Albertans overpaid on electricity bills for decades: report
CTV
A new report says when the province deregulated electricity generation in 2001, it forced Albertans to pay billions more for their power.
A new report says when the province deregulated electricity generation in 2001, it forced Albertans to pay billions more for their power.
The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) says its report, called Power in the Public Interest, "lays bare the failures of the current system."
"The change to deregulated electricity generation was an ideological leap of faith," said AFL president Gil McGowan.
"Returning to a regulated system is the opposite of that – it's a return to the tried, tested, and true."
In its report, the AFL said Albertans are currently paying "the highest consumer electricity prices in the country."
"Since the province deregulated power generation in 2001, Alberta's electricity consumer price index increased by an average of 1.8 per cent per year higher than that of Canada as a whole, or double the difference prior to deregulation," the AFL said.
That's equivalent to $24 billion more for electricity in Alberta than in other Canadian provinces.
