To facilitate the company's planning, [BC minister of lands and forests] Kenney pledged to place reserves on the possible sites of interest to Alcan in order to exclude the intervention of competitors. He also offered the lowest possible water rental fees allowed under the law and concluded with this remarkable concession: 'If after such surveys and investigations have been made, and your engineering studies demonstrate that our existing laws would not economically permit further development, I shall be very glad to discuss ways and means with my colleagues, having in mind the amendment of such laws whereby such a project might be economically pursued to the mutual advantage of both our Government and your Company.' Alcan would later call for changes to provincial law and taxation policies in order to facilitate its building program and settlement scheme at minimal cost.
Evenden, Fish versus Power, 156-57.
Depressing, but is anyone really all that surprised?