Posts by John Calvert

About John Calvert

John Calvert is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and a research associate with the CCPA’s BC Office.

Dr. Calvert is the author of Liquid Gold: Energy Privatization in British Columbia, a book that challenges the former BC Liberal government's private power agenda. He also worked for the Crown Corporations Secretariat which oversaw BC Hydro during the 1990s and was also a member of the 2005 BC Hydro Provincial Integrated Electricity Planning Committee.

The Deregulation Zombie Rises Again in Texas

Mar 3, 2021

By John Calvert

Forced to use unprecedented amounts of electricity to heat their homes and stop their water pipes from freezing during the recent cold snap, Texas citizens found that their utilities were only adding to their misery. Hourly prices for electricity literally skyrocketed. Prices spiked from $34 to $9,000 per megawatt hour in a few days due… View Article

Inside job: How BC Hydro customers wound up bankrolling private power companies

Feb 27, 2019

By John Calvert

The chickens have finally come home to roost on the previous BC government’s private power giveaway. The just-released provincial report by Ken Davidson on the costs of BC Hydro’s power purchases is a damning indictment of its electricity policies—policies whose exorbitant and wholly unnecessary costs will saddle BC ratepayers with an enormous financial burden for… View Article

Sticker Shock: The impending cost of BC Hydro’s shift to private power developers – Ten years on

Nov 24, 2017

By John Calvert

In April 2007, the BC government’s energy policy was rapidly transforming the province’s electricity system from publicly owned to one operated in the interests of private energy developers and multinational energy corporations. Sticker Shock was written to expose the enormous costs of the BC government’s private power agenda. It documented the fact that the BC… View Article