The Kamloops-South Thompson Liberal candidate says the Site C dam project being built in the Peace region cannot be stopped despite stability concerns.

Speaking today on the NL Morning News, Todd Stone says the project is currently employing thousands of British Columbians with high-paying jobs.

“There are thousands of families across this province, including a whole bunch here in Kamloops, who are dependent on this project moving forward. To suggest it should be paused moving forward or cancelled outright is highly, highly irresponsible,” he says.

“It would be bad enough if our economy was roaring along. We’re in the middle of a pandemic with about 200,000, or 250,000 British Columbians unemployed as of today. The last thing we need to do is throw another many thousands more out of work with a hasty decision to cancel this project.”

Stone says additional oversight is required to better understand the issues with Site C, a project currently valued by the B.C. government at $10.7 billion.

Eighteen prominent Canadians, including former CEO of BC Hydro Marc Elieson, are urging the provincial government to postpone work on the Site C dam until an engineering review of it is done.

Speaking with NL News, Elieson says delaying or scrapping the project would be significantly less costly to taxpayers than a potentially catastrophic failure of the dam.

“Now I don’t know whether it has to be scrapped. But I do know it is nowhere near the point of no return. It’s like – if there’s a burning building we have to walk away from it. If you’re building an ediface which is not stable, this is a tremendous risk to public safety,” Elieson says.

Further construction of the dam across the Peace River near Fort St. John requires diversion of the river, which the letter argues could be a “costly and potentially catastrophic mistake.”

At a provincial election campaign event, Horgan said diversion of the river was needed to meet the project’s timelines and to stay on budget.

– with files from Brett Mineer