Which leaves the most plausible explanation for why Notley and the NDP got themselves into this mess is that they simply didn't care who got screwed, so long as their ideological decisions happened.
So not only did she either lie which seems more likely or she's incredibly stupid. But on top of that she presented her case to Albertans as some kind of fact, while probably spending a bunch of money on this lawsuit that is now invalid.
Its now true, the NDP party of Alberta is the party of either morons or liars.
Unfortunately there's no way to bring this government down that has done very little right, and the stuff that they've done wrong is economically suicidal.
Hoffman needs to be publically fired, again she either lied to all of us, or she simply doesn't know what she's doing as the Deputy Premiere. Notley also needs to come out from behind her party and explain her role in this.
Bunch of freaking morons the whole bunch of them.
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With the US Fed report coming out yesterday with a long term prediction of $35 per barrel US, and the World banks prediction of Oil hiiting a peak of about 63 dollars US in 2020, this province is probably not looking at any kind of economic recovery for the next 4 years.
Combined with the idiots in power, we might all be eating government cheese
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Because the NDP is trying to block their ability to get out from under these contracts. Notley's entire goal with this lawsuit is to force the re-sellers like Enmax and Capital Power to eat the burden of selling electricity in a perpetually losing state - which they have exacerbated - rather than the balancing pool.
There is pretty much no question that, even if the NDP is successful, these companies aren't going to touch an NDP-controlled Alberta with a 100 foot pole once the PPAs do expire. Great to be an energy province under a government actively trying to hamstring existing energy investment and drive new investment away.
Honest questions...
1-Were these contracts established under the NDP or the previous Gov?
2-Is this accurate? If the contracts terminate, the taxpayers have to pick up the tab. Essentially the downside risk associated with the contracts was socialized...
3-If these contracts were honoured...what would the impact on energy prices be in Alberta?
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1-Were these contracts established under the NDP or the previous Gov?
2-Is this accurate? If the contracts terminate, the taxpayers have to pick up the tab. Essentially the downside risk associated with the contracts was socialized...
3-If these contracts were honoured...what would the impact on energy prices be in Alberta?
The contracts are 16 years old.
Either way we will be paying for it. Higher electricity prices or higher taxes if I understand correctly.
1-Were these contracts established under the NDP or the previous Gov?
The PCs, but that is irrelevant. They were entered into by the Government of Alberta.
Quote:
2-Is this accurate? If the contracts terminate, the taxpayers have to pick up the tab. Essentially the downside risk associated with the contracts was socialized...
That is half the picture yes. The upside benefit was also socialized - the Balancing Pool has paid over $4 billion in rebates to taxpayers since 2006 because it was able to sell at rates higher than the cost of generation.
Quote:
3-If these contracts were honoured...what would the impact on energy prices be in Alberta?
Others with better understanding than I have already debated that in this thread. Go back a few pages. The tl;dr as I understand it is, "it depends". Competition and race to the bottom could make it harder to raise the rates too much. At the same time, we own Enmax. So its losses are our losses. As Calgary taxpayers, we're screwed either way.
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With the US Fed report coming out yesterday with a long term prediction of $35 per barrel US, and the World banks prediction of Oil hiiting a peak of about 63 dollars US in 2020, this province is probably not looking at any kind of economic recovery for the next 4 years.
Combined with the idiots in power, we might all be eating government cheese
Can Albertans sell AGT again? That would help balance the books.
Its now true, the NDP party of Alberta is the party of either morons or liars.
Meme (and joking) aside, it's pretty crazy that they knew about this and still went ahead without clearing up the issue first. What's the blind rush to push in the carbon tax without revoking/changing/updating/renegotiating those contracts? Is $2 billion dollars not worth the effort? The money will just show up somewhere? The plan was to go to court all along even though you could have saved the risk or trouble. I don't get it.
Because they think they're the smartest people in the room. As arrogant as Redford was, she's almost got nothing on Notley.
The ramming through of the farm bill, with promises to fix it later which never happened and then laughing at the people who were upset by it at a NDP only event.
Not listening to anyone when it comes to economic decisions.
Her appointment of senior union people to her government and to her negotiating team with the unions
The appointment of a wing nut anti oil sands activist to the Oil Sands advisory board.
Her reaction to the critics of her two incredibly poorly thought out budgets.
