As noted in The Bakun Dam - History of a Development Project, Canadians were prominent among the consulting and engineering firms and electrical utilities attracted by the announcement of the revival of the Bakun project. In February 1994 representatives of BC Hydro, Hydro Quebec, Ontario Hydro, as well as several Canadian firms, visited Malaysia, to promote their participation. During the January 1996 trade mission to Malaysia, Jean Chrétien met with Mahathir, and reiterated Canada's interest in the project, while Ontario Hydro International opened an office in Sarawak, reinforcing a relationship it had been developing for several years with
Malaysian power suppliers, partly through the support of the Canadian International Development Agency. Nevertheless, Canadian firms have apparently been unsuccessful in obtaining major roles in the project. (However, it was announced in late May 1997 that a Canadian bank would underwrite the $M3 billion loan for a pulp mill project at Bintulu, the major source of timber for which is thought to be that harvested from the reservoir area of the Bakun Dam.)

Involvement of Canadians in this project raises numerous issues involved in selling our technological expertise, in the context of numerous environmental, political and cultural complexities. Canada has a long history of building dams, and is now seeking to export its technology and expertise to other countries. Major Canadian corporations that have become involved in international dam projects include: Acres Consulting Services Ltd/Acres International Ltd (13 projects, including Akosombo, Lesotho Highlands,
Mekong 'Run-of-River' Dams, Owen Falls, Tarbela, Three Gorges), Canadian General Electric (15 projects, including Akosombo, Grand Coulee, Guri, Tarbela, Tucuruí), and SNC-Lavalin (12 projects, including the Three Gorges). The Canadian government has also provided funding for at least 25 international dam projects, through CIDA and the Export Development Corporation; these include the Guri, Itaipú, Tarbela and Three Gorges projects.

In terms of the principle that Canada should seek to maximize its trading advantage by promoting those products or services with which Canada has a distinctive expertise, this makes much sense, particularly since the market for large dams has virtually dried up within Canada. It has also been argued that, since dams elsewhere have a range of environmental impacts, this provides an additional reason for Canadian involvement -- with our experience in assessing and mitigating these impacts, other nations can be assisted in
ensuring that their projects meet environmental requirements.

On the other hand, it is increasingly being argued that large dams are an essentially bankrupt technology: with unavoidable environmental and social impacts; of dubious economic merit, and that are often only viable in nations that are able to discourage dissent and open examination of these projects. It is appropriate, then, for Canadians to debate whether they should participate as actively as they are now seeking to, in such a technology. In the late 1980s the Canadian International Development Agency sponsored
a feasibility study by Canadian consultants (the CIPM Yangtze Joint Venture consortium) of the Three Gorges project. This study has been since described by independent experts as systematically underestimating the costs of the project, and overestimating its benefits, and as essentially a vehicle intended to encourage the sale of Canadian expertise for the
Three Gorges project, in effect, to quote Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba, "not engineering and science, merely an expert prostitution paid [for] by Canadian taxpayers." In 1992 CIDA chose to not provide further financial support for Canadian participation the Three Gorges Project. However, Canadians are continueing to pursue, with official support, dam projects elsewhere. Perhaps Canadians should ask themselves more often, if this is the sort of international reputation we want to have for ourselves. Such questions have been asked recently, perhaps most actively by Canadian-based environmental organizations such as Probe International.

Sources:
o "Canada Keen on Projects in Malaysia," The Star (Kuala Lumpur), January 19, 1996; "Ontario Hydro to open representative office in Kuching," The Borneo Post, January 21, 1996.
o Fearnside, Philip M., "The Canadian Feasibility Study of the Three Gorges Dam Proposed for China's Yangzi River: A Grave Embarrassment to the Impact Assessment Profession," Impact Assessment, 1994, vol. 12: 21-57. [Condemns the feasibility study of the Three Gorges project sponsored by CIDA.]
o McCully, Silenced Rivers, pp. 248-250, 256-257.