Skip to content

BC Hydro rate hike paper leaked

NDP maintain customers facing massive rate increases

British Columbia's NDP party got its hands on leaked pre-election documents that indicate BC Hydro customers will see massive rate increases.

The papers show planned increases over the next two years amounting to a 26.4 per cent jump in BC Hydro's bills by 2016, which NDP energy critic John Horgan estimates as a $273 per year hike to the average residential customer.

Energy Minister Bill Bennett says those leaked documents from August were merely a draft for a ministry committee working on electricity rates with BC Hydro, and have been revised three times since then. The committee found methods to reduce the rate increases, he explains.

However, Bennett won't confirm what residential customers might expect to see on their bill.

Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett says some billing increases aren't surprising, given the state of BC Hydro's current equipment and the economic expansion underway in the province.

"Minister Bennett has been clear there are significant pressures on our aging infrastructure and an increase was inevitable. We need to renew our infrastructure, as our economy is growing."

Bennett has also indicated rates will not climb by the 26 per cent mentioned in the leaked draft, Barnett notes.

"This is an early stage of a working document and does not offer any final decisions. That is why [Bennett] has asked the senior group of officials to work with BC Hydro executives, so the minister can clearly understand what is drawing the costs."

The final decisions on increases will be made by cabinet, Barnett explains, and then sent to the independent B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC) for approval before becoming a set rate.

However, Horgan says the looming rate increases are due to B.C. Liberal policies at the Crown power corporation that brought in expensive private power contracts, which obligated B.C. to buy energy at high costs and sell it at a loss during peak periods.

The NDP Official Opposition energy critic calls it "politics at its worst" and says the B.C. Liberal government’s "mismanagement of B.C. Hydro" leaves customers holding the bag with price increases.

He also points the blame on billions of dollars in government debt "hidden in B.C. Hydro's deferral accounts," the B.C. Liberal's "sidelining" the BCUC, and an 84 per cent cost overrun on the Northwest Transmission Line.

"... During the election the [B.C.] Liberal government continued to tell British Columbians they had the situation under control. Now we know they never did.”