I tend to think that their election win has gone to their heads on top of it, it just seems like there are three people in this party that are really doing anything in Ceci, Hoffman and Notley and no voice of reason due to inexperience, or being completely unqualified to be there.
Hoffman and Ceci have to be looked at as major disappointments. Ceci is a terrible finance minister and at times seems like he doesn't understand how a economy or even the business of provincial governance works. Hoffman, frankly comes across as blustery and frankly moronic.
The NDP are literally the oilers of politics, they have no bench depth, and they're run by a person that thinks she knows winning.
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The plan was to go to court all along even though you could have saved the risk or trouble. I don't get it.
I don't think they had a plan to go to court. My guess is they met with the Balancing Pool executives who let them know how much power bills are going to rise over the next few months if these PPAs are cancelled (the pool accepted the first cancellation, I think in December, and then 3 more came and they've sat on them), thereby having a huge outcry when people start asking the "why" as to their power bill shooting through the roof, and the answer will by, "NDP, that's why".
The only way they get out of this would be to strike new contracts with the producers, which would take far too long to negotiate and frankly, the NDP has not shown themselves to be willing to anything other than to try to pass losses onto them, or, as they've chosen, file a faint hope lawsuit--- and I don't even think they think they can win the lawsuit, its more about trying to save face claiming to be the ones fighting to keep energy bills down even though they caused the problem in the first place.
Which leaves the most plausible explanation for why Notley and the NDP got themselves into this mess is that they simply didn't care who got screwed, so long as their ideological decisions happened.
I dont even know what to say. So they say they didnt know about it because it was some tiny clause scrawled on the contract at the last second, presumably in crayon, and then they say they knew about it all along.
But went ahead and did this anyways? Ignoring the very likely or at least plausible, actually very obvious, consequences?
There are times I really hope they are fantastic liars because if they're not lying they are genuinely stupendous idiots.
And the sad part about that is that even their lies are pretty amateur. I've had 6 year olds lie to me better than this.
I feel like I'm Mr. Leland and the NDP is Kramer.
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Exp:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear
3-If these contracts were honoured...what would the impact on energy prices be in Alberta?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Weitz
Either way we will be paying for it. Higher electricity prices or higher taxes if I understand correctly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Resolute 14
Others with better understanding than I have already debated that in this thread. Go back a few pages. The tl;dr as I understand it is, "it depends". Competition and race to the bottom could make it harder to raise the rates too much. At the same time, we own Enmax. So its losses are our losses. As Calgary taxpayers, we're screwed either way.
There are 2 parts to this question that a lot of people are confusing.
Part 1 is the carbon levy which is the reason these clauses are being used.
Will this cost be passed on to the consumer? Partially.
The problem is you have a lot of power that is being produced that will be impacted differently by the carbon levy. Coal the most, natural gas less so, and wind/hydro not at all (other sources too, but these are examples). Companies will have to change how they bid, but the price will only go up so much, so coal produces are going to have to take a hit to their profitability (hence returning the PPAs), and thus will take some of the impact from that cost increase.
With a glut of power on the market as it is it's already a race to the bottom to sell power into the grid/market, so as consumers, how much of an impact this will have on our power bills is a complicated question. The answer is that no matter what happens with this court case, part of the direct cost of the carbon levy will be transferred to consumers, and some will be a hit to the bottom line of the produces/PPA holders, but how much is not precisely known.
The second part of this is the price differential that the PPA owners are currently eating.
(All of these numbers are being made up)
For example a PPA might currently have a power purchase price of $5/MWh
But Enmax can only sell that power at $4/MWh so they are losing $1/MWh that they buy/sell, and they are contractually obligated to buy so much at that $5 price by the PPA. So they can't pass that $1/MWh loss to the consumer because they can't sell it that high.
With the carbon levy in place and these PPAs going back to the trading pool, what used to be a $1 corporate loss for Enmax, or Captial Power, or TransCanada, will now show up on every consumers power bill as a PPA adjustment (check it out, it's there). That is the issue. What used to be a $2 billion corporate loss, will now be an additional $2 Billion that power consumers will have to pony up.
There are a few other points to make:
1) Saying that we will be hit with this no matter what because Enmax is owned by the City of Calgary, isn't the whole story. There are other companies (TransCanada, Captial Power) that are returning PPAs, so all Albertans will be affected by the return of PPAs from other city owned utilities, as well as public corporations.
