Premier and Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA-elect Danielle Smith speaks the Leadership Breakfast, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce at Chinook Village in Medicine Hat on Wednesday.--News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Premier and new area MLA Danielle Smith told Hatters Wednesday she will make tackling the rising cost of living a top priority for her government heading toward an election in six months and expected high utility rates this winter.
That could put into limbo a package of City of Medicine Hat utility relief options – called for this week as new rates for 2023 were presented to council – until a provincial plan, including a wholesale review of provincewide rates, is announced.
The city’s power company, too, is scheduled to review how it sets overall rates, fees and charges in early 2023, but top officials told the News some interim action could be made, though greater changes likely depend on what the province does.
“We know that prices are forecasted to go up and that will be hard on our community as well as all of Alberta,” said Mayor Linnsie Clark, who appeared at the same Chamber of Commerce event where Smith made the announcement.
“We understand this will be harder for some residents than others … but high utility prices affect everyone, businesses and industry, so we’re looking forward to getting a better understanding of what the premier plans to do to reduce some of those costs.”
Smith made her first appearance as MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat at the annual Leadership Breakfast with other elected officials in the area.
She had harsh criticisms of the handling of the economy by the federal Liberal government, and said Alberta would fill some gaps.
“People are worried about the cost of living and they’re pulling the fire alarm,” she told a local chamber of commerce event. “They want to know that help is coming. I can’t do everything to address some issues happening at the federal level, but we can do some things.
“We will lower the cost of electricity this winter. To ease the burden for seniors, parents and the most vulnerable, our government is going to make sure there is more money right away in their wallets to help them with the cost of living.”
Later in the day, Smith released a statement saying that she would re-index payments to disabled Albertans and seniors, access childcare subsidies with Ottawa and task ministers to access other relief, including in utilities.
Alberta is on track to run a $13-billion surplus this year due largely to extreme rise in the price of oil and natural gas. Smith, now the premier for one month, has said the money should be used in four equal parts to pay off debt, make a new deposit to the Heritage Trust Fund, build infrastructure and address cost of living issues.
That could prove to be $3.2 billion to address what Smith called an “affordability crisis” on Wednesday.
Clark said the city is watching closely.
“As an electric utility we definitely have a lot of interest in seeing the nuance in the plan she comes up with,” said Clark. “She’s indicated there’s relief coming, but we don’t know what that looks like.”
This week utility chair Coun. Alison Van Dyke called for potential options from administrators to aid “most vulnerable” residents as prices are set to rise from current near record rates.
Such a package in early 2021, just as rates began a steep rise, involved backdating new, cheaper fixed-rate contracts, waiving late fees and grants for home energy audits. The total potential cost was stated as $2.2 million.
Also this month, council will have to approve new fixed utility rates for 2023 offered by the city, and which financial statements reveal could be losing money for the city-owned utility since uptake rocketed to nearly half the customer base.
Utility relief is not new for the province.
Last spring the UCP government under Jason Kenney allocated $300 million to pay Alberta ratepayers $50 on each bill for three months to address rising power rates, and that was further extended for another three months.
A price cap on natural gas, at $6.50 per gigajoule, has yet to be reached when the program came into effect in October, despite prices being much higher than recent years.
NDP finance critic Kathleen Ganley released a statement saying Smith would continue with the UCP’s “legacy of failure.”
“After taking several months to get any support out the door, Albertans still don’t qualify for the natural gas rebate and hundreds of thousands of Albertans never received an electricity rebate due to the poorly designed program,” she said.
“A review of electricity rates does nothing to help Albertans struggling right now.”
