By "We need to go with the company which makes the most business sense."
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Controversy over Accenture, a management consulting company with its head office in Bermuda, is also fuelling a fight by B.C. groups vehemently opposed to B.C. Hydro handing its business and technology services to the private sector.
Accenture and B.C. Hydro have signed a memorandum of understanding to create a new company, which could be a B.C. subsidiary of Accenture or a partnership between Hydro and Accenture.
The new company will take over customer service, computing services, human resources, financial systems, purchasing, property services and office services.
Accenture spokesmen say the company should never have been included on the tax dodging list because it is a genuine multinational, rather than an organization which created a Bermuda mail drop to evade taxes.
B.C. Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Odowichuk said Hydro has received assurances that Accenture will pay all B.C. taxes.
The fiercest attack on companies with bogus offshore relocations has come from California state treasurer Phil Angelides, who has prohibited state government dealings with 19 companies, including Accenture.
Angelides is also asking two of the largest public pension funds in the U.S., the California Public Employees Retirement System and California State Teachers Retirement System, to sell all stock in the 19 companies.
Any company which would do a sham relocation to escape taxes would also look at bending environmental rules, shortchanging workers or sticking it to their shareholders, he said.
"These sham transactions, like the accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom, are the kinds of deceptive corporate practices that have shaken the financial marketplace and cost families, pensioners and taxpayers billions," Angelides said.
The U.S. Congress is also debating curbs on corporate expatriation.
B.C. Citizens for Public Power says the condemnations from the U.S. prove their point. The group has been raising the alarm over links between Accenture and disgraced accounting company Arthur Andersen; it has also pointed out the Ontario auditor general's criticism of Accenture's program to streamline welfare.
"It is outrageous that we would invite Accenture to run key B.C. Hydro services when other jurisdictions are condemning them for their questionable business practices," said Rudy Lawrence, Citizens for Public Power spokesman and president of the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations.
"The Accenture deal should be stopped immediately."
Mark Veerkamp, Citizens for Public Power coordinator, said privatization will be irreversible under NAFTA rules, but there has been absolutely no public consultation.
The offshore headquarters not only affect taxes, but also mean shareholders do not have the same rights as in the U.S. or Canada, he said.
"People are in a high state of anxiety. They don't know why this is happening," Veerkamp said.
"We have an amazing system and customer satisfaction rates are through the roof, so why would we monkey with it?"
Accenture spokesman Jim McAvoy said the company should never have been included on the California list because it did not relocate to Bermuda.
"Accenture has never been a U.S. company," he said.
Initially, Accenture was based in Switzerland with partnerships all over the world and, when the company went public, Bermuda was chosen as the corporate headquarters because it was "culturally neutral," he said.
"In Canada, we pay Canadian taxes on everything we do in Canada and it's the same in the U.S.," he said.
The much-publicized Arthur Andersen connection existed only as a contractual agreement and in 1997 Accenture moved to sever all contractual ties between the two companies, McAvoy said.
Those ties were finally severed in 2000.
"There has never been any involvement in the Arthur Andersen business or auditing services," he said.
Arthur Andersen in the U.S. has virtually shut down after it lost many of its customers in the wake of the Enron accounting scandal.
In Ontario, despite criticism from the auditor general, Accenture delivered on time and on budget, McAvoy said.
The company brought in overseas experts at high salaries and put them up in hotels because they were the best people for the job -- and the final price remained the same, he said.
Odowichuk said B.C. Hydro is confident about Accenture's business practices.
"It's going to be a B.C. based company and it will pay B.C. taxes," she said.
Accenture was chosen from a list of 19 companies because it has a proven track record and there was the opportunity to create jobs in B.C., Odowichuk said.
No local companies met all the criteria, she said.
