NB Power could escape Liberal-promised rate freeze thanks to unlikely source

The likelihood of NB Power having its rates frozen for the next four years appears to have dimmed to near zero given the uncertainty over who will govern the province — even if New Brunswick Liberals manage to retain power — and the utility can thank its old nemesis, Green Party leader David Coon, for the reprieve.

"It's a non-starter," Coon said Thursday about the signature Liberal campaign promise to bypass the Energy and Utilities Board and impose up to $300 million in rate freezes on the financially challenged utility over the next four years.

"Freezing power rates is a bad idea. It's interference in a regulatory process; we've got to look at the best economic interests of New Brunswickers. It would be foolish."

Premier Brian Gallant has said he will seek to find "common ground" with Green Party MLAs in an upcoming throne speech to win enough support to keep governing — a condition the freeze  does not meet.

"We believe we can earn the votes of many in the legislature," Gallant said Thursday. "We want to be able to consult and discuss what should get into the speech from the throne. We are open to other ideas from other political parties "

No Liberal election promise attracted more scorn from Coon during the campaign than the proposed rate freeze, a position he has not budged on since.

Gallant has not said the freeze is dead, but on Thursday sounded like he might be laying the groundwork for its funeral.

"We have to be open to the other political parties platforms, which means we have to put water in our wine for our platform as well," said Gallant when asked if Coon's objections to the rate freeze would be fatal to the promise.  

"We are willing to look at some of the elements we put forward in our platform and to say maybe another day."

'They should go forward'

NB Power has been conspicuously silent on what it plans to do with power rates going forward since Liberals first promised a freeze to voters in late August.

It has a longstanding plan to increase rates by two per cent per year or more to retire $1 billion in debt and cope with carbon taxes if they come.

In each of the last two years, the utility has submitted its annual rate application to the Energy and Utilities Board during the first week of October, but this year it has already let that date pass with no word of its intention.

Coon said if NB Power is waiting to find out who will be governing the province before applying for new rates, it shouldn't.

"To me, they should be continuing on as required if they are looking for a change in power rates. They should go forward," he said

Coon's history with NB Power

Coon is an unlikely white knight to come to the utility's defence.

He has a long history of opposing NB Power initiatives at regulatory hearings in his former role as executive director of the New Brunswick Conservation Council.  

In the early 2000s, he fought the utility's ill-fated, $700-million conversion of the Coleson Cove oil-fired generating station to burn the Venezuelan fossil fuel orimulsion. He later battled executives over what proved to be optimistic plans to quickly and cheaply refurbish the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station.

Venezuela eventually refused to deliver orimulsion after the Coleson Cove conversion was complete and the nuclear refurbishment went three years late and $1 billion over budget, all problems Coon predicted.  

Still, Coon has long been an advocate of NB Power answering to a professional regulator like the Energy and Utilities Board and not to politicians, and he instantly opposed the idea of a rate freeze imposed by a political party on that principle.

Coon said if NB Power executives are grateful for the backing of an old foe against political meddling in its rates, they are not saying.

"I haven't heard from any of them yet," he said.