David Coon calls on NB Power to justify power rate increase to MLAs

Green Party Leader David Coon is calling on NB Power to appear before the legislature's Crown corporations committee to justify its higher-than-expected proposed rate increase.

The legislature is entitled to know why the utility is requesting the increase, whether all the money it will collect will be spent effectively and what it's doing to reduce its debt, said Coon, the MLA for Fredericton South.

"They should be making an annual visit," Coon told Information Morning Fredericton on Wednesday. "The committee at the legislature is supposed to provide the parliamentary oversight on how they're spending … over $670 million you and I send them in our power bills every year."

The last time NB Power appeared before this committee was in October 2016, and it hadn't appeared for four years before that, Coon said. However, he said "successive governments" are to blame for that, not NB Power.

He said the utility was kept from those hearings "for political purposes" and to keep information out of the public domain.

"When there are things going on that they think might somehow supercharge public opinion, then they would keep NB Power away from the committee," Coon said.

Earlier this month NB Power requested an average 2.5 per cent increase in power rates for all its classes, the highest being a 2.9 per cent increase for residential customers. If approved by the Energy and Utilities Board, the increase will come to an average $5 a month.

New Brunswickers need to have confidence in our public utility.- David Coon, Fredericton South MLA

Coon said the proposed increase is what prompted him to call the utility to the committee, although MLAs don't decide  on whether to allow the increase.

"That's the [EUB's] job, but we also influence their job," Coon said.

Coon said NB Power is bound by the Electricity Act, which is an act of the legislature. If NB power comes before the committee and the committee doesn't agree with how the utility is spending public money, politicians can recommend an amendment to the Electricity Act to change that, Coon said. 

His comments came a few hours before Auditor General Kim MacPherson presented her annual report, which criticized politicians for trying to interfere in NB Power's rate-approval process.

Most recently, then-premier Brian Gallant promised a freeze on some power rates and to force NB Power to cut spending if the Liberals won the September election.

MacPherson said such interference undermines the independence of the Crown corporation.

Coon said if NB Power doesn't appear before the committee of MLAs, the public loses a major tool for financial accountability.

"New Brunswickers need to have confidence in our public utility," he said. "They're ours. They are a public power company and these are the mechanisms of accountability that exists to ensure that happens.

NB Power did not grant CBC News an interview but sent a one-line response via email.

"We are ready to appear before the committee any time we're asked to appear," wrote NB Power spokesperson Marc Belliveau.