BC Hydro's Monopoly

I'm reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics right now, and that got me thinking about the monopoly most relevant to me: BC Hydro.

It is certainly true that BC Hydro has a dam-electricity producing monopoly within BC (assuming you have no running water on your property). What had never occurred to me before reading this book was how artificially limiting a definition that is.

BC Hydro is still competing with

• fishermen for the use of the waterways
• high efficiency electronics producers
• out of Province electricity producers
• personal electricity producing devices, like wind turbines and solar panels and gas generators
  
• non-dam based production methods that could be developed
• all consumers of common building materials
  

In other words, even if their prices weren't regulated, increasing prices would only spur people to spend their money on these other things/activities instead. And no matter how secure a monopoly looks, they still have to compete for your money with every other business out there.