Moncton woman wants accountability from premier, N.B. Power over sky-high electric bills
Susan Martin collected 45 power bills from New Brunswickers, found trend of unexplainable consumption hikes
When Susan Martin checked the latest power bill for a small home she rents out in Moncton, she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
According to N.B. Power, the home consumed 1,700 kilowatts of energy in February of last year, she said.
This February, it was more than triple that amount — closer to 5,200 kilowatts.
Martin's concerns come as N.B. Power is conducting a third-party audit of its smart-meter program, billing system and complaints of high power bills.
"Those are unexplainable variances," said Martin, of the recent bill for her property.
A Moncton woman collected 45 power bills to investigate higher rates. Here’s what she found.She said in 2024, a family of three were living in the home and did laundry everyday. This year, a single woman is renting the place and does laundry far less regularly.
"I don't know how malicious it is, but I do know there is an issue with the way the meters read and calculate our kilowatt usage related to inflated bills."
Martin said it raises doubt that inflation, longer billing periods, rate hikes and colder winters are to blame for the higher power bills many New Brunswickers are seeing.
She believes it's all about skyrocketing consumption readings.
45 bills collected in 12 hours
N.B. Power CEO Lori Clarke promised the results of a third-party audit at the end of February, but later said the utility needed more time, and that of the 20 bills reviewed so far, there were no issues. She said the report wouldn't be ready until April.
Martin is surprised it's taking so long for the utility to collect and review utility bills because it took her just 12 hours to collect about 45 bills from residential customers, after she posted about it on Facebook.
She accumulated about 30 from people who had been switched to the utility's new smart-meter system, and most of those showed double the kilowatt usage in February compared to the previous year.
Of
the more roughly 45 power bills Susan Martin has collected, she says
most on smart meters have at least doubled in kilowatt usage compared to
the same month last year. (Katelin Belliveau/CBC)
One statement showed a jump from 599 kilowatts to 1,542, while another showed a more than 1,200 kilowatt increase, from 3,019 to 4,245.
Martin said the bills she collected from people who have not made the change to a smart meter tell a different story.
She pointed to a bill that went from 1,800 kilowatts last February to 2,300 this year — on a regular meter.
"That aligns with the explainable variance that N.B. Power is talking about," Martin said. "They went from 28 billing days to 30 and it was a little colder."
N.B. Power declined an interview but said in an emailed statement that one of the most common causes for bill increases is extreme weather.
"This winter, New Brunswick temperatures were colder, on average, than last year, which could lead to some customers seeing an increase in their overall energy use," wrote D'Arcy Walsh, a communications officer with the utility.
N.B.
Power CEO Lori Clark says results from a third-party audit into the
utility's smart-meter program and billing system will be available in
April. (Jonathan Collicott/CBC)
Ratepayers started pointing out what they say are higher than normal bills in December.
Premier Susan Holt announced earlier this month that all options are on the table as the province looks at ways to curb rising bills.
Most recently, she promised consultations across the province to get New Brunswickers' ideas on the future of the utility. She said her team is also looking at ways to keep power rates more affordable while dealing with the corporation's $5-billion debt.
N.B. Power raised residential rates by 13 per cent this year and has plans to hike them again, by 9 per cent, in April.
Martin said she agrees with rate increases if they lead to better infrastructure and service from the utility.
"What I am not in agreement with is the mysterious usage of kilowatts."
Consumption increased despite efficiency upgrades
Carla Smith of Moncton said her power bill went up by an average of 34 kilowatts per day in February compared to last year, amounting to a difference of $200.
This hike in usage came after she and her husband spent nearly $12,000 in an effort to save money on their power bill.
N.B.
Power has pointed to colder weather, longer billing periods and recent
rate increases for higher power bills in recent months. (Katelin Belliveau/CBC)
She said they had their home assessed through N.B. Power's Total Home Energy Savings Program. They also have a smart-meter.
In October, they replaced all of their windows and doors as recommended in the assessment report they received.
"I'd love for them to explain to me how I did all this and I'm using more," she said.
"It doesn't even make sense to me."
'We are pushing people into homelessness'
Martin, who volunteers with several charities in Moncton, including the Karing Kitchen soup kitchen, said she sees how rising power bills are hurting the most vulnerable people.
"I'm watching people struggle as it is," she said. "People on disabilities, war veterans, senior citizens and people who are already on the cusp of homelessness.
"The stress that this would have induced for them over the last four to five months, it must be unreal to deal with on a daily basis, paying just what you can, knowing the snowball is coming from behind you."
Martin, who said she shared the bills she collected with Premier Holt and several MLAs, wants to see the province step in immediately to help.
CBC News reached out to the Premier's Office for comment and was told in an email to direct any questions to N.B. Power.
"The immediate answer is for N.B. Power to be held accountable to their own systems by the government enforcing with them immediately, to revert to historical billing at the higher kilowatt price," Martin said.
"Right now, we are the ones carrying that responsibility instead of the organization."
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Customers need to be on board
NB Power is in front of the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board seeking permission to spend $122.7 million to install 350,000 smart meters province wide.
Smart
meter opponent Roger Richard, right, leads a group worried about human
health problems caused by long term exposure to the devices. (Robert Jones/CBC NEWS)
All options on table as N.B. tries to restrain rising bills — including sale of utility
N.B. Power much deeper in debt 15 years after a former government's unpopular effort to sell it
Premier Susan Holt says the New Brunswick government is examining options — from a rate freeze to the sale of N.B. Power — to tackle high energy bills.
The province will have a plan to announce "within weeks," Holt told reporters in mid-March.
"We have to do more and different with N.B. because the status quo is not an option."
Holt confirmed that the options on the table include a rate freeze, additional rebates, and the elimination of debt repayment targets.
Former Quebec premier Jean Charest and former New Brunswick premier Shawn Graham announced a proposed deal in October 2009. (CBC)
More drastic options, such as the province assuming responsibility for N.B. Power's debt or selling the utility entirely, are also on the table.
"I want you to know that the government is looking at many different options of what we can do with both N.B. Power, with the situation you are facing on these increased rates," Holt said.
N.B. Power is conducting a third-party audit after people across the province complained of spikes in their bills this winter. That audit is expected to be released in April.
N.B. Power for sale? All options on the table, premier saysAn economic consultant is skeptical about the sale option. David Campbell wonders who would want to buy the utility in its current state.
"Selling the whole of N.B. Power to an investor … that's an option, but it would probably involve the government writing down a huge portion of the debt and also taking liability for Mactaquac," said Campbell, who helped guide economic development strategy under previous Liberal governments, including those of Frank McKenna and Brian Gallant..
N.B. Power's net debt sat at $5.3 billion after the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
The utility is also facing necessary upgrades across its aging transmission network, problems at the Point Lepreau nuclear plant, and the looming refurbishment of the Mactaquac Dam west of Fredericton — arguably its most important asset, according to N.B. Power officials.
The auditor general and bond rating agencies have repeatedly raised concerns about N.B. Power's ability to sustain its operations.
Economic
development consultant David Campbell argues that the best step for the
government at this point may be to take on some or all of N.B. Power's
debt load. (Silas Brown/CBC News)
Darren Murphy, the utility's financial vice-president, warned lawmakers during a recent committee appearance that N.B. Power 's annual capital budget will likely hover around $1 billion in the coming years. The yearly capital expenditure has typically been around $450 million over the last several years.
The current financial pressures, and corresponding rate hikes, have been blamed on previous political decisions. Holt herself made that case, even as she didn't rule out taking similar measures.
"One of the reasons we're in this position is because successive governments have artificially frozen rates, or put them in places where that has wiped out N.B. Power's ability to do the kind of maintenance that they needed to do," she said.
N.B. Power was almost sold before.
In October 2009, with a joint news conference at Government House in Fredericton, then-premier Shawn Graham and Quebec premier Jean Charest announced an agreement to sell most of N.B. Power's assets to Hydro-Québec for $4.8 billion, which was the total amount of the debt at the time.
The plan included rate freezes for N.B. Power customers for five years, after which rates were to be tied to the consumer price index. Industrial customers were to see their rates cut to the significantly cheaper Quebec industrial rate.
But the proposed agreement was received poorly by both the public and opposition politicians. Hundreds gathered outside the legislature to protest the decision, and two members of Graham's cabinet resigned.
Fifteen years later,Graham says he wishes he could have seen a deal through. Part of the problem, he said in an interview, was that he couldn't tell New Brunswickers exactly how bad the situation at the utility was.
"It was like saying, I had an old car and I wanted to go out and sell it and get the best possible price for that automobile," he said. "I could not go out and tell everyone how dire the situation was and then negotiate the best possible price.
"We were hamstrung in our communications."
Graham,
the Liberal premier of New Brunswick from 2006 to 2010, says he regrets
not being able to get a deal done to sell N.B. Power. (Silas Brown/CBC News)
The intervening years have seen N.B. Power's financial picture continue to deteriorate. Graham said he can't imagine there would be much of a case for anyone to buy the utility.
"There's no utility in the world that will come in and pay for the $5.3 billion in debt," he said, also pointing to the impending multimillion dollar Mactaquac refurbishment.
"Sadly, that window has closed."
The utility has been exploring a potential deal with Ontario Power Generation involving Point Lepreau that could include some sort of joint ownership arrangement.
And on the Mactaquac refurbishing, it has been looking at alternative funding pathways, such as the Canada Infrastructure Bank, that would limit the debt impact of the project.
But the fundamental problem of N.B. Power's large debt load, and its struggles to pay it down, remains.
Campbell has advocated the province take on all or part of the utility's debt, which would give N.B. Power some breathing room as it looks to recover.
He argued that in some ways, transferring responsibility from the ratepayer to the taxpayer is fairer.
"The taxpayer pays taxes based on their capacity and their ability to pay," he said. "In other words, the more money they earn, the more they pay income tax. Whereas the ratepayer pays the same rate whether they're poor, whether they're middle class or they're upper class.
"Without some kind of rethinking of this, electricity rates are going to keep going up and up. … I think the time is right for a structural change to set N.B. Power on a firm foundation for the future."
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Property taxes in rural New Brunswick soar following amalgamations
Three years of tax increases have some rural homeowners facing bills up to 60 per cent higher
Tammy Burrell got the 2025 property tax bill for her rural Salisbury home earlier this month and as she feared, it had risen to $1,309.
It's lower than typical property tax amounts on houses in New Brunswick cities, but for the cost-conscious Burrell, who lives and works in a rural area to save money, the amount is 59 per cent more than she was paying three years ago.
It's a big jump, and the $486 increase has been putting real pressure on Burrell's razor-thin household budget.
"I live a very basic life," Burrell said in an interview.
"I don't drink, I don't smoke. I can't afford to go out and eat. I got rid of my cable TV because I couldn't afford that any more," she said.
"Every penny I have is going toward paying bills, and these property taxes keep going up and up."
More than 400,000 property tax bills were mailed out across New Brunswick earlier this month and for the third straight year, some of the highest tax increases were delivered to rural homeowners.
Burrell lives in an area that used to be the local service district of Coverdale, in southeastern New Brunswick. It was among more than 200 rural New Brunswick areas broken up by the province in January 2023 and made to merge with existing municipalities, or in some cases join with each other, into new larger rural districts.
More
than 400,000 property tax bills were issued in New Brunswick earlier
this month, with some of the largest increases affecting homeowners in
rural areas. (Robert Jones/CBC)
The changes shrank the number of local government entities in New Brunswick from 340 to 89 and although some financial changes were expected, the risk of large tax increases on some rural homeowners was not something that government highlighted.
A white paper issued in 2021 that first announced the proposed reforms did acknowledge that, "Increases or decreases in tax rates will result from the restructurings," but in the case of increases, it said those would be "phased in to mitigate the impact to property owners."
Big bills: Why property taxes on some rural homeowners are soaringThe province eventually set a limit of tax rate increases that could be imposed on rural property owners following a merging of communities of five cents per $100 of a property's assessed value per year.
But there were exceptions to that limit and many rural residents soon experienced tax rate increases above that amount, even as property assessments on their homes were also escalating.
In Hampton, residents of the old local service district of Norton have had their tax rates increase by more than 5 cents per $100 of a property's assessed value in each of the last three years.
That, combined with large assessment increases on houses in the area, have several former Norton residents paying 69 per cent more in property tax this year than three years ago, including a 15 per cent increase in this year's bill.
