No general rate increase next year for Maritime Electric customers, but future hikes on horizon
CBC
Maritime Electric customers on Prince Edward Island won’t have to worry about a rate hike in 2026 — at least not for now.
The utility has not submitted an application to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission for a general rate increase in 2026, the regulator confirmed.
In an email to CBC News, IRAC said Maritime Electric’s rate applications have generally followed a “fairly regular pattern” in recent years, with filings often submitted in the summer months and new rates — when approved — typically taking effect by March of the following year.
Robert Mitchell, leader of the P.E.I. Liberal Party, said keeping rates steady is good news for Islanders, especially as more people are using electricity to power heat pumps and electric vehicles.
“The longer that's delayed, the better it is for households in Prince Edward Island that use electricity in many different and new ways over the last five years,” Mitchell told CBC News.
Electricity rates already rose by 2.7 per cent this year as part of a multi-year rate plan Maritime Electric submitted to IRAC three years ago and had approved.
That plan included annual rate increases and set electricity rates from May 1, 2023, to Feb. 28, 2026.
Maritime Electric president and CEO Jason Roberts said that with rates holding steady, the company is keeping a close eye on its expenses.
“In today's world, everybody's, you know, striving to stretch a dollar as far as we can. And we're doing the same thing,” Roberts said.
Still, future increases may be on the horizon.
Roberts said the company is still dealing with several major cost pressures, including expenses related to post-tropical storm Fiona in 2022. Maritime Electric currently has an application before IRAC to recover about $37 million in Fiona restoration costs through a customer rate increase.
That application was submitted two years ago, and the company is waiting for a decision from IRAC.
Roberts added that there are also unrecovered energy supply costs from the past couple of years.
Energy supply costs, he said, are passed directly to customers, with Maritime Electric making no profit.
Missing baby presumed dead after father charged with killing mother in St. Albert, Alta., police say
A man is facing charges in the death of a young mother in the Edmonton area and the presumed death of their missing nine-month-old daughter.
A school trustee in Prince George, B.C., says she's shaken and scared after being surrounded by police with their guns drawn and then put in handcuffs, in what RCMP say was a case of mistaken identity.
Despite an eleventh hour attempt to secure at least a few more weeks of freedom, a Calgary dentist was handed a three-year prison sentence for a decade-long insurance billing fraud.
Canada Computers & Electronics says a data breach has leaked information about some of its customers, though several say they are unhappy with the scant details the retailer has provided — including how many of them were affected, and when the breach occurred.
The city of Toronto is shutting down a yacht club on the Humber River in Etobicoke that is accused of having negative impacts on the local ecosystem.
Some public safety experts say the N.W.T. government’s failure to regulate the security profession and mandate training for guards is putting people at risk.
U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to slap a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian aircraft and says his administration will "decertify" planes made by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier.
A new non-stop route between Calgary and Abu Dhabi is set to launch later this year, becoming the only direct flight from Western Canada to the United Arab Emirates.
U.S. authorities alerted the RCMP about Ryan Wedding's imminent arrest days before he was taken into U.S. custody in Mexico last week, Commissioner Mike Duheme has told CBC News.
Ontario’s police watchdog says it is not investigating the case of a lawyer who is alleging that multiple Durham Regional Police Service officers slammed her head on a desk without provocation and dragged her to the basement cells of the Oshawa courthouse last week.
Warning: This story deals with suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can find resources for help at the bottom of this story.
Shilo Nosyk was camping with friends and family last summer in Alberta's Elbow-Sheep Wildland Provincial Park when her then-15-year-old son's throat started to close.
Daniel Martell, the stepfather of two Nova Scotia children who disappeared nearly nine months ago, has been charged with sexual assault, assault and forcible confinement, CBC News has learned.