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VICTORIA — When the B.C. Hydro deferral of billions in spending for repayment in future years was first flagged as a problem, then-auditor-general John Doyle came up with a memorable metaphor.

“It’s a rat in the snake situation,” he told the legislature’s public accounts committee in 2011. “A big bump that’s going to be there a long time as it gets digested.”

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Doyle has long since returned to his native Australia.

But eight years on, his successor, Carol Bellringer weighed in Wednesday with a progress report on how the digestion thing is going.

Executive summary: slowly, slowly, and not to be completed without further increases in electricity rates, which are the main solvent for digesting the aforementioned you-know-what.

The report is Bellringer’s follow-up by-way-of-explanation for her decision to register a qualification on the government books last year over the excessive use of deferral accounts at Hydro.