These
two houses in the expanded community of Hampton used to be part of the
local service district of Norton. Over the last three years, property
taxes on each have risen by more than 60 per cent. That includes a
$1,343 tax increase on one, left, and an $814 increase on the other. (Jackson Jones)
In Nerepis, now part of the town of Grand Bay-Westfield, rising property assessments and higher tax rates have pushed tax bills up more than 50 per cent since the forced merger, including 16 per cent this year.
And in Harvey, several residents in the Longs Creek area that used to be part of the Kingsclear local service district received property tax bills this month that are 62 per cent higher than three years ago.
That includes an increase in property taxes this year of 26 per cent, fuelled partly by assessment increases and partly by a 13.4-cent increase per $100 of assessed value in the property tax rate.
Richard Corey is the mayor of Harvey and says the "significant" tax rate increase on former Kingsclear properties this year was required to have residents pay for their fair share of police, fire, garbage collection and other services.
"That was a big part of municipal government reform, said Corey. "People were not paying for all the services they were receiving and the deal was people will now pay."
Corey said the province was consulted about whether Harvey needed to raise property taxes on its former Kingsclear residents gradually but said approval was given to do it this year all at once.
"Government said you can make that decision if you wish," said Corey.
A request to the New Brunswick Department of Local Government for an interview about the size of property tax increases being experienced in many rural areas was not granted.
Richard
Corey is the mayor of Harvey. His community raised property tax rates
this year by 13.4 cents on residents who used to belong to the former
Kingsclear local service district. That caused an increase in 2025
property tax bills for those residents of up to 24 per cent. (Ed Hunter/CBC)
However, in a statement, department spokesperson Kelly Cormier said limits that were set to protect rural areas being absorbed into a municipality from rapid tax increases was a temporary measure that has expired in some locations.
"When a local government has finalized its transition, council can adjust the rates as they see fit," wrote Cormier.
In Burrell's case, she has experienced two tax rate increases so far, one related to municipal reform and one related to a decision by Salisbury to build a new fire hall.
She already faces a 10 per cent increase in her property tax bill next year and another 10 per cent the year after as legislated protections expire that shelter some of the assessment increases she has already gotten on her house from tax.
Burrell is worried about what that might mean.
"I'll be homeless in less than two years because there's not much more I can cut," she said.
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From: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Subject: Fwd: We will be upgrading meters in your neighbourhood
To: Clark, Lori <lclark@nbpower.com>, Furey, John <jfurey@nbpower.com>, Susan.Holt <Susan.Holt@gnb.ca>
From: NB Power <noreply-nepasrepondre@
Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Subject: We will be upgrading meters in your neighbourhood
To: DAVID AMOS <DAVID.RAYMOND.AMOS333@gmail.
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N.B. Power sees 'no issues' with bills so far, but can't explain anomalies
MLAs disappointed that audit promised this week won’t be ready until April
N.B. Power says it doesn't see any flaws with its smart-meter program and billing system, but is acknowledging it still can't explain anecdotal evidence of unusually high electricity consumption in some residential bills.
CEO Lori Clark told a committee of the legislature that early indications from an audit still underway are that the fault does not lie with the new units.
"No issues have been identified," she said.
When ratepayers started complaining about shockingly high December power bills, Clark said it was likely caused by a combination of a colder month than December 2024, a longer billing period and the utility's recent rate increase.
No issues found in preliminary power bill probe, but questions remainBut Clark wasn't able to explain how a family in Green Leader David Coon's riding of Fredericton Lincoln had a bill showing a 45 per cent increase in their electricity consumption compared to a year earlier.
"Their conclusion is that they simply aren't consuming the amount of power that N.B. Power says they are," Coon said.
"That's exactly why we need to do more work," Clark responded.
"I can't give a broad-brush answer. … Those are the things that we actually need to dive into deeper, to understand exactly what is happening with our customers."
MLAs from all three parties told Clark they were disappointed that the audit, ordered in January, wasn't ready in time for this week's meeting as promised.
"We are very disappointed to learn that we can't ask questions based on the audit," said Moncton East Liberal MLA Alexandre Cedric Doucet.
"New Brunswickers need answers."
'We
are very disappointed to learn that we can’t ask questions based on the
audit,' Moncton East Liberal MLA Alexandre Cedric Doucet said. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
N.B. Power's board chair wrote to Energy Minister René Legacy Tuesday to say the audit wouldn't be finished in time.
Clark explained to the committee that so far, the audit has only looked at 20 of the utility's new smart meters and 20 of its older meters.
While the process has found no problems with the equipment, it's too small a sample for definitive conclusions, Clark said.
Opposition Progressive Conservative Leader Glen Savoie said the committee should have been told sooner than Tuesday.
"I think it would have engendered that sort of trust and confidence that I'm talking about here."
Opposition
Progressive Conservative Leader Glen Savoie suggested slashing costs as
the only alternative to further rate increases. (Jacques Poitras/CBC News)
N.B. Power has promised to have the audit finished by April and to return to the committee then to answer questions about it.
MLAs also probed other N.B. Power issues, including the utility's $5 billion debt.
Savoie said even with rate increases equal to around 13 per cent this year, the Crown corporation is making no progress toward lowering that debt.
He suggested slashing costs as the only alternative to further rate increases, but Clark pushed back.
MLAs also asked about other N.B. Power issues, including the utility’s $5 billion debt. (Silas Brown/CBC News)
"The challenges that the utility has with debt today, we cannot cut our way out of," she said.
Reducing spending would compromise N.B. Power's ability to operate its system, conduct maintenance and trim vegetation — all essential to remaining a reliable source of electricity for customers, she said.
Darren Murphy, the utility's chief financial officer, said those challenges will become steeper in the coming years with a need to raise capital spending from around $450 million to $500 million a year to about $1 billion.
That includes a 15-year refurbishment of the Mactaquac hydroelectric dam at a cost now pegged at $7 billion to $8.9 billion.
Clark also said N.B. Power is now "unsure" whether ARC Clean Energy's small modular nuclear reactor — originally expected to be ready by 2030 — will be available by "the late 2030s."
She later told reporters there are "some current challenges with the technical work being done on the technology."
Last year a former ARC CEO told CBC News that problems at the company suggested N.B. Power should be looking at other alternatives for new nuclear generation — a move Clark suggested Tuesday the company is preparing for.
"We're hoping there is a pathway for ARC to be successful," she said of the company, which has ambitions to develop a made-in-New-Brunswick reactor that could be piloted at Point Lepreau to supply N.B. Power with non-emitting energy.
"We will continue to work with ARC. They are looking for investors now, and we will continue to work with them, but we also have to have a Plan B in the event ARC isn't ready."
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Holt defends N.B.'s 'cooler heads' approach on electricity sales to U.S.
Premier says she won’t cut off power to Maine or apply surcharge ‘just for show’
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
In a week that saw Ontario Premier Doug Ford secure a meeting with Trump administration officials in Washington after his electricity threat, Holt said she would not give in to the temptation to "lash out" at the United States.
She said adding a surcharge to N.B. Power's electricity exports, or cutting them off altogether, might lead U.S. utilities to do the same to New Brunswick when it needs to import electricity.
"If I'm going to ask New Brunswickers to go through pain that I'm going to put on them, it better be because that's going to yield a result of reducing or eliminating the tariffs that the Americans have put in place, and not just for show," she said.
"I'm not certain that adding a surcharge to what the folks in Maine experience is going to yield a result from the White House, and instead will just cause damage to a relationship that we want to protect in the long run."
Ford's announcement Monday of a 25-per-cent surcharge on Ontario's electricity exports to three U.S. states provoked an angry reaction from President Donald Trump.
Ontario
Premier Doug Ford made a bold threat to add a 25 per cent surcharge on
exports of U.S.-bound electricity this week but later suspended the levy
once a meeting with a Trump official was set. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
Trump said he would double some planned tariffs on Canadian exports, then backed down after Ford agreed to suspend the surcharge and travel to Washington to meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
"The president woke up this morning and he saw it and he jumped right on it," Lutnick told CBS News earlier this week.
But Holt said she would prefer to let "cooler heads prevail" rather than poke the U.S. president into a reaction.
About 58,000 Maine residents are customers of four local utilities that rely exclusively on N.B. Power for electricity.
Financial health of N.B. Power in the way of more extreme tariff counterpunchThey are not connected to the larger regional power grid in the southern part of the state, leaving them nowhere else to go to turn on their lights and heat their homes.
Holt said leveraging that fact might prompt U.S. policymakers to extend that grid to northern areas of the state, which would mean a loss of customers — and revenue — for N.B. Power.
Ford has agreed to meet with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to discuss tariffs. (Ben Curtis/The Associated Press)
"These are decisions that need to be taken very carefully. They can't be made as a knee-jerk situation, because our situation here in New Brunswick is unique."
The utility's already precarious financial position makes it even harder to contemplate that risk, the premier acknowledged.
She said her government is looking at "many different options" to help the utility deal with a $5 billion debt that has forced it to hit customers with large rate increase last year and this year.
"The status quo is no longer an option with N.B. Power," she said.
That could include a rate freeze, rebates, easing the Crown corporation's debt-reduction targets, moving some of its debt onto the government's accounts or even selling the utility.
"That's on the table," she said of a possible sale.
A previous Liberal government's attempt to sell the utility to Hydro-Quebec in 2009 prompted a widespread popular backlash in the province and contributed to the party's defeat in an election the following year.
Holt
says she is deciding whether to keep the Tesla electric cars in her
government's fleet. Tesla, owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, is among
companies 'seeking to do New Brunswickers harm,' she said. Musk, left,
and Trump promoted Tesla products earlier this week at the White House.
(The Associated Press)
Holt did not announce any new provincial countermeasures to the U.S. tariffs Thursday, acknowledging that her government does not have "a dozen tools at our disposal."
She said American alcohol remains off the shelves in N.B. Liquor stores and the government has "looked at" replacing service contracts it has with U.S. companies, once it sorts out the cost implications and the availability of alternative suppliers.
A spokesperson said later in the day, however, that no contracts have been cancelled to date.
Holt also said officials would "look at" whether to keep the Tesla electric cars in the government fleet — referring to the company, owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, as among "companies seeking to do New Brunswickers harm."
Holt said she would use the weekly news conferences "to talk about the things you want to talk about, and to provide a forum for regular communication during a time of consistent uncertainty. … It's my job to connect with New Brunswickers in a time of uncertainty."
She also referred to how stressful the trade war is and, after providing a toll-free phone number for mental health support, urged New Brunswickers "to be with your friends, to get outdoors, to clear your head, to turn off the news and to reach out to the people around you."
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Holt hesitates to use N.B.'s most powerful trade lever: electricity
58,000 Maine residents rely on New Brunswick for power, but so far, premier is reluctant to cut them off
New Brunswick's most powerful lever in Canada's trade war with the United States is found mostly along the province's back roads, cutting through forests and across fields rarely seen by most residents.
That lever — a series of N.B. Power transmission lines running to the border with Maine — is one that, so far, Premier Susan Holt is opting not to use to strike back.
"Our government is using every tool in our toolbox to protect New Brunswick workers and our economy," Holt said last week when she rolled out her action plan in response to President Donald Trump's 25 per cent tariffs on most imports from Canada.
But not every tool. Not exactly.
Holt promised to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars helping hard-hit companies and workers absorb the impact of the tariffs.
She avoided a riskier, more painful — but possibly more effective — option.
In northern and eastern Maine, 58,000 people rely on electricity from N.B. Power to keep their lights on and their homes warm.
They're not connected to the large-scale regional power grid in the southern part of the state.
They have nowhere else to go for power.
The tariff leverage New Brunswick’s premier is hesitating to use"Electrically, northern and eastern Maine are part of Canada, not part of the rest of the United States," says Bill Harwood, a former public advocate who represented state residents at energy regulatory hearings.
"They are integrated into the New Brunswick system and the electricity comes from New Brunswick."
Four local utilities are now working through what Trump's tariffs on Canadian imports will cost them — and how to pass those costs onto their customers.
Bill
Harwood, a former public advocate who represented Maine residents at
energy regulatory hearings, says those who rely on N.B. Power have some
of the lowest incomes in the state. (CBC/Zoom)
If Holt slapped an additional surcharge on that electricity, it would increase the pain even more.
"A lot of this is unknown," said Greg Sherman, the general manager of Houlton Water Company, which serves 5,500 customers in and around Houlton.
Another electricity company, Versant Power, has more than 37,000 customers in northern Aroostook communities such as Caribou, Presque Isle, Fort Kent and Van Buren.
"We are staying tuned for more details on potential federal policy changes," spokesperson Tina Morrill said.
