Sparks Fly Over Electricity Rates

The government ordered the utilities commission to agree with BC Hydro's reduced rate increases, but that's nothing new. When it comes to increasing utility rates, it's been a longstanding practice in B.C. for government to interfere. I admit to being more than a little amused at the squealing going on over the Liberal government’s interference in BC Hydro’s rate setting. It was so predictable.

BC Hydro rate hikes | BCBusiness
Although it sounds like the government is protecting the public from rate increases, they’re just looking out for their own interests, says Tony Wanless.

The government ordered the utilities commission to agree with BC Hydro’s reduced rate increases, but that’s nothing new. When it comes to increasing utility rates, it’s been a longstanding practice in B.C. for government to interfere.

I admit to being more than a little amused at the squealing going on over the Liberal government’s interference in BC Hydro’s rate setting. It was so predictable.

If you haven’t heard by now, the government rendered the B.C. Utilities Commission powerless this week by terminating commission hearings into the utility’s proposal to increase electricity rates over three years.

Apparently, the government was worried the commission wouldn’t approve Hydro’s application for a 17-per-cent rate increase (as too low and artificially created), so it overruled the commission before the fact by ordering it to agree to it.   

Sounds like they’re protecting the little guy from a huge rate hike. Too bad the reality is they’re just politicking.

Although Hydro had proposed a 17-per-cent increase, it only did so under the orders of the government. It really wanted a 32-per-cent increase to pay back a huge fund of backlogged debt that the government imposed on it earlier.

It seems that the government, already smarting from the HST revolt, panicked at the thought of justifying another “tax hike.” It believed that, even though we have one of the lowest electricity rates in the world, a big rate increase just before an election would be fatal.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony here. A government that raised taxes by imposing the HST on the province and generated a revolt is now refusing to do something similar with electricity rates (and may generate another revolt by doing so).

However, the real issue is not that the government is so frightened it won’t do the right thing, but that we now have a government blatantly controlling utility rates for electoral purposes despite evidence that it will be harmful to the province’s finances.

But, then, this is hardly unique.

Successive governments have been milking the BC Hydro cow for generations, using it as a ready source of cash to fund other ventures.

This one may be particularly egregious, but then the most egregious before was the NDP’s demand when it ruled in the ’90s, that BC Hydro pay a “dividend” (read: tax) to the government. This dividend, which, to my knowledge, still exists, funded several government initiatives of the day.

Creating sparks, it seems, is the only way we run things here in B.C.