Open your financial books, PUB tells Manitoba Hydro after mulling request for public hearing

Manitoba Hydro is being told to open up its books, after a consumers' group argued the public needs to know the financial state of the Crown corporation.

Hydro has been ordered to provide financial information to the Public Utilities Board, the third-party watchdog that approves electricity rates through public hearings. The PUB will then evaluate if next steps — like a hearing — are required.

The Consumers Coalition, made up of three independent organizations, asked the PUB to call a new hearing because a lot has happened to Hydro's finances since 2018, when it had its last full rate hearing.

Gloria Desorcy, executive director of the Manitoba branch of the Consumers' Association of Canada, one of the applicants, said the order to provide financial information is a step in the right direction.

She wants a new public hearing, in part, to justify the electricity rates Manitobans are paying.

"Are we going to be paying too much? Are we going to be paying too little? And how do we know that, if we don't have that public review of the information and the independent third-party reviewer to make that decision and to share that information?" Desorcy said.

Financial health 'changed substantially'

The Consumers Coalition wants a PUB hearing because it argues Hydro's circumstances have "changed substantially" from the last full rate hearing.

Since 2018, the Crown corporation has brought into service the Bipole III transmission line, the Manitoba-Minnesota transmission line and the first unit of the Keeyask Generating Station.

Hydro also confirmed a 30-year export sale with SaskPower.

In its ruling, the PUB said it needed additional information from Hydro to determine whether the position of the Consumers Coalition is true.

The board "does not have any current information before it regarding Manitoba Hydro's circumstances, including its current and projected financial health as it relates to consumer rates," the order says.

The PUB is asking for "financial forecast, hydrology, and capital forecast documents, as well as how Manitoba Hydro's current costs, including those for major new capital projects, are being borne by the different customer classes." 

In response to the Consumers Coalition request for a new hearing, Hydro said in its submission that the coalition has failed to establish a substantial change in Hydro's financial health. It said each of the changes cited by the Consumers Coalition could have been reasonably expected, such as major transmission projects going online.

In response to the ruling, Manitoba Hydro told CBC News it is reviewing the PUB's decision and will respond to the utilities board in due course.