Harwood
says cutting off power to northern Maine would spark 'an international
crisis' that would require political regulatory intervention. (Michael Heenan/CBC)
In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford has threatened to cut off electricity transmission to neighbouring states "with a smile on my face, and I'm encouraging every other province to do the same."
That attracted widespread U.S. media attention, and Ford repeated the threat again Monday as he slapped a 25 per cent export surcharge on electricity sales to New York, Michigan and Minnesota — the equivalent of about $100 extra per month per household, he said.
At her announcement last week, Holt said she wanted to avoid hurting Americans across the border.
"Our neighbours in Maine are our friends, and we want to put serious consideration into the decisions that might hurt some of the people that have already spoken up against the tariffs," she said.
Split views on tariffs
Trump won the areas of Maine that rely most on New Brunswick for power, so a surcharge or cutoff would squeeze supporters of the president who may support his move.
Even the district's Democratic congressman, Jared Golden, supports tariffs and did not sign a letter from other Maine politicians calling on Trump to cool it.
Harwood said Maine residents who rely on N.B. Power have some of the lowest incomes in the state.
"This would be a crushing financial burden on many of those customers," he said.
Ontario
Premier Doug Ford has threatened to cut off electricity transmission to
neighbouring states 'with a smile on my face, and I’m encouraging every
other province to do the same.' (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Farther south, ISO New England, the agency operating the larger regional power grid across several states, has filed a regulatory application suggesting electricity may not be subject to the tariffs.
In the meantime, it's asking for clarity on what kind of mechanism it should use to collect the money.
"In a worst-case scenario, the ISO could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection should it have insufficient funds to cover costs stemming from such import duties," the filing says.
It also warns that N.B. Power and others in the New England market "may question or challenge continued participation" in that market if there is uncertainty about who will pay.
A day after saying she didn't want to inflict pain on Mainers, Holt offered a second explanation for hesitating: she prefers measures "that will hurt the U.S. and not hurt New Brunswickers," or their debt-laden Crown corporation, N.B. Power.
"It's possible that shutting off power to New England puts a big burden on a utility that is already challenged, and New Brunswickers already have power bills that are too high," she said.
Changing expectations
N.B. Power won't discuss what such a move would cost, saying only it's working with other power utilities "to address the challenge of potential tariffs head-on and ensure energy security for customers."
Holt's changing explanations and her reluctance to follow Ford's lead "indicates to me that they haven't thought it out well enough yet," Opposition PC Leader Glen Savoie said.
"The response was tepid and the government seems a bit overwhelmed."
Donald Trump won the areas of Maine that rely most on New Brunswick for power. (Sam Farley/CBC)
Harwood said cutting off power to northern Maine would spark "an international crisis" that would require political regulatory intervention.
The point of tariffs is to force people to purchase products from domestic suppliers.
But there is no such domestic producer of electricity in northern Maine, he said.
"If these people are relying on electric space heaters or heat pumps to get them through the remaining cold days of the winter and you cut off their electricity, you are creating a public health risk that is unacceptable." he said.
That comment underscores just how powerful a lever New Brunswick has.
A more aggressive move on electricity "may be on the table," Holt said March 4.
Then she corrected herself: "They are on the table. They may be implemented in the future."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ontario slaps 25% levy on U.S.-bound electricity in latest trade war volley
Surcharge will generate up to $400K per day to be used for worker, business supports: province
Ontario is imposing a 25 per cent surcharge on all U.S.-bound electricity as part of its retaliatory measures against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods.
The new levy took effect Monday and will add about $10 per megawatt-hour to the cost of power heading south, the province says. It will generate an estimated $300,000 to $400,000 per day, money that will be used to support workers and businesses hit by U.S. tariffs.
"Believe me when I say I do not want to do this," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference Monday.
"I feel terrible for the American people, because it's not the American people who started this trade war. It's one person who's responsible, that's President Trump," he said.
Ontario provides electricity to roughly 1.5 million customers in the northern border states of New York, Michigan and Minnesota. Ford said the surcharge will cost the average household or business in these states an additional $100 per month on their power bills.
He added the magnitude of the levy could be increased if the Trump administration continues to escalate its trade war against Canada.
"Until these tariffs are off the table, until these tariffs are gone for good, Ontario will not relent. We will not back down," Ford said alongside Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce.
The province has also taken American booze off LCBO shelves and banned U.S. companies from government procurement contracts, in addition to the federal government's initial round of retaliatory tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods.
The electricity surcharge is being imposed by a directive from Lecce to the province's electricity system operator, which will require any generator selling electricity to the U.S. to add what's being called a Tariff Response Charge.
The system operator will then collect the money generated by the surcharge on behalf of the government on a monthly basis.
Last week, Trump temporarily paused implementation of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadians exports "compliant" with the terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) until April 2. But both Ford and Ottawa have said retaliatory measures will move ahead until the tariffs are lifted.
"Pausing some tariffs, making last-minute exemptions — it will not cut it. We need to end the chaos once and for all," Ford said Monday.
He also reiterated his previous threat to stop flows of electricity from Ontario to the U.S. altogether if the trade war lingers on.
Asked about a specific threshold that may compel him to take that step, Ford declined to be specific.
"If necessary, if the United States escalates, I will not hesitate to cut the electricity off completely," Ford said. "Let's just see how this rolls out. [Trump] changes his mind almost every single day."
Ford urged other provinces — in particular Alberta, which sends more than four million barrels of oil per day south of the border — to look at similar moves.
"A message to Premier (Danielle) Smith: one day, I think you might have to use that trump card and give approval for an export tax," he said.
"You want to talk about a trump card? That will instantly change the game, instantly, when the Americans — and I know the Americans — all of a sudden their gas prices go up 90 (cents) to $1 a gallon, they will lose their minds. So we need to at least put that in the window."
Smith has said Alberta needs to take action, but she won't curtail or impose counter-tariffs on oil and gas shipments. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who leads a province that exports vital uranium and potash to the U.S., has similarly expressed a reluctance to impose export tariffs.
Ontario won't need to buy U.S. electricity this summer: Lecce
During the news conference, Lecce noted that most of the year, Ontario sells many times more electricity from the U.S. than it purchases.
Depending on energy demands in New York, Michigan and Minnesota, those states will sometimes then re-sell surplus electricity that originated in Ontario to other states, particularly along the I-95 corridor down the eastern seaboard.
When Ontario does buy U.S.-generated electricity, it is most often in the peak summer months.
Asked if Ontario could face reciprocal surcharges come the warmer season, Lecce said the province's electricity system operator is "fully confident in its ability to keep the lights on" with power generated in Ontario and Quebec.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Canadian Press
Is Doug Ford's tough talk on Trump working? Experts say it might be gaining traction
Ford's aggressive remarks earn the attention of Trump's commerce secretary
Doug Ford struck his most aggressive tone to date this week as he blamed Donald Trump for "causing chaos" with his tariff threats, and experts say the attacks from Ontario's Conservative premier and appeals to the president's Republican allies might be gaining traction.
Ford came out swinging at a news conference Tuesday, the day Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on most Canadian goods. He levelled some of his most pointed criticism yet of the man he once praised and pledged his "unwavering" support.
Ford slammed Trump and called on Republican politicians in the U.S. Congress and Senate to push back against the president, predicting he would be punished in the 2026 mid-term elections if the impact of tariffs were felt by Americans.
"So the Congress people in the red states, you need to speak up for your people," Ford said. "Because your factories are going to be empty, they're going to be shut down, there's going to be unemployment, inflation is going to hit and it's going to hurt the American people."
Ford even went so far as to muse about campaigning against Trump himself.
"He needs to pay the price in the mid-terms," he said. "If I've got to go down there and knock on the doors myself, I will."
Trump ally asks Ford to tone down his rhetoric
According to a report from the Globe and Mail, confirmed by CBC Toronto, that tone sparked a call from Trump's own commerce secretary Howard Lutnick. He asked Ford to ease up with his rhetoric, a request the premier refused.
Conservative strategist Shakir Chambers said Lutnick's call shows that Ford has managed to grab the attention of people in the White House and his appeals have them concerned. He's also channeling the frustrations of many Canadians who are angrily watching the tariff threats unfold.
"I have friends, and regardless of their political stripe, they're applauding how aggressive Ford is in dealing with the White House," said Chambers, vice-president of consulting firm Oyster Group.
Ford has been making multiple daily appearances on U.S. cable news shows since December, when the tariff threats first emerged, which have accelerated in recent days. In those, Ford has also aggressively blamed Trump for contributing to rising retail prices for Americans, something that flies in the face of the president's promise to bring down the cost of living.
Chambers said he initially dismissed the Ford team's U.S. media strategy, thinking it would be ineffective in the massive American media market. But after this week, he thinks the premier may have broken through with messages targeting American conservatives watching channels like Fox News.
"When you have American conservatives and American commentators say, 'This is a dumb idea, maybe we should back down,' I think those are the voices that Donald Trump listens to," he said. "Ford is connecting with the right audience in the US."
Ford learns hard lesson about Trump, expert says
McMaster University political science professor Peter Graefe said it's hard to take Ford's newfound aggression towards Trump seriously. During the Ontario election, Ford admitted within ear-shot of a microphone that he was happy Trump won during the November US election.
Graefe points out that Trump's views on tariffs have been clear for some time and Ford himself has learned a hard lesson about supporting the mercurial U.S. president.
"I think Mr. Ford is maybe late in discovering some features of Mr. Trump's personality or how he engages situations," Graefe said. "But the very material impacts of Mr. Trump's decisions mean that Mr. Ford has been shaken out of thinking like a partisan and having to think much more like an Ontarian."
Liberal strategist Charles Bird said Ford's tough talk may be an asset to the federal ministers who are negotiating directly with the Trump administration. He can go further in his rhetoric and play "bad cop" because he isn't sitting at the table with them, he said.
"Premier Ford has not hesitated to go at them with both barrels," said Bird, principal at Earnscliffe Strategies. "That's something that our federal ministers, and the prime minister, have to be a little more careful about."
Graefe said he is skeptical of the overall impact of Ford's rhetoric and media strategy. But thinks he is better suited, as a prominent Canadian conservative, to deliver the message of the detrimental impacts of tariffs to Americans than other Canadian politicians.
"He probably is more effective than Mr. Trudeau in reaching parts of the American electorate with the message that this is not something that Canada wants to be doing, but has no choice to do," he said. "He's not really moving the dial that much, but presumably that's better than the alternative of not moving it at all."
But Bird disagrees, and points to the call from Lutnick as evidence that Ford has gotten under Trump's skin.
"I say this as a lifelong Liberal, I would tell him to keep doing what he's doing," he said. "If this becomes uncomfortable politically for the Americans to be doing, and as we get closer to the mid-terms at the end of next year … that is significant.
"We only have so many cards to play."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
N.B. forestry towns on edge as U.S. tariffs, duties pile up
Trump’s new measures just the latest protectionist moves adding to cost of Canadian wood for U.S. buyers
Like other New Brunswick forestry towns, the rural community of Kedgwick is on edge.
The economy of the municipality tucked in the middle of the woods in the northwest of the province relies on two major sawmills, J.D. Irving Ltd. and Groupe Savoie, and several smaller forest operations.
"The forest is the blood that runs in our veins," says Mayor Éric Gagnon.
"Around here we know what to do with a tree. Trees are really important to us. Just about the entire population, if they don't work directly with wood, a part of their work comes from it."
N.B. forestry towns face tariff triple threatSo Gagnon has been paying attention to every twist and turn in the Trump tariff saga while staying in touch by phone with the operators of the local mills.
"We're checking in with them every day or two, just to stay up to date … it's a very live issue," he said.
"It's hard to predict the unpredictable with what's happening with our American friends. Mr. Trump has a bit of a hard time staying on track."
J.D.
Irving Ltd. has one of two major sawmills in Kedgwick that are major
parts of the local economy. (Sophie Langlois/Radio-Canada)
About 24,000 New Brunswickers work in the forestry sector, and 80 per cent of the industry's output — softwood and hardwood lumber, pulp and paper, shingles, fibre and strand board — goes to the United States.
Irving, the industry group Forest NB and the New Brunswick Lumber Producers released a fact sheet last month on the threat represented by the tariffs, estimating that seven out of 10 municipalities in the province are home to at least one forestry business.
They were not giving media interviews this week.
"At this time it is too early to determine the full level of impact these tariffs will cause," Forest NB spokesperson Andy Tree said in an email statement.
