Alain Chiasson hopes New Brunswickers won’t have to swallow the biggest electricity price hikes in generations.

The province’s public intervener is preparing for NB Power’s general rate application next week before the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board.

“I’m worried people will struggle to pay their power bills,” said Chaisson, who’s an independent intervener appointed by the provincial government to represent the interests of everyday citizens.

“They’ll have to make difficult choices between paying for other things and their power bill. That will have a very significant effect on New Brunswickers if these rate increases are approved.”

The public utility is asking for an average rate increase of 9.25 per cent, backdated to April 1, and another average rate increase of 9.25 per cent for April 1, 2025. But that’s an average of all customer classes, including industrial, small business and residential clients.

For households, the outlook is grimmer. NB Power wants residential customers to pay 9.8 per cent more as of April, and 9.8 per cent next year, for a total of 19.6 per cent. The board already gave NB Power temporary permission to charge the higher amount since April, pending the latest hearing when it must prove its case over the better part of 16 days this summer.

Making matters more difficult, NB Power was already provided a three per cent catch-up increase based on unexpected losses last year.

All told, if NB Power gets what it wants, households will be paying nearly 23 per cent more for electricity next April than they were at the beginning of this year.

The hearings before the independent, quasi-judicial board start Monday and are scheduled to conclude on Aug. 23.

NB Power CEO Lori Clark will be one of the first executives to make a presentation to the board at the Delta Fredericton hotel.

We welcome the opportunity to explain the business decisions to support this rate application in this open and transparent forum.

Lori Clark

She has argued in the past that NB Power’s rates are artificially low because of past government decisions to freeze them or put restraints on how high they could go.

“These hearings are an important part of the independent regulatory process, and we will be answering many questions from interested parties,” Clark told Brunswick News in a prepared statement. “We respect the regulatory process and the role the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board plays in ensuring New Brunswickers pay a fair rate for their power. We welcome the opportunity to explain the business decisions to support this rate application in this open and transparent forum.”

  NB Power CEO Lori Clark says even with rate increases, electricity prices in the province will remain competitive with its neighbours.Photo by John Chilibeck/ Brunswick News

In the documentation provided to the board, NB Power says rates will remain competitive with other nearby places should it approve the increases.

For instance, it will have lower rates than what’s offered in New Hampshire, Maine, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

However, if the rate hikes go ahead, Ontario and Newfoundland’s electricity prices will suddenly become cheaper than New Brunswick’s. British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba already have cheaper prices. Alberta wasn’t included on the NB Power chart.

“That being said, NB Power understands the impact of the proposed increase on customers and remains committed to cost minimization,” the document states.

“NB Power is concerned about affordability for our customers as they face a variety of inflationary pressures and recognizes that many customers will be challenged by this proposed increase. The utility will help customers access programs to help them manage their energy use and make alternative payment arrangements.”

But Chiasson said he doesn’t buy NB Power’s arguments. His office has hired two utility experts, Robert Knecht of Industrial Economics in Cambridge, Mass., and Dustin Madsen of Emrydia Consulting in Calgary, to analyze the reams of documents from NB Power.

They will present their findings to the board toward the end of the hearings.

No, they shouldn’t have that increase because it’s unprecedented.

Alain Chiasson

In the meantime, Chiasson will cross-examine the various witnesses, including NB Power executives.

“It’s an unprecedented increase and NB Power hasn’t tested their case. My position is that, no, they shouldn’t have that increase because it’s unprecedented and hopefully we’re going to provide some arguments to the board so that they won’t give the entire increase.”

One of the Higgs government’s cardinal concerns has been cited repeatedly in a rate hearing that will decide if NB Power can raise electricity prices the highest in generations.

The provincial government’s excellent credit rating.

Officials at the hearing in Fredericton, such as the public intervener and the legal team for the private timber firm J.D. Irving, Limited, have asked NB Power executives repeatedly why the utility can’t extend the period for paying down $1 billion in debt.

They point out that if debt repayment were spread out over more years, rates for NB Power customers wouldn’t have to go up as high over the short term.

As it stands, the Progressive Conservative government has directed NB Power to pay down a huge portion of its $5-billion debt by 2029.

This is one of the reasons why NB Power wants to raise rates 9.8 per cent this year and another 9.8 per cent next year for households, and even more for big industry.

If granted, they would be the highest hikes in more than 40 years.

