Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Develop tidal power, name it for Barrett

Re: “$2.4M investment poured into UVic energy projects,” Nov. 17. I met former B.C. premier Dave Barrett when I came back from serving as regional engineer for Environment Canada Maritimes Region.

Re: “$2.4M investment poured into UVic energy projects,” Nov. 17.

I met former B.C. premier Dave Barrett when I came back from serving as regional engineer for Environment Canada Maritimes Region. While there, we did the Bay of Fundy Tidal Power Study, resulting in a 20-megawatt pilot plant in Annapolis Bay.

Dave was excited about tidal power and after researching the possibilities, we got ready to announce design and construction of small tidal-power stations to replace diesel generators where feasible.

The 1975 snap election foiled the plan. Dave postponed announcement, because he did not “want Bill Bennett to degrade tidal power as being ‘election politicking.’”

Dave lost the election and our dreams evaporated. The plural, because Dave wanted me to help him with electoral reform. Had we done electoral reform before the 1975 election, we would have had tidal power in B.C. for close to half a century by now.

We got neither then, but now both electoral reform and tidal power are brought to forefront again by another NDP government. This would be a good opportunity to pay Dave due recognition. A small manifestation of our appreciation would be to name our first tidal generation station the David Barrett Tidal Power Generating Station.

Tom Varzeliotis

Salt Spring Island