"We continue working to understand the details of what the announced tariffs will mean for forest sector operations across the province."
J.D. Irving issued a nearly identical statement.
Some of the province's wood exports were already under American protectionist pressure before Donald Trump returned to the White House.
J.D.
Irving, which operates a large pulp mill in Saint John, was one of the
forestry groups that released a fact sheet detailing how tariffs would
threaten New Brunswick communities. (CBC)
In 2017 the U.S. added New Brunswick to the provinces whose softwood exports are subject to anti-dumping and countervailing duties.
U.S. competitors lobbied for the move because, they argued, increased harvesting on Crown land amounted to a larger public subsidy, which made the province's lumber artificially cheap for American buyers.
The combined duty rate is reviewed annually and this year is 14.4 per cent for all New Brunswick mills except Irving, which has an 11.5 per cent rate.
This week Trump's Commerce Department filed a notice to increase one part of that combined rate, which if adopted would increase the combined rate to 26.8 per cent for most mills and 23.9 per cent for JDI.
The administration has also launched an investigation into imposing additional duties on national security grounds.
Add the 25 per cent tariffs and it amounts to a crushing increase to the cost of Canadian softwood sold in the U.S.
"To put it simply, there's really not many Canadian softwood lumber mills that are going to be able to ship profitably into the U.S. market at the existing prices," said Dustin Jalbert, a wood products economist with the U.S. price forecasting firm Fastmarkets.
The market share for Canadian wood in the U.S. has dropped from 34 per cent in 2000 to 23 per cent last year because of multiple factors, including the duties, Jalbert said.
While
New Brunswick exports 80 per cent of forestry products to the United
States, the share of Canadian wood in the U.S. market has dropped in
recent decades. (Nicolas Steinbach/Radio-Canada)
But there still isn't enough American supply to completely replace Canadian wood, even at higher prices, and the U.S. industry couldn't ramp up to meet that demand for three to five years, he added.
"That's when I come back to the fact that market prices have to go higher to at least keep some of that Canadian supply staying into the market. So you know this is going to come to a cost of the consumer and home builders."
Irving and another major forestry company in the province are facing another challenge thanks to the Trump tariffs.
Twin Rivers Paper Company ships pulp from its Edmundston mill in a pipe across the U.S. border to its Madawaska, Maine paper mill.
The company would not comment this week on how the tariffs might affect the economics of that operation.
Irving wouldn't comment either on what the tariffs mean for the pulp it sends to the $470 million US tissue plant it opened in Macon, Ga., in 2019.
The Macon plant has already seen two expansions, the latest of which will bring employment to more than 500 people, according to a news release from the Macon area economic development authority.
Irving has a number of current job listings for the plant and would not say whether it could shift production from its New Brunswick tissue plants to Georgia to avoid the Trump tariffs.
The Holt government announced a $40 million "competitiveness and growth program" this week to help large New Brunswick companies that depend on exports, along with another $30 million to help companies diversify their markets and mitigate tariff impacts.
Gagnon said he's not sure that's enough to blunt the impact on his municipality, given how deep the industry is embedded there.
"Every part of the forestry industry, we do it here in Kedgwick, so every time there's a crisis, we're affected," he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
N.B. Power customers question big increases on their monthly bills
Utility says weather and other drivers of consumption explain 'most' issues
Some New Brunswickers are convinced something is wonky with their latest bills from N.B. Power.
MLA Margaret Johnson told CBC News she received dozens of complaints in the past week from constituents upset that their power bills had doubled.
"I had 65 [complaints] at bedtime last night, and then there were at least 15 more this morning when I woke up," the Progressive Conservative told Information Morning Fredericton on Monday.
"What the heck is going on when you've got people talking about the fact that they've actually been away from home? I've got a a real estate agent who has an empty house that had a 1,000 kWh spike. How does that happen?"
PC
MLA and social development critic Margaret Johnson said many
constituents are convinced something must be wrong with their power
bills. (Radio-Canada)
Johnson said she checked with some of her legislature colleagues, and it seems that hundreds of people have been affected, most in the Upper St. John River Valley.
Bill Hogan, the MLA for Woodstock-Hartland, "told me of a lady who had called him who was beside herself because her increase was as much as her pension check," Johnson said.
"And how on earth was she ever going to be able to afford to, you know, pay her other bills when the power bill is going to take up everything?
"We're talking with people who are having increases between $200 and $500 in their bill," said Johnson, and kWh increases of up to 1,500.
It's an unwelcome surprise after the election promise of a 10 per cent rebate on power bills, said Johnson.
"They're just totally shell-shocked."
N.B. Power has also received many complaints about the jumps in power bills and has brought in extra resources to deal with the situation, as it does for big storms, said president and CEO Lori Clark.
N.B. Power CEO Lori Clark said many customers are surprised by how much
power consumption increases when the temperature drops. (Jacques
Poitras/CBC)
"We take every customer complaint seriously and investigate with the customer one-on-one," Clark said. "For the most part we have not found anything out of the ordinary."
"The audits that we have done on our system would indicate that this is a consumption change in our customers."
A number of known factors have caused power bills to increase:
Cold weather hit for the first time since rates increased by 9.8 per cent last spring, December was three per cent colder year over year, and the billing period for some customers was as long as 33 days.
"Sometimes it's hard for customers to understand … when temperatures drop by one degree, energy consumption can increase as much as four per cent," said Clark.
There was also a one-time debit of $11 for some customers, to comply with the Energy and Utilities Board's order to keep distinct service charges for rural and urban customers.
Johnson was skeptical those factors could account for the differences customers are seeing.
"It doesn't make sense … because we've got people who run their homes with alternatives to electric energy … people who are running on wood heat … and people were running on oil still are getting these huge increases," Johnson said.
Even people on equalized billing plans are seeing increases of $100 a month, she said.
Tracy Wright of Blissfield said the energy consumption for her small house was up from 1,700 kWh to 2,300, and that was with fewer Christmas lights than last year and no additional appliances.
Wright said she compared average monthly temperatures and found it was indeed colder It was -4 on average as opposed to -1 the previous December.
But even in comparison to February 2024, when the average temperature was also -4, her household energy consumption last month was 500 kWh higher, she said.
Information Morning - Fredericton 15:03
Barb MacKinnon of Nasonworth, near Fredericton, said her December bill was "far too high to be accurate."
"The power usage at my house has been consistent over many years and nothing changed here in those months," said MacKinnon.
What these customers seem to have in common, according to Johnson, is the recent installation of smart meters.
"I just wonder if there's a glitch in the system," she said.
Clark is confident smart meters are not to blame.
"These are all federally regulated. They have to be reviewed by Measurement Canada before they're installed. … We actually audit and review them when we install them, and every six years they have to be audited again."
However, in some cases, initial investigations have not been able to explain customer complaints, she acknowledged.
"If it is something that we also think is very strange and not in the norm of what we're seeing with our other customers, we will dispatch resources to check the meter and we've done that on on a number of occasions," Clark said.
CBC has requested further information about the number of cases in question and what if any problems have been discovered.
If a customer wants a meter inspection that N.B. Power doesn't deem necessary, the fee is $65.
The opposition Progressive Conservatives are calling for an independent audit of smart meters and the data they collect.
"There needs to be a thorough examination of what's going on," Johnson said. "We need to do a really good deep dive into what is causing these spikes."
- Don't keep the change: N.B. Power preparing to refund all customers, including some owed pennies
- N.B. Power wins long fight to raise rates 19 per cent over 2 years
She would like the legislature's public accounts committee to look into the issue.
That would be up to the provincial government, Clark said, while noting the Crown corporation does its own audits on a regular basis.
About half of all N.B. Power customers now have smart meters. They can view their consumption on the utility's website and get customer support to understand what may be going on, she said.
They can also get notifications when consumption starts to increase, which might allow them to make adjustments to avoid a higher bill, she said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Information Morning Fredericton
"Audit ordered after soaring N.B. Power bills anger thousands of customers"
David Amos
Reply to David Amos
Yes
Reply to David Amos
Reply to Sam Carson
Wheareas you live in Ontario How could you suffer from NB Power's nonsense?
Fred Emmersen Turner
So inflation will be going up
David Amos
Reply to Fred Emmersen Turner
Of course
Jamie Smith
If we put an export tax on it watch the Americans whine!
David Amos
Reply to Jamie Smith
As well we should
Gregory Wulf
Reply to David Amos
You are in NB. What could you possibly tax that the Americans would notice?
David Amos
Reply to Gregory Wulf
Fish lumber electricity gasoline diesel and lumber etc
David Amos
Reply to Gregory Wulf
How is it that you did not know that we have a Nuke Plant?
Gregory Wulf
Reply to David Amos
Nope... New England has all of that. Check your privilege.
Mike Flanders
Reply to David Amos
What he doesn't know could fill a warehouse...
Marge Timmons
I thought only grocery stores gouge.....
Gerry Ford
Reply to Marge Timmons
Welder's do too.
Ralph Linwood
Reply to Gerry Ford
Welding isn't that hard...
David Amos
Reply to Marge Timmons
Surely you jest
Les Cooper
Everyone wanted to save the earth with green energy. How is it, no one thought the cost of electricity would go thru the roof. Trudeau forced provincs to due this. Alberta knew the green energy was not 100% proven and fought back.
Gerry Ford
Reply to Les Cooper
A lot of people knew and a lot of people got duped. And many think that one country can save the world. Only problem is the cost increase drives many right into the ground.
David Amos
Reply to Gerry Ford
You will own nothing and be happy
Denis van humbeck
Canada needs to ban the use of coal for electricity and ban the sale of coal to foreign countries.
Will delorme
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Why ?
Denis van humbeck
Reply to Will delorme
Pollution. That is why?
John Hoagie
Reply to Denis van humbeck
No because other countries can source their coal from someone else besides us so it's not pollution, what is your real reason.
Les Cooper
Reply to Denis van humbeck
And you wonder why electricity is thru the roof.
Denis van humbeck
Reply to John Hoagie
The reason is pollution and nothing else.
David Amos
Reply to Denis van humbeck
I disagree
John Hoagie
Reply to Denis van humbeck
You're saying for no reason then, what a good cause.
Denis van humbeck
Provinces should be charging the U.S.A more money than we pay to use our electricty
David Amos
Reply to Denis van humbeck
I agree
Denis van humbeck
Hopefully the world price of oil plummets and gasoline and diesel fuel prices plummet.
Will delorme
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Hopefully all crop prices plummet. Make food cheaper
Denis van humbeck
Reply to Will delorme
Oil prices would have to drop first to bring down food prices.
Will delorme
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Nope
Denis van humbeck
Reply to Will delorme
Yes because tilling the land cost are too high with high fuel prices and transport costs are too high because of the high fuel prices and high oil prices.
Denis van humbeck
Reply to Will delorme
Your buddy Trump wants cheap fuel and that would mean lower oil prices.
Will delorme
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Use oxen
David Amos
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Dream on
Denis van humbeck
Reply to David Amos
That is what Trump wants.
Frank Blacklock
Liberals are notorious for overcharging on everything.
Bob Leeson
Reply to Frank Blacklock
The "liberals" do not directly control the independent NBEUB in New Brunswick.
Frank Blacklock
Reply to Bob Leeson
Must just be a coincidence that the price of everything goes up drastically under Liberal politicians.
David Amos
Reply to Bob Leeson
Check history then ask Mr Herron about that
Denis van humbeck
Power rates will get even higher with more EV's,
Bob Leeson
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Why would they when provinces like Ontario give EV owners special low rates? 2.8 cents/kWh is as close to free as it gets.
Will delorme
Reply to Bob Leeson
Nothing like having others pay for one’s personal choices
Bob Leeson
Reply to Will delorme
It's electricity that would otherwise go to "heaven". Demand for electrical power is not constant throughout the day. The vast majority of EV owners charge at night while they sleep, at the time of the lowest demand.
Will delorme
Reply to Bob Leeson
Sure
Bob Leeson
Reply to Will delorme
Ontario generates the vast majority of its power via hydro and nuclear. It's not something they turn down like a instant volume control on a radio at 11:00 PM when most folks go to bed.
The reason why they gave us those ULO rates was to help stabilize the grid, as well as giving us annual cash bonuses for smart EV chargers that allow our hydro company to throttle power to adjust to grid demand. We are literally doing our hydro companies a service.
Denis van humbeck
Reply to Bob Leeson
Demand will get very at night.
Bob Leeson
Reply to Denis van humbeck
Not really. A central air conditioner uses as much electricity as my EV charger at 16 amps (similar 20 amp circuit).