The interveners have circled back to an overriding concern of the Tory government – the importance of maintaining good standing with the world’s most important credit rating agencies.

If I were only looking at the customer impacts, I would push it out as long as I can.

Lori Clark

Earlier on at the hearing this week, Glenn Zacher, a lawyer for JDI, drew out of NB Power CEO Lori Clark that she was pleased when the Higgs government suddenly announced last September that it was extending the period for the big debt paydown, giving the utility an extra two years.

NB Power officials had warned the government that without an extension, double-digit rate hikes would have to be foisted on households and businesses.

“In light of your evidence that you were relieved and welcomed the extension from 2027 to 2029 because of the mitigative effect it had on customers, why did you not consider an extension beyond 2029 for the same reason?” Zacher asked.

Clark said she did not consider spreading out the debt repayment further because the government’s directive was only to extend it by two years. Even though hitting the 2029 target is not a requirement by law, she said NB Power couldn’t just ignore government directives.

“If I’m only looking at the impact on customers, I would have pushed it out as far as I could,” the CEO said. “The challenge is we also have to look – I have to look at other things that are impacting the utility.”

Clark said NB Power was preparing to spend big money ensuring people have reliable service, in an era when electrical demand is growing heavily and Ottawa is putting in new, stricter regulations for utilities to curb greenhouse gases and combat global warming.

“We are just running out of time to do that,” she said. “If I were only looking at the customer impacts, I would push it out as long as I can. Unfortunately, I can’t just look at one dimension when you make these types of decisions.”

The big agencies have upgraded New Brunswick’s credit rating since the Higgs government paid down $2 billion in provincial debt and maintained balanced budgets for its entire time in office since 2018, the only Canadian province to do so.

The ratings are now near the top, with Moody’s giving AA, Standard and Poor’s an A plus, and DBRS an A high to New Brunswick, according to their own rating systems. Only the federal government and British Columbia have better ratings. The higher ratings lead to savings on interest payments. The debt reduction has also resulted in $75 million in yearly interest savings for provincial taxpayers.

NB Power officials in their testimony explained that the concern about their organization’s shaky finances is twofold – its heavy debt burden of $5 billion, proportionally, could make the credit rating agencies cast doubt on the provincial government’s finances, since it, as NB Power’s exclusive shareholder, would be responsible for mopping up the red ink mess if the utility failed to meet debt payments.

But NB Power also benefits from the lower rate of borrowing the province receives thanks to its excellent credit rating, interest savings the utility wants before it embarks on massive, multibillion-dollar overhauls of crucial power plants at Point Lepreau, Mactaquac and Belledune.

When Zacher pushed NB Power officials on the effect their organization’s finances could have on the province’s credit rating, Darren Murphy, the utility’s chief financial officer, said the province’s auditor general had already delivered a report citing such concern, all part of the evidence before the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board.

The three-member, quasi-judicial board listening to the proceedings will ultimately decide how high NB Power’s rates should go.

But in sifting through the evidence from previously filed documents, the lawyer showed Murphy that the provincial government’s rating wouldn’t necessarily go down as long as NB Power showed it was making some kind of progress toward paying down debt.

In other words, the 2029 deadline was not make-or-break.

“So, Mr. Murphy, you in fact agree that as long as the debt-to-equity ratio does not worsen and that there is some progress towards it, that that will likely not result in a down grading of the province’s credit rating?”

The executive answered yes.

But Murphy quickly added that he couldn’t state what other variables the rating agencies might consider if they eventually downgrade the province and hurt its favourable borrowing terms.

“So I can’t say it with certainty.”

University of New Brunswick economist Herb Emery has done an assessment of why housing has become unaffordable in the province, and he says it’s different than what tenants’ rights groups and the political opposition think.

Over the last year, Emery has presented his findings to the New Brunswick Real Estate Association, the Building Owners and Managers Association and the City of Saint John.

His take?

New Brunswick has suffered from a “distorted” and “perverted” market for decades because its tax policy favours homeowners over apartment dwellers, charging much higher property tax rates on apartment buildings.

The New Brunswick Apartment Owners’ Association calls it the double tax, and has campaigned for more than a decade for relief. But Emery points out it’s really a half-tax on home ownership.

People who own their own homes get a discount, which he says amounts to a subsidy of $400 million a year.

“This is a subsidy for the best well-off people in the province, people who own their own homes,” Emery said in an interview. “What could you do for renters, who include the poorest in the province, if you subsidize them by $400 million a year?

