Emerson De-Lurks: Look out for BC's Water & Power

For those of you wondering where David Emerson was lurking:

NEWS RELEASE: For Immediate Release
2008EMPR0068-001807

Nov. 25, 2008
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

DAVID EMERSON TO CHAIR B.C. TRANSMISSION CORPORATION

VICTORIA – Former federal cabinet minister David Emerson will serve as the new executive chair of the British Columbia Transmission Corporation, presiding over the board of directors and assuming the responsibilities of the chief executive officer, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld announced today.

“This new structure will allow for a smooth transition in the BC Transmission Corporation’s corporate leadership,” said Neufeld. “David Emerson’s successful experience in both corporate sector and government makes him well-suited to lead the company.

BCTC Board & Executive

An electrifying connection
Posted by Sean Holman, Public Eye Online at 01:44 PM.

"I am looking forward to working closely with BC Hydro in further developing our province's potential in opening up new opportunities for investment and family supporting jobs in clean energy." That[is]what former federal cabinet minister David Emerson said last week, upon being appointed the new executive chair of the British Columbia Transmission Corp. And that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the former Canfor Corp. president and chief executive officer. After all, BC Hydro Corp.'s senior corporate affairs vice-president Susan Yurkovich worked with Mr. Emerson when she was an executive at the forest company. And, according to The Vancouver Sun's Jeff Lee, Ms. Yurkovich also helped run Mr. Emerson's successful 2004 election campaign in Vancouver-Kingsway. Fancy that!

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Looks like they've got it all worked out, eh?

Wonder what folks at Save Our Rivers and Citizens for Public Power
have to say about how the corporate elites are lining things up?

Save Our Rivers: Protecting BC's River & Public Power

We as a population in BC face a historic challenge. All through time our rivers have flowed freely. Our provincial government is quietly giving away rights to our public rivers for private power production to some of the world's biggest corporations

BC Citizens for Public Power (BCCPP) is a grassroots, advocacy organization established to give voice to British Columbians' demand that the province's power generation system remain in public hands.

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Cosy Business Ties Exposed by Health Budget Turmoil
Purchase quit as chair of Fraser Health Authority BC's Health Authorities:
Who gets hired (and fired).
By Will McMartin. Published: January 31, 2007. TheTyee.ca

Excerpt:

Susan Yurkovich, one of [Gary] Collins's dearest political pals, was also an early government appointee to the Vancouver Coastal board alongside Purchase and Johnstone. Yurkovich worked as a staffer with Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government in the early 1990s before joining Canfor Corp., where she worked closely with CEO David Emerson.

Emerson and Yurkovich both left the forest company after its 2004 merger with Slocan Forest Products. Emerson won election to the House of Commons as a Liberal in Vancouver-Kingsway in 2004, and was re-elected with that party in 2006 (defecting days later to Stephen Harper's Conservative government). Yurkovich was a senior strategist with Campbell's B.C. Liberals prior to and during the 2005 general election.

According to Sean Holman's Public Eye website, Yurkovich and Mike McDonald, a former political aide to Gordon Campbell (and husband of Campbell's deputy minister, Jessica McDonald), were in the pre-election 2005-06 budget lock-up for stakeholders, registered as representatives of McDonald's firm, Rosedeer Strategies Inc. McDonald declined to answer Holman's query as to the purpose of his and Yurkovich's unusual presence in the lock-up, but others suggested that the pair's task was to ensure that stakeholders received -- and later reiterated for the news media -- the political "spin" desired by the B.C. Liberals. A few weeks later, Yurkovich was re-appointed to Vancouver Coastal's board of directors.

During the election campaign, the Vancouver Sun newspaper identified Yurkovich as a member of an inner circle of B.C. Liberal political strategists. After the election, she got another order-in-council appointment, this one extending her term on the health authority board to 2008.

More work for Yurkovich

In addition to her service on the Vancouver Coastal board, the re-elected Campbell government evidently needed Yurkovich's talents for a greater task. The B.C. Liberals were unhappy with B.C. Hydro's public-relations strategy for development of the proposed Site C dam, and decided that Yurkovich had the corporate-communication skills evidently required by the province's largest Crown corporation.

In June 2006, Yurkovich was named B.C. Hydro's senior vice-president for corporate affairs.