Will delorme
Reply to Bob Leeson
I’m sure
David Amos
Reply to Bob Leeson
IMHO Owning an EV in rural NB is not wise particularly when it is 22 below
Bob Leeson
Reply to David Amos
I'm in rural Eastern Ontario, and my wife commutes 180 km/day, 5 days a week for work in her EV. It's been colder than -22 C lately here, especially in the morning when she leaves.
It seems New Brunswick has a warmer, more maritime climate than we do. Lucky!
Mike Barkman
All power rate increases were negotiated in 2024 while Higgy and team were in charge, that is a given. But if you leave your heat cranked when no ones around, stuff like this happens. Just wait till next month as the next few weeks is going to have -24°C lows.
Gregory Wulf
Reply to Mike Barkman
Not a problem with the wood stove.
Le Wier
Reply to Gregory Wulf
The article says people using wood stoves are seeing big increases to their bills as well
David Amos
Reply to Mike Barkman
Yup
Allan Marven
Power bill normal this month. Seems as if random users are picking up the bonus tab, as if nobody will notice.
David Amos
Reply to Allan Marven
Go Figure
Allan Marven
This is what happens when you leave the lights on!
Allan Marven
Reply to Allan Marven
Or when you pay an entire staff of a nuclear plant when it is offline for 6 months.
Gregory Wulf
Reply to Allan Marven
If the staff all move to Ontario, that plant will never come online again.
Allan Marven
Reply to Gregory Wulf
It has to go offline again first, which is imminent.
Gregory Wulf
Reply to Allan Marven
Honestly, I didn't know that NB had a nuclear power plant.
Allan Marven
Reply to Gregory Wulf
More like an Albatross.
Gregory Wulf
Reply to Allan Marven
While coal is more reliable, it's dirty.
David Amos
Content Deactivated
Reply to Gregory Wulf
If you didn't now that then why make comments about it?
David Amos
Reply to Gregory Wulf
C'est Vrai
David Amos
Reply to Allan Marven
A half dead one
As my mom used to say, more excuses than carters has liver pills.
David Amos
Reply to Grace Nelson
Mother knows best
Dan Lee
hmmm i wonder if Irving complained........ohhh thats right they help pay his bill.......oops ....we help pay his bill
David Amos
Reply to Dan Lee
Bingo
Rob Lehtisaari
It appears that the problem of these huge UNEXPLAINABLE SPIKES IN ENERGY USE, have a common source shared.
The Smart Meter's installed.
In Saskatchewan the original roll out of Smart Meter's was Highly problematic, and was reversed, to work out the kinks, and then roll it out a year or more later.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskpower-to-remove-105-000-smart-meters-following-fires-1.2723046
Clearly the contract, and money for smart meters was already committed, and regardless of problems the Smart Meters were coming like it or not, even costing the province near $50 Million.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskpower-to-remove-105-000-smart-meters-following-fires-1.2723046
Sam Carson
Reply to Rob Lehtisaari
I have had a smart meter for years now. There was no spike in use.
Rob Lehtisaari
Reply to Sam Carson
Are you with NB Power ?
David Amos
Reply to Rob Lehtisaari
Well put
Allan Marven
I am looking at my bill, and the 10% rebate line, which is $5.42. My bill is $150 dollars. Something doesn't compute.
David Amos
Reply to Allan Marven
Ask KPMG why that is
Rob Lehtisaari
Reply to David Amos
Thank You, gotta run errands now, fight the good fight for We the People.
Allan Marven
Reply to David Amos
Do they sell calculators? If they do they are faulty.
If they do they are faulty.
David Amos
Reply to Rob Lehtisaari
Deja Vu?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/eub-hearings-nb-power-smart-meters-1.4529640
Reply to Rob Lehtisaari
No but a smart meter is a smart meter. I am in Ontario.
Rob Lehtisaari
Reply to Sam Carson
Egg's are being recalled, but the product, location, and source are entirely germane to the Salmonella risk.
As such, it's only speculative, but since the evidence shared is that NB Power customers that have a large unexplainable spike in use like 500, 1000, or 1500 KwH were "Smart Meter's" which likely points to a hardware, Software, or Manufacturing errors. If that is the source of the error.
Rob Lehtisaari
Reply to David Amos
It's a Money Grab for the "Deal" that the Province, or Power Companies have done to buy in bulk and not be left holding the bag, gone wrong.
From protection of loss(for investment), to gouging excuse of excess profits.
David Amos
Reply to Rob Lehtisaari
Who do you think was seated beside Roger Richard?
Reply to Alex Butt
We get the governments we deserve
Les Cooper
Funny that those who refused smart meters are not having a billing increase.
Samual Johnston
Reply to Les Cooper
David Amos
Reply to Les Cooper
had mine for 3 months now and total usage is down over last year expect a small increase this December which makes sense given the colder temp. Not sure if there is an over all issue but there sure are some people on my street who think it is a massive conspiracy to rip off the public.
Ralph Linwood
Reply to Samual Johnston
Tinfoil hats for everyone!
David Amos
Reply to Ralph Linwood
Is there a carbon tax on such hats?
Le Wier
According to NB Power NBers can avoid the peak during winter months by hanging laundry to dry and stop using the dryer.
Ralph Linwood
Reply to Le Wier
Good way to save energy and lengthen your clothing's life span.
Sam Carson
Reply to Le Wier
Years ago when they started this off peak hour stuff I tried a whole month of drying cloths after 7 p.m. I saved all of $2.00. Not worht it. Ontario.
Gerry Ford
Reply to Le Wier
When I grew up all we had was a clothes line, I can remember many winter days helping to bring in the frozen clothes, some were like planks. One thing really nice about a clothes line though was how the clothes smelled.
Le Wier
Reply to Sam Carson
I don’t know how it would help if using energy efficient washers and dryers
Le Wier
Reply to Gerry Ford
I always felt bad for my grandmothers. Their hands were so arthritic from that.
Le Wier
Reply to Ralph Linwood
I read a lot of Europeans use a heated drying rack. It maybe something to look into. I do hang up a fair bit of laundry in the basement, but I like my clothes dryer year round. No allergies, dust, or bird droppings on my fresh laundry.
David Amos
Reply to Le Wier
Me too
Sam Carson
Reply to Le Wier
Hydro is cheaper after certain times. I didn't find it worth the inconvience.
Sam Carson
Reply to Gerry Ford
We also had a line in the basement.
Gerry Ford
Reply to Sam Carson
Yes that too.
Le Wier
Reply to Sam Carson
I find it hard to believe the majority of NBers are putting a wash on at 6 am, and I doubt it would make a difference to put a wash on at 4 am in the winter. NB Power will have to prove to me the difference in energy consumption costs will be more than 25 cents if you know what I mean.
Sam Carson
Reply to Le Wier
I know what you mean. I did it just to see how much of a difference it made.
Ralph Linwood
Reply to Ralph Linwood
A heated rack would be better than a dryer because the heat then stays in your house. We usually hang dry our clothes outside in the summer and it smells great!
Le Wier
Reply to Ralph Linwood
The added moisture could be an issue in some homes may need to run a dehumidifier as well, so I don’t know if it would be any cheaper than running an energy efficient dryer.
Ralph Linwood
Reply to Le Wier
I'm on the prairies so in winter it's super dry. Drying laundry in the basement helps add a bit of humidity to the house.
Gerry Ford
Plug an extension cord into the neighbors house and just tuck it out of the way. That'll bring your power bill down.
Carly Wattson
Reply to Gerry Ford
Gerry for PM!!
Gerry Ford
Reply to Carly Wattson
And you can be my number one.
Carly Wattson
Reply to Gerry Ford
Make it so!
Gerry Ford
Reply to Carly Wattson
Engage.....
David Amos
Reply to Gerry Ford
You would fit in quite well
Ronald Miller
We have to endure all this mess in order for everyone to have a family doctor, btw, how are they making out on that?
David Amos
Reply to Ronald Miller
I have one
John Raymond
It's possible meters are being read incorrectly. I had that happen and then Hydro one in Ontario said it was my fault, they claimed it was my job to monitor them that they were doing their job correctly and that it was asking to much to expect them to read the meters correctly. I owed back money of 500.00 because they didn't do their job.
David Amos
Reply to John Raymond
Wow
scott crandall
I'm a statistics nerd, and read and log my power meter daily. My bill this month was up, and in line with the readings I was recording from my new "smart meter". My old meter was over 35 years old, and I believe had days when it would slow down and almost stop. This problem with old meters had been reported a year or 2 ago, I believe in CBC, and rang true with what I'd been seeing up until then and since. It may be that my new meter is recording my power use accurately for the first time in years.
BTW, in keeping with my stat nerd ways, I read and log min and max temperatures daily and have a continuous record of temperature readings going back 33 years. This past month, mid Dec to mid Jan, were warmer than my 33 year average.
Le Wier
Reply to scott crandall
Your stats for last month go with what Ryan Snodden said.
Steve Morningstar
Reply to scott crandall
They were warmer than your average but year over year it was 2 degrees colder in 2024 than2023.. That said I randomly record my own meter too a few times a week because I just like to know. I haven't been switched over yet but I'm curious if i'll see the same (old meter isn't exactly perfect so get a bit of a different power usage reading after switched.. with like you said... reading correctly first time in a while)
scott crandall
Reply to scott crandall
Thanks, Steve and LeWier. Just for interest sake, and for what it's worth, what I have is:
Dec 16-31 2024: -6.2 low, +0.9 high. Same time 2023: -2.2 and +3.2. Avg. over last 33 years same time period: -6.8 and -0.8.
Jan 1-15, 2025: -6.0 low, -1.6 high. Same time 2024: -6.8 and -0.6, with 33 yr av. -9.6 and -2.8.
David Amos
Reply to scott crandall
Interesting
Matt Steele
Reminds me of the infamous Brian Gallant property tax assessment scam ; many NB.ers had their property assessment jump substantially , and their properties had never even been re-assessed . It was just a tax grab that the Liberals at the time hoped that no one would notice .
Les Cooper
Reply to Matt Steele
That is happening again this year.
Chantal LeBouthi
Reply to Matt Steele
Agreed that gallant mess still exists never got fixed
K. Ride
Reply to Matt Steele
What does this have to do with energy consumption?
David Amos
Reply to Les Cooper
Yup
David Amos
Reply to Matt Steele
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose N'esy Pas?
Fred Estey
Get ready for another increase of 10% in April! 😜
Reply to Fred Estey
Le Wier
Reply to Fred Estey
Agreed
David Amos
Reply to Fred Estey
Everybody knows
Steve Morningstar
I hear this same story every year, temps drop and usage goes up people think something is wrong. (In order usage is Heat, Hot Water and Cooking). Now add in the fact that heat pumps have been pushed. They have a much bigger variance based on temperature. They are still more efficient then most heating sources but have higher usage swings in different temps. (meaning bigger differences month over month based on just a few degrees cooler) Just be glad you live in NB and not NS or PE. NS is over 30% more than NB per kwh..
Kyle Woodman
Only conservative ridings it seems. Strange.
Ronald Miller
Reply to Kyle Woodman
Liberal MLAs are not allowed to say anything, SANB rules.
Bobby Richards
Reply to Kyle Woodman
In their defense, they were muzzled for 6 years. laugh emoji
David Amos
Reply to Bobby Richards
Bingo
Le Wier
I thought for sure I heard Ryan Snodden say December wasn’t colder than normal in NB or January. NB Power always blames the higher bill for December on the weather, and holiday festivities. I remember one time a CEO said NBers were taking too long of showers. Hopefully with the days getting longer the bills will start to reflect it.
SarahRose Werner
Even an empty house has to be heated to at least freezing unless the pipes have been drained. The further the outside temperature is below freezing, the more that costs.
Still, a 1,000 kwh spike is a lot.
One thing I would suggest is that if you receive an unusually high power bill, the first thing is that you should immediately go and read your own meter. That happened to me once, and the reading on the meter was lower than the final reading on the bill. Saint John Energy said there might have been a transcription error and revised the bill.
scott crandall
Reply to SarahRose Werner
NB Power did this to me once in the 1990's, giving a reading that was 1000KwH too high. Their response was essentially: "Too bad, just pay it, it'll even out next month". Money was tight that month.
David Amos
Reply to scott crandall
Par for the course
Gary Webber
I think the remaining PC mlas should find out who approved NB power to install these smart meters and formally apologies to the people of New Brunswick.
