British Columbia

Hydro's already been posting YoY decreases in energy output due to dropping water levels, it's why we're 'buying' back more and more energy from US downstream dams. One reason the Trump admin down south had been eye'ing the thompson river treaty, is because they know BC already isn't energy independent, and they could use that leverage to further chop up the country - especially with a US fascist enthusiast in Alberta.

Osoyoos is a desert, and could likely use a new industry or two to bolster jobs in the area. Solar farms would make sense in the desert, other countries have built them on that terrain because it's .... got a lot of sun, and not a lot of precipitation.

The nation-building crap is a shitty predicament though. If rights aren't suppressed, nothing will get built due to FN blocking everything for generally racist reasons (that we're not allowed to call racist, or else we're racist). What few Solar projects we seem to have on the go, appear to be mired in FN reviews / trying to placate numerous FN special interests. So if race-based benefits for racially defined special interests aren't part of the projects, they don't go forward. The few we have in the works, heavily favour FN communities, and involve huge spends by the govt.

And it seems clear that the main rights needing to be dealt with in terms of development problems, are FN things -- just looking at the Aspen Solar project, which aims to develop a relatively small area of land near Merritt, they've gotten 7 different FN groups each wanting a piece of the pie, needing to have their specific special interests met, in order for the project to move forward. It's been sitting in planning for over two years as they try to placate FN. In that sense, it's reasonable for FN groups to be opposing the C5 legislation -- though at the same time, a business needing to suck up to 7 different race-based groups and provide each with their own benefits in order to move forward on something like this is absurd. And to put it in context a bit, one of the bands holding it up has fewer than 400 band members, 85% of which live outside their traditional lands. So a tiny band that's generally no longer in the area, is able to hold up a renewable energy project until they get paid. That's also the size of group where a chief is like "Yo, the PM needs to respect my authority! We should be at the G7 meetings!"......

If the nation-building stuff helps to 'streamline' those issues by suppressing rights, not only will the FN likely start protesting, but the change'll get used by primarily US-backed interests to extract Canada's natural resources. So it's lose-lose in many ways.