2) It's not exactly "Taxpayers" who are getting hit by the return of the PPAs, it's electricity consumers, though really that point is just semantic.
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Because they think they're the smartest people in the room. As arrogant as Redford was, she's almost got nothing on Notley.
I disagree, actually.
Redford (especially) and Prentice (to a lesser extent) displayed this attitude.
Notley, Hoffman and the NDP are ruled by zealotry. Which I consider far more dangerous. True believers are harmful in any scenario. True believers in government cost the public billions.
Just look at our list of premiers over the last decade:
Ed Stelmach
Alison Redford
Dave Hancock (very briefly)
Jim Prentice
Rachel Notley
There was a time that I liked Prentice but that evaporated quickly. If we're arguing who is worse than the others in the list above, I'd exclude Hancock as a placeholder, he did nothing. Beyond that, and shockingly, Ed Stelmach was arguably the best Premier we've had in the last decade. Think about that.
If I were arguing about the worst, Notley would now edge out Redford for me, and not just because I don't agree with Notley's politics. She's proven to be pretty poisonous handling Alberta's finances, and while I wouldn't go quite so far as Resolute to say they're zealots - yet-, its certainly appearing that they are operating with ideology in mind, to hell with the consequences. For now I think its a combination of ideology with a lack of due diligence.
The lawsuit also strangely targets its own regulatory agency, the Alberta Utilities Commission, for “unlawfully” agreeing to terms in 2000 that allowed termination of so-called Power Purchase Arrangements “if a change in law renders the PPA unprofitable, or more unprofitable.”
Some quotes from those opining:
“I think Venezuela has moved north,” said an oil executive. “If the reality were not so stark it could be a Monty Python script.”
and
In a statement Wednesday, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce said the lawsuit “sets a devastating precedent that will erode public trust in our regulatory agencies, call into question contracts that have been promulgated under existing regulations, and discourage inward investment to our province.”
and
Deputy premier Sarah Hoffman, who got stuck defending the fiasco, said the province is trying to protect Albertans. “I get why (those sued are) frustrated,” she said. “I get why they are not keen on having to potentially pay this, but neither are Albertans.”
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I will say one thing about Sarah Hoffman - I do feel a little bad for her that Notley seems to have named her the government's corporate scapegoat. She seems to always be the one having to stand in front of the cameras explaining why the NDP's latest mistake isn't actually their fault. Good on her for doing it, but the fact that Notley isn't standing up there herself speaks volumes about dear leader.
Just look at our list of premiers over the last decade:
Ed Stelmach
Alison Redford
Dave Hancock (very briefly)
Jim Prentice
Rachel Notley
There was a time that I liked Prentice but that evaporated quickly. If we're arguing who is worse than the others in the list above, I'd exclude Hancock as a placeholder, he did nothing. Beyond that, and shockingly, Ed Stelmach was arguably the best Premier we've had in the last decade. Think about that.
If I were arguing about the worst, Notley would now edge out Redford for me, and not just because I don't agree with Notley's politics. She's proven to be pretty poisonous handling Alberta's finances, and while I wouldn't go quite so far as Resolute to say they're zealots - yet-, its certainly appearing that they are operating with ideology in mind, to hell with the consequences. For now I think its a combination of ideology with a lack of due diligence.
I think she passed Redford a while ago as a bigger disaster, Redford at her level headed corruptness cost us a few million bucks, and thank god she did the right thing and stepped down.
Notley is costing us billions, and destroying the chance that anyone is going to sink dollars into this province investment wise for years. On top of that Notley was busted a couple of times for selling access to senior government members as part of the NDP fund raising strategy which is pretty corrupt.
While I'll never ever look back on Redford and the PC's In the end with any level of fondness, they're level of destruction is a parking ticket next to these idiots.
If Notley had an integrity, she'd look at the zero confidence in her government and step down.
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I will say one thing about Sarah Hoffman - I do feel a little bad for her that Notley seems to have named her the government's corporate scapegoat. She seems to always be the one having to stand in front of the cameras explaining why the NDP's latest mistake isn't actually their fault. Good on her for doing it, but the fact that Notley isn't standing up there herself speaks volumes about dear leader.
I don't feel bad for her at all, because she's lying or she's stupid. She's defending the indefensible and doing it with bluster and bullspitz.
She's a prime example of why people don't trust politicians at all, because she's dishonest and clueless. Its her dishsoap, she needs to soak in it.
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