming majority want to increase competition in the automobile insurance industry.

Glen Robbins.

For More Information contact:

Ron Gamble, Leader
PO Box 466, Surrey Main Surrey, BC V3T 5B7
Phone: 604-980-7779
E-mail: info@reformbc.net
Web site: www.reformbc.net