As for NB Power saying it hasn't anything to do with the smart meters, come on, you install these and all of a sudden a spike in usage, and only with the customers that have the smart meters really.
David Amos
Reply to Gary Webber
They already know
Bobby Richards
It's quite amusing to see Higgs' disciples in opposition. Johnson says that hundreds of people have been affected, most in the Upper St. John River Valley.
Like her area is being targeted?
Hidden reply.
The avatar of ""
content deactivated
Ronald Miller
Reply to Bobby Richards
I did realize her riding comprised the entire Upper St. John River Valley, that is one large jurisdiction.
Bobby Richards
Reply to Ronald Miller
I see you're back from your ban. Good to see ya.
Ronald Miller
Reply to Bobby Richards
Can you update us on your party membership, that is always fascinating stuff.
Ronald Miller
Reply to Bobby Richards
I didn't know I was banned, it must have been one of those 5 minute bans.
Ronald Miller
Reply to Bobby Richards
An MLA stating members in her constituency are seeing massive power bill upticks, imagine.
Bobby Richards
Reply to Ronald Miller
I did that last week. You could try some vitamin B12.
David Amos
Reply to Bobby Richards
I remember
Dave Kovic
Is another carbon tax carve out on the horizon?
Ronald Miller
Another failure of the Holt government.
Le Wier
Reply to Ronald Miller
The 10% off was better than nothing, but it was hardly noticeable on such a high bill
David Amos
Reply to Le Wier
True
Andre Kornhauser
This cant be true, we have a story on this news site today, that tells us inflation is way down.
Andrew Clarkson
Reply to Andre Kornhauser
Wait until you get your notice of assessment!
David Amos
Reply to Andrew Clarkson
My neighbour told me should already have mine but I have not seen it yet
Greg Miller
Well my bill went up and the difference in weather does not explain it. Further, at my daughter's house, the NB Power rep came to the door and said he was there to "read the meter". A few minutes later, my daughter, sitting in the living room, hears a pounding on the outside wall. He goes to the door and finds that a "smart meter" is being installed !
Why the "stealth" and misrepresentation--what is it we don't know? NB Power used to be great company but now literally no one in my acquaintance trusts this entity.
David Amos
Reply to Greg Miller
You folks are not alone
Matt Adams
My bill was up and I was away for 2 weeks with the water off and heat pump running at 19 degrees. NB Power counts on spiking rates every December and blaming it on usage from extra cooking for the holidays, Xmas lights, etc. They have done this for years. They should have been sold to Quebec many years ago but common sense at the time did not prevail. Rather we decided to keep the corrupt, mismanaged mess of a crown corporation that is swimming in debt. Look at where we are now!
David Amos
Reply to Matt Adams
C'est la vie
Jimmy Cochrane
We're sitting on top of a gold mine of shale gas. Shame we can't extract it.
Corridor and SWN tried. They are long gone. What a shame.
Les Cooper
Reply to Jimmy Cochrane
We can't extract it because the same people complaining about bill increase are the same ones against tracking or any other industry that comes to NB
Jimmy Cochrane
Nov 15, 2024 > Dec. 15, 2024 - 1497 Kwh
Dec. 15, 2024 > Jan. 15, 2025 - 1877 Kwh
Difference 380 Kwh x .134 cents per Kwh = $50.92
Perfectly normal for this 1200 sqft bungalow with 18k mini split. The common denominator here is clearly these "smart" meters. People, call NB power and opt out off this sham. Get it in writing as I did. Olameter is the company skulking around the Province installing these. I also understand from many they are showing up even if you have opted out. If you've opted out and they show up, tell them to leave your property.
Anyone with a 500 khw consumption increase is not out of the question. My house is extremely well insulated R20 walls - R60 attic - thermal windows etc. and mine went up 380 kwh.
scott crandall
Reply to Jimmy Cochrane
Good info. You're right, you can refuse, but there will eventually be an added meter charge for a worker having to come to your house to read the meter monthly.
Further evidence of the contents of the big business rule book.
Rule 1 - We write the rules.
Rule 2 - We always win.
Rule 3 - To question our decisions, refer to rule 1&2.
David Amos
Reply to scott crandall
Well put
Jim Redmond
Solution: Stop using alternative forms of energy and focus on oil and gas as a fuel. Drill, baby, drill.
Hugh MacDonald
Reply to Jim Redmond
In so many words, that's what Trump said in his inaugural speech.
Jim Redmond
Reply to Hugh MacDonald
Exactly. I couldn't be more supportive of him.
Rob Lehtisaari
Reply to Jim Redmond
Ignore the factual reasons, and expoloit the ignorance for Oil & Gas...
(Sheepishly) Ooooh...kay.
Is it OK though !
Let's find the source of the problem, and fix it instead of empty slogans for O & G based on ignorance is what I propose.
David Amos
Reply to Rob Lehtisaari
You don't have to do a thing when apathy rules the day just sit back and enjoy the circus while waiting for a change in governmental mandates
Rob Lehtisaari
Reply to David Amos
Nigerian Ethics, brought to Alberta, and Saskatchewan by weak politicians when it comes to Oil & Gas.
We are discussing an issue that likely is a meter error, but Jim Redmond thinks that means Burn Baby Burn !
One Trick Pony & Dog Show's that are there for only one audience, Oil & Gas, even if the topic of the fora is not relevant in any way?!
Gerry Ford
Electricity seemed cheaper awhile back, after they get more people to use more for other things they start bumping it up. Get more EV's out there, more use of hydro, get people hooked on it and then turn up the price......
Jim Redmond
Reply to Gerry Ford
I'll never buy, ride in or even set eyes on an EV. I'm pleased that our President cancelled all government EV initiatives.
Les Cooper
Reply to Gerry Ford
Green energy is more expensive to maintain. How did Noone know this.
Marc Leger
Reply to Gerry Ford
Driving an EV is still way cheaper than driving a gas vehicle. The price of electricity would have to go up 500% for it to be close.
David Amos
Reply to Jim Redmond
"our President" ???
katiebernard
Wait for the climate crisis folks to shutter the O & G industry.
This increase will be a pittance .
David Amos
Reply to katiebernard
Thats not going to happen
Michael Hunt
Wondering if those in the north who voted red got big increases ?
claude bourgeois
Reply to Michael Hunt
Don't get your point. Most of the province voted red.
David Amos
Reply to claude bourgeois
I know 42 souls voted for me instead of Higgy or his buddies in the other political parties
Michel Pelletier
it's very easy to blame the temperature says NB power co. I just have to look at the 9.8% last year and another 9.8% this year, and one more is coming for 2026, blame NB powers
David Webb
Reply to Michel Pelletier
KWH is simply a measure of consumption. If one is only looking at the total bill and not the consumption and # of days the bill includes, no wonder people in the most functionally illiterate province in the country don't understand.
David Amos
Reply to David Webb
Oh My My
Updated
Spike in monthly N.B. Power bills shocks customers
Utility says weather and other drivers of consumption explain 'most' issues
Some New Brunswickers are convinced something is wonky with their latest bills from N.B. Power.
MLA Margaret Johnson told CBC News she received dozens of complaints in the past week from constituents upset that their power bills had doubled.
"I had 65 [complaints] at bedtime last night, and then there were at least 15 more this morning when I woke up," the Progressive Conservative told Information Morning Fredericton on Monday.
"What the heck is going on when you've got people talking about the fact that they've actually been away from home? I've got a a real estate agent who has an empty house that had a 1,000 kWh spike. How does that happen?"
PC
MLA and social development critic Margaret Johnson said many
constituents are convinced something must be wrong with their power
bills. (Radio-Canada)
Johnson said she checked with some of her legislature colleagues, and it seems that hundreds of people have been affected, most in the Upper St. John River Valley.
Bill Hogan, the MLA for Woodstock-Hartland, "told me of a lady who had called him who was beside herself because her increase was as much as her pension check," Johnson said.
"And how on earth was she ever going to be able to afford to, you know, pay her other bills when the power bill is going to take up everything?
"We're talking with people who are having increases between $200 and $500 in their bill," said Johnson, and kWh increases of up to 1,500.
It's an unwelcome surprise after the election promise of a 10 per cent rebate on power bills, said Johnson.
"They're just totally shell-shocked."
N.B. Power has also received many complaints about the jumps in power bills and has brought in extra resources to deal with the situation, as it does for big storms, said president and CEO Lori Clark.
N.B. Power CEO Lori Clark said many customers are surprised by how much
power consumption increases when the temperature drops. (Jacques
Poitras/CBC)
"We take every customer complaint seriously and investigate with the customer one-on-one," Clark said. "For the most part we have not found anything out of the ordinary."
"The audits that we have done on our system would indicate that this is a consumption change in our customers."
Johnson was skeptical those factors could account for the differences customers are seeing.
"It doesn't make sense … because we've got people who run their homes with alternatives to electric energy … people who are running on wood heat … and people were running on oil still are getting these huge increases," Johnson said.
Even people on equalized billing plans are seeing increases of $100 a month, she said.
Tracy Wright of Blissfield said the energy consumption for her small house was up from 1,700 kWh to 2,300, and that was with fewer Christmas lights than last year and no additional appliances.
Wright said she compared average monthly temperatures and found it was indeed colder It was -4 on average as opposed to -1 the previous December.
But even in comparison to February 2024, when the average temperature was also -4, her household energy consumption last month was 500 kWh higher, she said.
"The power usage at my house has been consistent over many years and nothing changed here in those months," said MacKinnon.
What these customers seem to have in common, according to Johnson, is the recent installation of smart meters.
"I just wonder if there's a glitch in the system," she said.
Clark is confident smart meters are not to blame.
"These are all federally regulated. They have to be reviewed by Measurement Canada before they're installed. … We actually audit and review them when we install them, and every six years they have to be audited again."
However, in some cases, initial investigations have not been able to explain customer complaints, she acknowledged.
"If it is something that we also think is very strange and not in the norm of what we're seeing with our other customers, we will dispatch resources to check the meter and we've done that on on a number of occasions," Clark said.
CBC has requested further information about the number of cases in question and what if any problems have been discovered.
If a customer wants a meter inspection that N.B. Power doesn't deem necessary, the fee is $65.
- Don't keep the change: N.B. Power preparing to refund all customers, including some owed pennies
- N.B. Power wins long fight to raise rates 19 per cent over 2 years
She would like the legislature's public accounts committee to look into the issue.
That would be up to the provincial government, Clark said, while noting the Crown corporation does its own audits on a regular basis.
About half of all N.B. Power customers now have smart meters. They can view their consumption on the utility's website and get customer support to understand what may be going on, she said.
They can also get notifications when consumption starts to increase, which might allow them to make adjustments to avoid a higher bill, she said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Information Morning Fredericton
Audit ordered after soaring N.B. Power bills anger thousands of customers
Findings from 3rd-party review to be ready for public accounts committee in a month
N.B. Power will undergo an independent audit after thousands of customer complaints about December power bills, which for many were hundreds of dollars higher than expected.
Findings from the review will be ready for the legislature's public accounts committee on Feb. 18, so MLAs can ask the third-party auditor followup questions at its meeting Feb. 21.
Announcing the audit Tuesday afternoon, Premier Susan Holt said the government had been working for a week to understand why increases of $200 to $500 — or up to 1,500 kilowatt hours — had shown up on power bills.
"We've been listening to New Brunswickers and we share your concerns about expensive power bills," Holt told reporters.
"We heard from a large volume of New Brunswickers … with really significant spikes in power bills that were unexpected, that didn't go to trend and we want to get to the bottom of this."
She said her caucus met with N.B. Power representatives on Jan. 20 to get a better understanding of the issue, but "that conversation left us with more questions."
Energy Minister René Legacy said he had meetings with the N.B. Power board over the last 10 days, and the utility has agreed to an independent review.
Energy
Minister René Legacy said he wants the findings about the power bill
spike to be ready in time for a legislature committee's meeting on Feb.
21. (Isabelle Leger/CBC News )
"They also share the concern that if there are any significant concerns from New Brunswickers, whether their system is compromised, that is an issue for them too, so they want to get to the bottom of it," Legacy said.
Holt said the Liberal government isn't ruling anything out now, but this could simply have been a "perfect storm of pain for New Brunswickers."
Earlier in the day, Lori Clark, the president and CEO of the Crown corporation, said system audits suggested a change in consumption by N.B, Power's customers was the cause.
She said December was the first cold month since rates increased by 9.8 per cent last spring. December was also on average three degrees colder than the December before, and the billing cycle for some customers was as long as 33 days, she said.
