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Rachel Notley summarized B.C.’s behaviour succinctly: ‘They want our oil, but they don’t want our oil’

Horgan also takes top honours for the political hypocrisy award. In response to Vancouver’s gasoline prices recently reaching $1.61 per litre, the highest in North America, Horgan called for “the federal government to get into the game … and protect consumers.” More than $0.33 of that price is made up of municipal and provincial taxes, including the first of four annual increases to the province’s carbon tax that kicked in just days before his call for federal action.

Weaver is a strong contender for both awards, himself, for his about-face on BC Hydro’s massive Site C hydroelectric project. In 2009, Weaver urged then B.C. premier Gordon Campbell to move ahead with the zero-emissions project, stating “I cannot see what is stopping Site C.” Fast forward eight years to 2017: After campaigning to shut down Site C construction, Weaver called for the resignation of B.C. Energy Minister Michelle Mungall in response to the government’s decision not to cancel the partially built project.

Weaver’s rationale for opposing Site C — he believes wind and solar power are “better and cheaper” — also makes him eminently qualified for the political fantasy award. The reality is that despite the hundreds of billions poured into windmills and solar panels, they provide just 1.5 per cent of global electricity. And since the wind doesn’t always blow and solar panels produce zero energy during Canada’s long winter nights when the power is most needed, those costly wind and power facilities must be fully backed by reliable fossil-fuel power plants. Thus, electricity consumers pay for costly wind and solar, and then pay again to build and operate standby plants. Ontario is the poster-child for this lamentable outcome. Power rates that were once among the lowest in North America are now the very highest.