JAMES WOOD WILSON wrote this book while he was a professor of the School of Urban and Regional Planning of the University of Waterloo. His qualifications include degrees in civil engineering from Glasgow University and MIT and a master’s degree in regional planning from North Carolina, which included an internship with the Tennessee Valley Authority. By an odd turn of fate, just as this book was going to press, Mr Wilson was appointed Director of the BC Hydro and Power Authority, the body responsible for the events that are the subject of this book.