“I know everyone blames landlords and says it should come out of their profits, but I don’t understand why they’d have a social responsibility to maintain the vulnerable population. That’s the provincial government’s responsibility.”

The economist has bars and graphs that trace the roots of how housing became unaffordable for so many people in New Brunswick, once known for its cheap digs.

They show that due to long-term, slow economic growth, the province was badly positioned to handle a surge in demand.

In the early 2000s, far more single-family homes were being built than apartments. For instance, in the third quarter of 2003, more than 1,200 single detached housing starts were recorded; multiple units were closer to 800.

Vacancy rates were high. As recently as 2013 in Saint John, the vacancy rate was close to 11 per cent, keeping rents very low.

Everyone blames landlords and says it should come out of their profits, but I don’t understand why they’d have a social responsibility to maintain the vulnerable population.

Herb Emery

But a surge in immigration after 2015 helped to change the market. The COVID-19 pandemic further fueled the fire, with inter- migrants – mostly from Ontario – entering the local market, especially Moncton. Vacancy rates recently dropped below two per cent in the province.

“Moncton’s pressure on its housing started much earlier than the rest of the province, much of it fueled by the movement of people from the northeast of the province to the southeast,” the economist said. “But then, when COVID hit, you saw a very specific interprovincial immigration from Toronto to Moncton, and then people selling and leaving Moncton were leaving to the rest of the province.

It’s like throwing a rock in the water in Moncton and then the waves hit everyone else.”

“Tenants’ rights groups such as ACORN and the New Brunswick Coalition for Tenants Rights, along with the Liberal and Green opposition parties, have called for more rent controls, such as a cap on rent, to help make life more affordable for renters.

But Emery argues it’s an issue of supply and demand. Construction, he says, remains too flat for apartments. And although investors favour building executive apartments, to increase their monetary return, the economist says there’s an additional benefit: If more of these upscale units are built, the remaining apartments should become more affordable because of the increase in supply.

“If you talk to developers, New Brunswick is just not a place to build, and they can’t get finances to do it. The same unit would be worth a lot more in another province.

“These national lenders don’t have unlimited funds. If you have a choice of building an apartment building in Quebec City or Fredericton, more often than not they’re telling landlords it makes more sense to build in a place where not so much of your revenues are chewed up on property taxes.”

The Higgs Progressive Conservative government has lowered the provincial property tax rate for non-owner-occupied residential properties – which includes apartments and residential rental properties – by half since 2021.

However, Emery points out the distortion is still in effect that favours home ownership when far more apartments should be built.

A rookie politician who had been touted by some Liberals as the next health or social development minister says he won’t run in the next provincial election.

Richard Losier, the MLA who won the Dieppe riding in a by-election only 13 months ago, said on Tuesday he was stepping down for personal reasons.

The married father of three told reporters at the legislature his decision had nothing to do with his family.

“You have to be a certain way to be in politics and to me, now when I look at it, I probably don’t fit that all that well,” said the social development critic, as Liberal Opposition Leader Susan Holt looked on. “I’m not saying I hated it. Not at all. There were a lot of things I liked about it but there was some stuff I didn’t like.”

Losier was vague about what he didn’t like, only mentioning that it was “personal” and complaining that “there were politics within politics.”

“It’s a different world. You’re in the spotlight all the time.”

Losier said he had no job offers and no immediate plans.

Once a registered nurse who worked in a high-stressed intensive care unit, Losier also served for more than 10 years as the executive director of the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton and five years as CEO of Extra-Mural and Ambulance New Brunswick.

Fluently bilingual, he took over the Dieppe riding from former interim Liberal Opposition Leader Roger Melanson. He was considered a star candidate in a safe Liberal seat.

Losier told Holt of his decision 12 days before divulging the news on his social media feed and in the house on Tuesday.

The most concerning issue that I believe faces our young generation is how we forgot the definition of the word respect.

Richard Losier

His leader had boasted in recent months that all the Liberal MLAs were reoffering in the election, which must be held by Oct. 21.

On Tuesday, Holt said she was saddened by Losier’s departure and would miss his invaluable experience. However, Holt added she had plenty of other candidates who were strong in the all-important health portfolio, including health critic Rob McKee (Moncton Centre), former Horizon Health Network CEO John Dornan (running in Portland-Simonds) and dietitian and Université de Moncton professor Claire Johnson (offering in Moncton South).

