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VICTORIA — Among the many folks buttonholing each other at the B.C. NDP convention on the weekend, none faced a bigger selling job than Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the unionized building trades.

To him fell the challenge of making the case for proceeding with Site C, a project hated by many New Democrats and viewed with profound skepticism by others.

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Not to say the actual hydroelectric dam was on the order paper for debate at the convention. That would not have been helpful, in the view of the party leadership.

The cabinet, having received the utilities commission review of Site C on the eve of the convention, was preparing to decide the fate of the project, an exercise that was expected to take the rest of the fall.

The last thing New Democrats wanted was a public debate that would have highlighted divisions in the party and might well have resulted in a pre-emptive call for the government to kill Site C without further ado.