A one-time debit of $11 was added for some customers last month, to comply with the Energy and Utilities Board's order to keep distinct service charges for rural and urban customers.
When asked if she would consider a freeze on power rates, Holt said her focus is figuring out what happened in this situation first.
"Right now we need to get to the bottom of this issue, because if there's an issue here that we can learn from it's something that we have to address urgently," she said.
Clarifications
- A previous version of this story stated that the audit findings would be made available for a meeting on Feb. 21. The date of the public accounts committee meeting is not yet confirmed and will be decided by the committee.Jan 21, 2025 8:37 PM AST
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New surcharges on your N.B. Power bill may last until 2031 — or longer
- 29 days ago
- News
- Duration 2:05
Edmundston mayor calls for action after 2nd day of power outages
Fire chief in northwestern N.B. city says reason for outages still isn't clear
Edmundston Mayor Eric Marquis is calling on N.B. Power to improve the reliability of its transmission network to the northwest after power outages on back-to-back days.
"We want, once and for all, to receive guarantees that the needed investments will be made in the very near future to avoid this type of situation," Marquis said during an update streamed live on the city's Facebook page.
"Our residents have been suffering for too many years because of the inaction of N.B. Power in our area."
Thousands of households in the area lost power Wednesday morning for the second straight day — and as temperatures hovered in the minus mid-20s.
Edmundston mayor Eric Marquis made the call for electricity
infrastructure improvements following outages on back-to-back days. (CBC
News)
Marquis said N.B. Power has implemented a temporary fix but is continuing to investigate what caused the dual outages. He added that he will meet soon with N.B. Power officials and Premier Susan Holt to discuss the infrastructure problems in the region.
Some community members are frustrated over the lack of answers from the utility.
"I really wish there was more answers," said Melissa Bougie, who spent most of Tuesday without electricity and spoke in an interview Wednesday after her home went dark again.
She was among 4,800 Edmundston-area customers who lost power the day after a nearly identical outage left 4,900 people without it for about eight hours.
Power was restored around 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to N.B. Power's outage map.
This generator was put to use in Edmundston during the Tuesday power outage. (CBC News)
N.B. Power said in a social media post that the outage is due to an issue on the same transmission line that caused Tuesday's outage.
"Our team is working on the issue immediately and will do everything possible to restore power as quickly as we can," the post reads.
"We understand how frustrating and challenging repeated outages can be, especially during these weather conditions, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience."
Jacques Doiron, the Edmundston fire chief, says the local utility isn't sure what caused the power outage. (CBC News)
N.B. Power supplies electricity to Edmundston Energy, one of three local utilities in New Brunswick.
CBC made interview requests to N.B. Power, but no one was made available.
"Our focus is on restoring power to all impacted customers," N.B. Power spokesperson Dominique Couture said in an email. "For that reason we won't be able to do an interview at this time."
The second outage came as the northwestern New Brunswick region continues to experience cold temperatures. According to Environment Canada the temperature as of 10 a.m. was -24 with a windchill of -28.
Bougie, who has multiple sclerosis, said she struggles to stay warm at the best of times.
"With my MS symptoms, I'm pretty cold compared to the average person," she said. "Right now, I'm bundled up pretty badly. While everybody else just has sweaters I have snow pants on.
"I get so cold I shiver while everybody is just fine."
Jacques Doiron, the Edmundston fire chief and EMO co-ordinator, told CBC News that the city hasn't had a real explanation for Tuesday's outage from the utility.
"It's exactly the same as yesterday, the concerns are exactly the same," Doiron said. "The people are more frustrated though, because now it's like the second time in two days that they don't have any electricity so we do understand how they're feeling.
"Unfortunately we are just affected by an N.B. Power problem. We're trying to get some answers also to see why it happened again, what's going on, why is it there again, but unfortunately we don't have those answers."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Here are the two articles from NFL in Radio-Canada.
It is interesting that the NFL electric utility decided last year not to use smart meters. They say that it is not for the benefit of the people! Although the public intervener wants NFL to have it! What a help he is.
The other one is about the Utility Board refusing NFL Power's rate increase. At the end of the article, the Board instruct NFL Power to produce a plan to implement smart meters. That topic is not included in the title: hidden in plain sight… They will say: « But we told you! »
If you do not find the equivalent in CBC, then the English population did not get the information.
Of course you should Roger they were your words
Thousands without power in Edmundston area during cold snap
Power for almost 5,000 customers went out around 7 a.m. AT
Around 4,900 residents in the New Brunswick city of Edmundston and the surrounding area were without electricity Tuesday, as the region deal with severe cold.
The outage is impacting N.B. Power customers, as well as clients of Energy Edmundston, the city's homegrown energy department.
"We don't know what happened, and N.B. Power doesn't know, either," said Jacques Doiron, the city's fire chief and emergency measures organization co-ordinator. "We don't know when it's going to come back."
Doiron said the problem is not with the city itself, "but we are affected by [NB Power's] line."
CBC News requested an interview with N.B. Power. Spokesperson Dominique Couture in an email said no one was available, and directed inquiries about when customers would have their power restored to its website.
As of 1 p.m. AT, most of those affected were estimated to be restored by mid-afternoon.
Jacques
Doiron, Edmundston's fire chief and emergency measures organization
co-ordinator, said the city's utility isn't sure what caused the power
outage. (CBC News)
Doiron says the power went out around 7:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. The outage is affecting residents of Edmundston, Lac Baker, Saint-François de Madawaska, Saint-Basile and St-Joseph-De-Madawaska.
Environment Canada listed a wind chill of –33 degrees in Edmundston Tuesday morning, climbing to –24 in the afternoon before dipping down to –36 overnight.
"Because the temperatures are really cold, we had to open up a warming centre for people to come and warm up," said Doiron.
The city-owned Pavillon sportif d'Edmundston, next to the University of Moncton's Edmundston campus, has been opened to allow those without electricity to warm up and charge their devices.
Doiron said the longer the outage goes on, the worse things will get in this cold weather.
"Pipes freezing, that is an issue," said Doiron, but warns that secondary heating systems such as barbecues or generators be kept outside for safety reasons.
"People can get very sick or die," said Doiron.
He asked those without power to turn off their breakers for power-hungry systems like baseboard heaters and large appliances, to ensure that when power is restored it can be rebooted with a lightened load and not risk it going out again immediately. Once the power is back, he said, people can again turn on their breakers.
"That's going to help us re-establish electricity in our region," said Doiron.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Soaring power bills have people on fixed income losing sleep. Options for relief are limited
More is needed to help those struggling with high cost of electricity, advocates say
A spike in December power bills has spurred an external audit of N.B. Power's billing system, and it's also left some wondering how they're going to afford their bill.
Peter Cote, who is retired and lives on a fixed income, is trying to figure out how he'll budget for an additional $100 in power costs.
"I buy everything half-price at the grocery store," he said. "I do whatever I can do.
"It's anxiety, it's stress, like, it's killing me. I don't sleep."
As Cote and others wait to see what, if anything, will be found by the audit of N.B. Power, they still need to pay their bills.
"Energy is not a typical commodity," Randy Hatfield, a longtime anti-poverty advocate, said. "It's what everybody requires in order to stay warm and to stay healthy.
"If it's not like any other commodity. I think we have to put in place measures to ensure that people won't be disconnected, they won't lose their power, they can afford it."
Randy Hatfield, executive director of the Human Development Council, is
calling for a low income subsidy on power bills. (Graham Thompson/CBC)
Many seniors living on fixed incomes, who may not qualify for other programs, find sudden bill increases difficult to deal with, said Bill Van Gorder, the Atlantic education and advocacy officer with the Canadian Association of Retired Persons.
"It doesn't matter frankly whether your fixed income is up here or down here," said Van Gorder. "If it's fixed, you have no flexibility and this kind of increase in power costs is really getting to them."
When asked about available assistance, N.B. Power spokesperson Dominique Couture said in an email that the utility offers "options to help them manage their overdue bills, including payment arrangements and making sure they are aware of programs that might offer assistance."
What’s available for people struggling with their power bill?A section on the N.B. Power website that details payment assistance options lists three government programs.
The first is the emergency fuel benefit. It consists of a one-time payment of up to $550, intended to cover a household in the case of an emergency. It requires an application and an assessment of income and expenses.
The second program listed is the low-income seniors benefit, which provides an annual $600 payment for seniors who are receiving assistance through other federal programs.
There are limited programs for those dealing with high power bills. (Silas Brown/CBC News)
Third is the rent bank, which gives grants to people who are at risk of losing their rented accommodations because of an unexpected financial hardship.
N.B. Power does offer efficiency programs, with one geared to those with combined gross household income under $70,000 that provides free mini-split heat pumps and insulation upgrades. Other efficiency programs require an upfront investment from customers.
However, efficiency programs only help with future bills. Right now, some may have to turn to a payment assistance plan.
For some, that's of little comfort.
Jackie McGaughey is on employment insurance after having a heart attack last year. She said she's found herself falling behind with her bill payments.
"When I called in to make arrangements, they wanted $300 and some," she said.
"I only get $750 every two weeks. What are you going to live on?"
Hatfield, executive director of the Human Development Council, intervened in N.B. Power's rate hearings last year to push for the development of a comprehensive energy poverty strategy.
Energy poverty is usually defined as having to pay more than six per cent of income on electricity. According to Hatfield, 13 per cent of N.B. Power customers missed at least one payment in 2023.
He said repayment programs can still make life challenging for people, and he advocates a low-income subsidy seen in other provinces, such as Ontario. For some, high power rates can mean a choice to heat or to eat, Hatfield said.
"If you've got to pay your rent, you've got to pay your utilities, you've got to pay your taxes, what's left is meant to provide for all the other necessities and in this case, for too many people, it's not enough."
Premier Susan Holt says it's unlikely additional help is coming for power customers. (CBC News)
Premier Susan Holt has encouraged those struggling with their bills to get in touch with her office or their local MLA.
But Holt told CBC's Information Morning Fredericton on Friday that no additional help is coming for ratepayers should the audit fail to find any irregularities.
She said a 10 per cent rebate on power bills took effect in January, so customers should see some relief on their next bill.
But right now, people like Peter Cote will still need to figure out how to pay their bills.
"I think all night long and I get up in the morning and I worry and I worry, 'What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do?
"I know I'm going to have to pay that bill."
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Parts of 249 private properties needed to improve transmission link to Nova Scotia, says N.B. Power
'There are still a lot of unknowns': some Memramcook residents upset to lose part of their land to project
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are set to begin construction of the first phase of a large joint project they say will help them keep their commitment to phase out coal by 2030.
The interprovincial electricity transmission line will span 160 kilometres, from Salisbury, new Moncton, to a substation in Onslow, near Truro.
Murielle Belliveau's Memramcook home will be in the shadow of the new transmission tower. She is one of 249 property owners who will lose part of their lot or their homes to the line.
The senior was one of a few dozen people who attended an open house about the project this week, hosted by N.B. Power. The open houses in Salisbury, Tantramar and Memramcook are all areas where the transmission line will pass through.
The environmental impact assessment identifies a total of 267 properties that the power line will cross, totalling 313 hectares. Of those, 249 are privately owned, and many of those property owners from the Memramcook area were in attendance at the recent open house.
"We thought that by coming today we'd have more answers. But there are still a lot of unknowns," said Bellieveau, who lives on Royal Road.
Residents anxious as N.B. Power shares plans for new transmission link to N.S. A portion of her family property will be under easement by N.B. Power for the next 75 years.
That means the utility can use the land for a right-of-way, build towers and supports, and install underground or above ground wires, but the resident will still have ownership of the property.
"It's not the full land," she said. "I'm losing just the part where I do my gardening."
Bob Garland, the project director, said property owners don't have a choice.
"N.B. Power has the right to expropriate — we don't take that lightly," he said. "With respect to choice, this is ultimately for the greater good."
Bob
Garland, project director for the interprovincial transmission line,
says it will twin the existing line that was built in the 1970s,
'essentially doubling up on it.' (Victoria Walton/CBC)
According to documents, "where land negotiations are not successful, the expropriation process would be initiated." Property owners will receive "compensation, as appropriate" for their land, which will be negotiated individually.
Garland said the project will twin the existing line that was built in the 1970s, "essentially doubling up on it."
While Belliveau is upset about losing her garden, she also worries about her neighbours, some of whom will have to pack up and move.
"My neighbour has to move, and they are taking over his house," she said. "So that's the sad part, to lose such a wonderful neighbour."
