The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Remember all of those 'Keep Hydro Public' signs that popped up around town in the fall of 2011? As part of Clarence Pettersen's political campaign, they helped propel the NDP candidate to victory as the new Flin Flon MLA. The unsubtle message of the signs was this: Elect Mr. Pettersen and his party or watch the Tories win and sell Manitoba Hydro to a greedy private sector that will relentlessly jack up your power bill. Well, here we are a year and a half later and it looks like the bills are soaring just fine without a greedy private sector. Effective today, hydro rates shoot up another 3.5 per cent. That means that in a little over a year, hydro rates have leapt eight per cent without even factoring in compounding _ way above inflation, way above the average person's pay raises, way above what is reasonable. The future looks even darker. The Public Utilities Board, which oversees Hydro, reportedly says power rates are forecast to more than double over the next 20 years. It's outrageous, particularly for a place like Flin Flon that has growing numbers of seniors and aboriginal families on limited incomes, not to mention planned tax increases at the municipal level. See 'Happe...' on pg. Continued from pg. It's outrageous that this all happens with the blessing of the NDP, the self-styled 'working man's party' overwhelmingly supported by Flin Flonners. And it's outrageous that this comes on the heels of the NDP's scheme to boost the PST by tossing out a law that guaranteed Manitobans would decide such matters through a referendum. Part of the rationale for this latest rate hike is the fact that Hydro's export sales are down. So because non-Manitobans bought less electricity from us, we Manitobans are left footing the bill. Wonderful. It raises questions about Hydro's priorities. Is there such a need to keep expanding the utility? Can we not just say that our focus is Manitoba and to heck with exporting power outside the province? That's a slightly paraphrased version of a question I posed to Mr. Pettersen in an interview last year. 'I don't think you can be so narrow-minded,' the MLA responded. 'I mean, we're investing in Manitoba (for) the future, so our children have something there. I mean, there's potential here and it's renewable energy and I think it's good that we're investing. It creates jobs, jobs in the North, economic stimulus.' I then asked Mr. Pettersen whether he thought rates would go up as much as they are if we refrained from expanding Hydro all the time. 'I mean, we'd have to see. I mean, we have the lowest rates, what more do you want?' the MLA answered. 'We have the lowest rates and we passed in legislation we want to keep that. And furthermore, we have the lowest rates and we're investing in Manitoba. We're not building anywhere else in Canada. We're building in Manitoba and we're creating jobs.' I'm all for job-creation in the North. But if those jobs involve expanding Hydro so it can export power, and then Manitobans are left holding the bill when too little of that power sells, then it sounds like a pretty dubious strategy. Before I go any further, I acknowledge that Hydro, as of now, offers what appear to be the lowest power rates in Canada. For that Manitobans are fortunate. But too often people who question whether there are ways to keep those rates more affordable are essentially told to shut up and be grateful for what they have. The problem is that Manitobans budget around their bills, no matter how high or low those bills are in relation to someone in a different province. If you hike one of those bills over and over again, ignoring the rate of inflation and the financial challenges of everyday people, especially those with the least, the long-term implications become dire. There's really no winning with Hydro at the current moment. The utility spends all kinds of money convincing us to conserve electricity. But when we do just that, such as during the warm winter of 2011-12, Hydro simply uses the lessened sales as rationale for even more rate boosts! At some point it has to stop. We care less about whether people in other provinces are overpaying for their electricity, and more about whether we are. We care more about the continued affordability of heating our homes then the fickleness of export markets in the United States. If Mr. Pettersen won't speak out against his government's handling of the Hydro file, then it's up to us as Manitobans _ as Flin Flonners _ to do so.