Losier’s speech in the house to announce he would only serve as an MLA until the next election included an impassioned plea for politicians to have respectful, civilized debates, rather than the name calling and partisan diatribes that have become the norm.

“We believe climate change is a big issue, and it is,” Losier said. “But the most concerning issue that I believe faces our young generation is how we forgot the definition of the word respect, within this province, within this country, within North America, within the world. And if we’re not careful with that, our future generations will hurt.”

He said he had a grandson and wanted to make sure that he was raised in a province that was proud and respectful.

“As leaders of our communities, we must take a step back and think that through,” Losier said. “We are better people than that. We need to accept our differences and live as human beings and do the right thing.”

His words won a standing ovation from the governing Progressive Conservatives and opposition Liberals and Greens.

The spokeswoman for the “Stop the Stink” movement in Richibucto wants to run in the provincial election for the same party that, when in power, helped establish the smelly shellfish plant that she worked to shut down.

Maisie Rae McNaughton, a teacher, lobsterwoman and member of the Kent Clean Air Action Committee, is seeking the Liberal nomination in Kent North.

Her announcement last week came just days before Coastal Shell Products said it was closing its factory in eastern New Brunswick.

She says she has no problem making peace with the Liberals, who under former Premier Brian Gallant in 2016 helped launch the factory by providing Coastal Shell’s predecessor Omera Shells $2.9 million in payroll rebates and term loans.

“Gallant is long gone, and Higgs has been in power for six years now,” McNaughton said. “I’m looking for solutions and who’s going to bring them.”

She also said the company had promised 74 jobs, corroborated in a 2016 Opportunities New Brunswick media release. The plant, she said, until recently had five or six permanent staff and about 20 seasonal workers and truckers who hauled in the stinky waste from lobster, crab and shrimp processing plants from other coastal communities.

The factory was also supposed to have state-of-the-art technology to eliminate odours.

“What was proposed in 2014 was very different than what we ended up with in 2024.”

McNaughton has been pushing the Progressive Conservative government to shut down the factory for two years.

Even before that, the unpleasant smell generated hundreds of complaints from residents.

Last week, a nearby school sent a warning to parents it might have to close temporarily if the odours become a health hazard to students and staff.

Then, on Saturday, Coastal Shell announced it had shuttered operations as of June 16 and would lay off its employees.

It blamed the provincial government for putting too many onerous conditions in place, making it impossible to make a profit and stymying its efforts to put in better technology that would eliminate the stench.

As a representative of the Kent Clean Air Action Committee, McNaughton plans to meet privately with Glen Savoie, the environment minister, in Fredericton, perhaps as early as next week. She wants to ensure the plant never opens again.

Susan Holt and the Liberals put that in the community. It’s squarely on her.

Glen Savoie

That meeting could prove awkward. Savoie has defended the jobs at the plant and the larger processing industry that sends its waste there, as 4,000 people work in the industry. He also believes the product it makes – organic fertilizer – is valuable and environmentally friendly, diverting waste from landfills and helping to produce more food.

“I’m a fan of history, and I like to know how we got here,” Savoie told reporters at the legislature earlier this month. “And how we got here is Susan Holt and the Liberals put that in the community. It’s squarely on her.”

Before becoming Liberal leader and head of the Official Opposition, Holt was a top advisor to Gallant. Last week, Holt issued a news release calling upon the Higgs government to shut the plant down, just a few days before Coastal Shell announced it was closing.

Kent North’s MLA is Kevin Arseneau, who will once again be running for the Greens in the provincial election, which must be held no later than Oct. 21. He won 48 per cent of the vote in the 2020 election, while the Liberals took 35 per cent and the Tories 16 per cent.

The Greens are the smallest opposition party in the house, with only three seats.

But Arseneau has been just as vocal as McNaughton about getting rid of the plant.

“The Liberals, with Opportunities New Brunswick, gave the big grant,” the politician said in an interview last week. “The company has been saying since I was elected in 2018 they were going to fix the odour problem, and they have not. And so I definitely think they are not situated in the right place and it’s time for them to move out.”

Arseneau favours moving the plant farther away from homes. As a farmer, he understands the need to recycle and reuse organic waste, such as the shells that came from 10 different lobster, shrimp and crab processing plants up and down the coast. But he points out that agricultural operations are generally in more rural areas, and when manure is spread, it’s usually for two weeks a year, not every day.

