Greg Clark really is an impressive guy. He lays out how much of a debacle the Notley NDP has made of electricity in Alberta.
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Clark is one of those rare opposition politicians who actually knows every government file he talks about with incredible detail. Ask him about electricity and prepare to be energized by a passionate discussion about balancing pools, power purchase agreements and the like.
Indeed, Clark says if he had his way, he would hold a royal commission into the Alberta “NDP government’s single biggest scandal” — its meddling with Alberta’s electricity system that led to the en-masse resignation of all but one member from the electricity balancing pool and has cost Alberta taxpayers $2 billion while getting nothing in return.
“Why would anyone enter into an agreement with the government if the government can arbitrarily change the rules, it costs you money and you still can’t get out of the contract?” asks Clark. “No one would ever enter that contract.”
The easiest way to look at it is that from about 2004 to 2014, most residential electricity customers would get $2 to $3 back from the balancing pool on their electricity bills. They had a surplus of about $700 million. That deficit is now around $1 billion. So they’ve taken a positive $700 million and turned it into negative $1 billion.
“Now, if you look at your electricity bill, you’ll see a balancing pool rider, which is negative $2 or $3. If it fully reflected the true cost of electricity it would probably be closer to $20 because the NDP has funded the balancing pool by adding to Alberta’s debt to trick Albertans into thinking that it hasn’t been as big a disaster as it has been,” said Clark.
In essence, because of the complexity of electricity and by adding this almost $2 billion cost into Alberta’s ballooning provincial debt (now at $53 billion, which was zero when the NDP formed government) they have hidden this boondoggle from taxpayers.
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On just this issue alone and the complete ineptitude shown in "fixing something that wasn't broken", this band of court jesters shouldn't be granted a single vote anywhere. Complete madness.
https://calgarysun.com/news/local-ne...box=1553862803