Belliveau said because the transmission line changes direction on her property, the largest of the three tower structures that N.B. Power will be using for the project will be within her field of vision.
"So it will just be like a lot of this structure where there used to be trees and birds and all the beautiful things," she said.
There are three types of towers that the interprovincial transmission
line project will use, depending on location. (Victoria Walton/CBC)
Another neighbour, Jocelyne Richard, said she had breast cancer and went through treatment and open heart surgery in 2016. She worries about the impact the electromagnetic field might have on her health.
"My house is not being bought, but it's gonna be 140 feet from my house," Richard said. "It's like you're getting radiation all the time."
N.B. Power's website for the transmission line links to Health Canada documents which indicate there's no evidence that "extremely low frequency" electromagnetic fields, which are defined as under 300 hertz, cause harm.
But for Richard, it's not the reassurance she wanted.
"I'm being affected and I'm living there, but they're more concerned about the environment than they are about us, the people living in their house so close to the power lines," she said.
Jocelyn
Richard has dealt with breast cancer and open heart surgery and is
worried about the impact on her health of having power transmission
lines close to her home. (Victoria Walton/CBC)
Richard was originally told N.B. Power would buy her house and she'd be forced to move. But the lines have moved slightly and now she can stay. Or rather, she's forced to stay.
"I don't know what to do. It's like, where do I go?" she said. "Even now, people know, they already know that there's going to be another power line. So it might affect the selling of my house and the price I can get."
Belliveau says it's caused a lot of anxiety and stress among her and her neighbours.
"I don't want to lose the value of my property, but I'm not in it for financial gain. And I'm sure that other individuals in the room who are losing their homes are not in for the financial gain," she said.
Eugene Gautreau says he was surprised to hear the project is
progressing faster than he was initially told. (Victoria Walton/CBC)
"They would much rather stay in their home and keep doing what they've always done — to harvest the land and just wake up and listen to the birds."
Some residents at the Memramcook open house expressed concern that the public consultation process came too late and the project is moving faster than they expected, but ultimately support the project.
"The last time I talked to a guy from N.B. Power, he told me it could be up to five years. Now, six months later, they come along, and in another six months they're going to be starting," Eugene Gautreau, who lives in Memramcook East, said.
"So that's a big surprise to us."
Gautreau said the line will pass behind the tree line near his property. And while he wishes he'd been more informed, he doesn't have any issues with the project itself going ahead.
"It's like a business," he said. "They've got to do what they've got to do."
Impact on the natural environment
In January 2025, N.B. Power submitted an environmental impact assessment to the Department of Environment for review of their portion of the project.
It identifies 10 species at risk spotted during field studies in 2022 and 2023, including the bald eagle, bank swallow, barn swallow, monarch butterfly, wood turtles and two types of bats.
"We've had bird surveys done, we hired a consultant to walk the entire line and identify water bodies and species at risk," Garland said.
The new interprovincial transmission line will run parallel to the
existing one, which was built in the 1970s. (Victoria Walton/CBC)
There are also 206 groundwater wells located within the project area, all used as domestic drinking water sources.
The nearly 650-page document includes mitigation measures such as operating machinery in "previously disturbed areas whenever feasible" and avoiding wetlands when building tower structures "unless absolutely necessary."
The Department of Environment will have an opportunity to ask questions about the document, which N.B. Power will have to answer.
But Garland says that "right now there's nothing major with respect to environmental that we're aware of."
The project is still in the planning phase, with construction expected to start in both provinces in 2026.
"It's what ultimately started out as Atlantic Loop, the evolution of the Atlantic Loop," Garland said. On the Nova Scotia side, it's called the N.S.-N.B. Reliability Tie.
Nova Scotia will foot the bill for the entirety of Phase 1, including the New Brunswick portion of the line. In 2023, it was estimated the total project in both provinces, including a Phase 2 extension to Point Lepreau, would cost $1.4 billion.
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Opting out smart meter program could cost NB Power customers
Power customers in British Columbia, Quebec have faced fees for refusing the installation of smart meters
NB Power customers who do not want a smart meter installed on their home could be facing a stiff fee for that decision, but so far the utility is not saying how much it might be.
"It will be based on the principles of cost causation, but we have not gotten into the detail of what that fee would be at this point," said NB Power Senior Vice President of Operations Lori Clark at Energy and Utilities Board hearings on Friday.
In other jurisdictions that have already adopted smart meters, customers not wanting to participate have faced hundreds of dollars in extra charges.
Thousands of pages of evidence on a number of issues, including smart meters, have been submitted for the 12-day hearing.
In British Columbia, power customers are charged a meter reading fee of $32.40 per month if they refuse a smart meter, or $20 per month if they accept a smart meter but insist its radio transmitter be turned off. That's a cost of between $240 and $388.80 per year for customers to opt out.
In Quebec, smart meters were installed beginning in 2012. Customers who refused the devices were initially charged $98 to opt out plus a meter reading fee of $17 per month. That was eventually cut by Quebec's energy board in 2014 to a $15 refusal fee and a $5 per month meter reading surcharge.
NB Power said it may be a year or more before it settles on its own fee.
"The opt out policy will be developed and implemented as part of the roll out. It will be one of the last things we do," said Clark.
Customers need to be on board
NB Power is in front of the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board seeking permission to spend $122.7 million to install 350,000 smart meters province wide.
Smart
meter opponent Roger Richard, right, leads a group worried about human
health problems caused by long term exposure to the devices. (Robert Jones/CBC NEWS)
The meters are capable of transmitting consumption data of customers back to NB Power in real time, which the utility said will allow for a number of innovations in pricing and service.
The meters require near universal adoption by customers to maximize their financial benefit — like eliminating more than $20 million a year NB Power currently spends to read meters manually. The utility has said the switch will not succeed if too many customers opt out.
"We certainly wouldn't be looking at making an investment of this size without having the customer with us," said Clark.
On Thursday, Kent County resident Daniel LeBlanc, who along with Roger Richard, is opposing the introduction of smart meters for health reasons, predicted a cool reception for the technology in many parts of the province.
Haven't tested the waters
NB Power acknowledged it has not measured public opinion on adopting smart meters but is confident it can convince customers it is a good idea for them and the utility.
"People don't understand what the smart meter is," said Clark. "We need to educate our customers first to allow them to make an informed decision so that will be part of the roll out plan."
Clark noted that smart meters, helped by stiff opting out penalties, were eventually accepted by 98 per cent of customers in British Columbia and by 97.4 per cent of customers in Quebec.
"We will check and adjust along the way if there are issues with customer uptake," said Clark.
"This is very similar to what has been done in other jurisdictions and they haven't had those challenges."
Big firms forced to make changes in face of rising NB Power bills
AV Group, Irving Paper argue the high cost of electricity is making the province much less attractive
The shock households felt when they saw their December NB Power bills has also hit two of the province’s largest private employers.
AV Group Canada, which runs pulps mills in Nackawic, just west of Fredericton, and in Atholville near Campbellton in the province’s north, warns that NB Power’s rates are making it uncompetitive against other firms around the world.
Irving Paper says it will reduce operations at its Saint John mill again by half, to deal with the high electricity cost, for an undetermined period.
“The current situation regarding escalating power costs is not only concerning for residential customers, which increases affordability issues for our employees, but has serious consequences for our facilities,” said Mike Legere, spokesman for AV Group Canada, which produces cellulose tailored to manufacture fibre for use in the textile industry. The company employs 1,200, making it the dominant player in both small towns.
We are now at the stage of implementing more expensive solutions for diminishing returns.
Mike Legere
Energy makes up one-quarter of AV’s input costs at its pulp mills, second only to wood fibre, he said.
“Our ability to remain matched against our competitors, who are in low-cost countries like Brazil, South Africa and Chile, where energy costs are four times less than ours, is significantly challenged,” he said. “Finding efficiencies and reducing consumption is challenging as most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.
“NB Power, to their credit, has been and continues to be supportive of these efforts but we are now at the stage of implementing more expensive solutions for diminishing returns.
“We have reached a critical point where we need to establish greater pricing certainty.”
Facing public fury over high NB Power bills, Premier Susan Holt said last Tuesday that an independent audit would be conducted to find out what was behind the big jump in electricity prices in December.
NB Power has promised to make the results public when they come out, likely by mid-February.
We empathize with residential customers’ rate shock.
Mark Mosher
And Irving Paper said it too welcomed the third-party audit. Since last April, when rates went up, it has warned that New Brunswick’s industrial rates are having a negative impact on the provincial economy.
The company, which makes graphic paper for use in magazines, catalogues, newspapers and advertising flyers and employs 310 people at the mill, will once again shut down 50 per cent of its operations for an undefined period in response to what it called the unprecedented power rates.
“We empathize with residential customers’ rate shock,” said Mark Mosher, the vice president of Pulp & Paper, at J.D. Irving. “We have been experiencing the same for the last several years and have been raising the alarm for months.”
Mosher said as Canadian manufacturers face more and more significant headwinds, it is becoming increasingly difficult to shoulder the type of impact and remain competitive in an international market.
“New Brunswick will see a further 10 per cent increase in April 2025, making the situation even worse,” Mosher added.
NB Power said it sympathized with the firms.
“We understand that rising rates are challenging for customers,” said the utility’s spokeswoman Dominique Couture.
“As a cost-of-service utility, NB Power’s rates are based on the cost of providing electricity to our residential and industrial customers. We are committed to doing everything we can to reduce the rate pressure on customers, but we have a responsibility to maintain and invest in our system to ensure New Brunswickers have the power they need when they need it.”
As NB Power’s largest electricity consumer, Irving Paper has repeatedly asked that the utility review its electricity rates, which the firm says are 22 per cent higher than the Canadian average industrial rate and climbing.
Mosher said in the past, annual electrical costs for his company have averaged around $60 million.
“In 2024 that price tag surpassed $83 million and is expected to reach the $100-million mark in 2025 – even with significant downtime factored in.”
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Join the Conversation
Comment by Lorne Henry.
Some of the lowest rates in Canada for years , and finally under Premier higgs NB Power was allowed to raise the rates all the while the Liberals whined about rates when they were amont the cheapest in Canada . Under the liberals they'll cave to the complainers , the mills will shut down and move elsewhere , and NB will lose thousands of jobs . Unemployment will rise , taxes will increase to support the added thousands on EI , deficits and debt will double , and we'll all be the worse for it . Welcome to the world of the Liberals .
Comment by Jim Thebeau.
Remember, Irving burns wood to produce electricity that it sells to the utility for market price. Then it gets to buy it back at a subsidized rate. I received more for a truckload of pulpwood 30 yrs ago than I do today. Electricity rates for NB rate payers are still some of the lowest in our country. Check out the rates in our de-regulated Provinces. In Alberta they get 2 bills, one for consumption and another for transmission, by 2 separate companies. The rates are comparable this year, but spiked in 2023 to double the current rate. Their rates don't include the transmission bills for each utility, gas and electricity, which can equal or surpass the consumption amount.
Comment by Celly O.
I don't understand all the moaning. NB Power is - literally - bankrupt. It's debt is crushing. With lengthy outages of Point Lepreau the cost of generating electricity goes up and upper. Rate increases are the most obvious way to address the biggest issue. Politics have gotten NB Power where it's at. For all of us, NB Power needs a viable way forward and out of this financial mess. The moaning about the high bills in December have triggered an independent review. It looks like the Premier is taking concerns seriously and is acting. I would guess the review will conclude that a.) ~13% rate increase in 2024; b.) five additional days in the billing cycle (DEC 2024 compared to 2023); c.) lower temperatures; d.) the lack of 10% rebate as that only kicks in for the JAN 2025 billing cycle; are combining for the increase seen. Unfortunate? Maybe. But entirely predictable. Who thought bills would stay the same or drop with massive increases?
Comment by Marcel Belanger.
NB Power is already subsidizing these mills to the tune of millions off their power bills every year. We can thank Higgs for that.
Especially the Irving mills which are franchisees of a Bermuda based company that brings all their profits to Bermuda via franchise fees.
Those franchise fees are all expenses to the NB Mills and reduces their income taxes almost to zero.
Also they claim the mills make no profit which is pure deception.
They need to show how their power bills are affecting their bottom line, just saying it does not make it so.
Reply by Susan ODonnell.
Agreed. We need more transparency by these privately-owned companies that do not share their financial info and then make claims that they need more public subsidies.
Reply by Celly O.
Are you claiming that ~20% higher energy costs do not impact a company's bottom line? 🤪
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