Maritime Electric rate hike proposal under fire from Liberal and Green MLAs

Maritime Electric's rate increase proposal was a hot topic in the P.E.I. legislature Tuesday as opposition parties asked the provincial government to intervene and make the utility fund its post-Fiona costs out of its own pocket. 

Liberal MLA Robert Henderson said Islanders shouldn't have to bear the costs of Maritime Electric's Fiona recovery — either in their electric bills or in their taxes — considering the utility has expenses for tree trimming baked into its budget.

He asked Energy Minister Steven Myers whether the province would step in to stop the $37 million in Fiona restoration costs that Maritime Electric wants to fund through a customer rate increase starting in March 2024.

"Islanders are wondering: Will government step in and overrule this decision like it did with the residential rate increases?" Henderson asked, referring to how the province intervened to reduce allowable rent increases for landlords last year.

"Are you prepared to do the same for electricity cost increases?"

Myers' response included a partial defence of Maritime Electric.

"It's ridiculous to think we were hit by the hurricane with the strongest winds to ever hit land in North American history and that there was a tree blew down on a line — and it's Maritime Electric's fault for every single tree that blew down?" he asked the legislature, causing Henderson to call out: "It is."

"Most ludicrous thing I've ever heard tell of in my life," Myers continued.

Maritime Electric had previously been criticized for not going far enough in its vegetation and tree trimming strategy.

Commissioners with the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) took the company to task for spending just a fraction of what other utilities in the region spend to keep foliage away from their grids.

According to Maritime Electric's rate application filed with IRAC in June 2022, the company was spending just $238 per kilometre of distribution line on vegetation management. NB Power spent twice as much ($476 per kilometre) and Nova Scotia Power four times as much ($1,000 per kilometre).

In late 2019, nearly three-quarters of Prince Edward Island's power lines were in urgent need of maintenance to protect them from being broken by nearby trees, according to documents Maritime Electric filed with the province's energy regulator.

Fallen trees, about 40,000 of them, were the main reason for the widespread power outages that dragged on after post-tropical storm Fiona hit Prince Edward Island last fall, the power utility has said.

During question period Tuesday, Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker spoke to Maritime Electric's rate increase proposal and asked if Island tax dollars were going to "bail out" the electric utility.