“They have an interesting product and a reason to exist,” he said. “But not beside a school, a rec centre and an arena and a bunch of houses. Even if they do fix the smell at the plant, with all the trucks coming in and out that put a smell into the community, that has to be taken into consideration.”

Before running in the election, McNaughton has to win the Liberal nomination. She’s facing off July 4 against former Liberal MP Pat Finnigan, who held Miramichi-Grand Lake for two terms before quitting in 2021. Along with his wife, Finnigan started the popular Mr. Tomato bakery and produce market in Rogersville about 40 years ago. They sold their interest in March, freeing up his time to re-enter politics.

Former MP Pat Finnigan is seeking the Liberal nod in Kent North for the upcoming provincial election.Brunswick News Archive

Finnigan said in an interview Wednesday he has the experience and bilingual background to win the riding, which is majority francophone. The Progressive Conservatives have nominated Carl Cosby of the Rexton Community Improvement Committee in Kent North, who has an uphill climb in a riding that traditionally does not vote Tory.

“I’ve been around a long time, people know me, I’ve had a business for a long time, and I was a federal MP for two terms,” Finnegan, 69, said. “I’m not running against Maisie Rae. She’s running and I’m running. We’re both offering our service to the county. The main issue here is we’ve been sitting on the opposition benches for six years, we’ve suffered because of that, and we need to get back onside. So, the question is for the voters, who can best represent them and win the riding?”

McNaughton, who fishes lobster up to 12 hours or more a day with her mother Debbie Thompson from August to October and then teaches the rest of the year in the local school system, says she’s more than a one-issue candidate. She recited a long list of issues she’d fight for: more affordable homes, stable hospital hours, better mental health and substance abuse services, improved roads, to name a few.

Her competitor, Finnigan, named the very same issues.

But unusually, she cited a Tory for her inspiration: cabinet minister Mike Holland, who has publicly championed the idea that people with a passion for issues should run for politics.

“Coastal Shell Products has been my issue and where I have shown my dedication and how hard I will work, the relentlessness that I bring to the job,” she said. “I won’t stop.”

https://tj.news/new-brunswick/dominic-cardy-why-ill-be-voting-for-susan-holt 

Outgoing Fredericton West-Hanwell Independent MLA Dominic Cardy says he’ll vote for Liberal Leader Susan Holt in this year’s provincial election because her party is the only one that can win office and is still “ashamed of lying.”

Holt is running in the newly created riding of Fredericton South-Silverwood, and will face off against Progressive Conservative Nicolle Carlin, Premier Blaine Higgs’s former senior communications boss, and Green Simon Ouellette, who works for CUPE.

Other candidates haven’t been nominated.

After last year’s legally required 10-year review of the province’s 49 ridings, Fredericton West-Hanwell was split into Fredericton South-Silverwood and Hanwell-New Maryland.

“My riding will have an interesting choice of candidates,” Cardy said on Tuesday.

“I’ll be voting for Susan Holt in the fall, on the grounds that she is representing the only party that could win government that’s committed to, broadly speaking, Liberal Western democracy, and still being ashamed of lying, and talking about some of our institutions and trying to reform them, instead of stripping them apart and making up the reasons why.

“I’ve had a long relationship with Nicolle Carlin, I always got along well with her, but if the government is going to claim that everything Susan Holt does is at the behest of (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau, then I’m not sure how anyone thinks Nicolle Carlin will be able to act independently of the premier.”

Cardy – the former provincial NDP leader who defected to the Progressive Conservatives before quitting his cabinet post in October 2022 after a fight with Higgs, and who was subsequently kicked out of caucus – has repeatedly said he’d only ever consider reoffering for the PCs, and only if Higgs wasn’t the leader.

He reiterated that stance on Tuesday, and said his focus now is on building up the newly formed Canadian Future Party, which hopes to be on the federal ballot next year.

Speaking to Brunswick News after announcing her candidacy, Carlin said she’s “not a paper candidate” and is “in it to win it 110 per cent.”

“I’m not taking anything for granted, but this riding has changed dramatically with the redrawing of the boundary lines,” she said. “This will be one to watch. I don’t think it’s going to be an easy win for anybody.”

Holt said she’s hoping Cardy will join her to knock on doors in Fredericton South-Silverwood this summer.

“Lovely,” she replied when told of Cardy’s endorsement, adding that while she’s “sure it comes with pros and cons, we’ll take it.”