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Are low electrical bills inviting a National Electricity Strategy?

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Is it time to have or implement a National Electrical Strategy?

I live in Red Deer, a small city in Central Alberta. My electrical bill last month was $95.

The average household, according to Google, in Canada uses 972 KWHs monthly, but I used 848 KWHs last month, so if I had been an average user then my bill would have been $109.

My electrical bill shows that my electrical use cost only $32.40 while administration cost $6.99, distribution cost $25.90 transmission fees cost $23.86, include access fees, rate riders and balancing pool allocations and GST and my bill came to $95.

Talk of carbon taxes, green energy would increase my energy costs. Fine, increasing my energy costs by 10% would mean an increase of only $3.24 because all the other charges should not go up. Changing fuel or supply should not affect administrators, power lines, poles or switches.

I started requesting electric bills from homes in other parts of Alberta and the costs varied from 3.75/ kwh to 5.99/kwh and the other costs varied in name and amount for varying total costs per kwh from 11.7 to 15.75/kwh. So at 848 kwh my bill would go from $95 up to $133.56 depending on location.

Alberta is deregulated and you have options of providers. Floating and fixed rates, but the other fees are always added.

A home in Vancouver showed an average 11.37/kwh so my bill would be $96.50, very similar to my Alberta bill. Vancouver is vastly different and denser market. Vancouver has 5,249 people per km. or 2100 homes per square km.

Alberta has a population of 4,252,879 people in 640,081.87 sq. kms. For a density of 6.7 people per square km. or 2.7 homes per square km. So you would think that the costs would be astronomically higher to compensate for the vast distances, and the increased wiring, poles, and installation of such, but apparently not.

So I thought about Ontario. Population of 13,982.984 in 908,607 square kms of land. 15.4 people or 6.2 homes per square kms. More than twice the density of Alberta. The transmission and distribution costs should be equal to or less than sparsely populated Alberta. I started requesting power bills from home owners in Ontario, especially in rural Ontario.

The first bill came from Winchester, 40 kms. from Ottawa. It showed a monthly usage of 661.24 KWHs. Energy costs varied from 8.7/kwh of low peak to 18/kwh during high peak for energy cost of $79.06. Add in delivery charge of $65.41, regulatory fees and HST and the bill comes to $164.96. Or 25/kwh. My current bill would now be $211.55 if I lived in Winchester.

The second bill came from a family outside Chesterville. It showed higher usage, perhaps because of location, age of appliances or lifestyle. Energy use of 1281 KWHs for a bill of $278.93 or 22/kwh. My bill would then be $184.65 if I lived outside Chesterville.

Albertans get their power from natural gas (44%), coal (39%) and even hydro (6%) while Ontario get their power from Nuclear, (66%) and Hydro (22%) But in Alberta, we are expecting increases in our power bills due to carbon taxes, green initiatives and the new power lines being built to the southern border. Paid for by current users to provide power south of the border. Ontario has some similar changes and challenges ahead to incur expectations of increased costs. Is this proper?

Alberta is only 70% the size of Ontario, our population is only 30% of Ontario, yet Alberta power bills are substantially lower. Capitalists will tell you that larger markets like Ontario, means lower costs, as one would also expect with increased density as in this case, Ontario.

Alberta deregulated the electrical sector increasing competition. Would that help or exasperate the problem in Ontario? Should the vast majority of urban homes subsidize the rural users? Should a standard rate be applied to all in Ontario?

To recap with averages of 972 KWHs per home per month it would cost $110.61 in Vancouver B.C., $108.90 in Red Deer Ab., $242.48 in Winchester Ont. And $211.65 in Chesterville Ont. Definitely not a level playing field, is it?

Is it time for the Federal Government to create a National Electrical Strategy? We could at least study on it.

What do you think?

 

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Community

SPARC Red Deer – Caring Adult Nominations open now!

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Red Deer community let’s give a round of applause to the incredible adults shaping the future of our kids. Whether they’re a coach, neighbour, teacher, mentor, instructor, or someone special, we want to know about them!

Tell us the inspiring story of how your nominee is helping kids grow up great. We will honour the first 100 local nominees for their outstanding contributions to youth development. It’s time to highlight those who consistently go above and beyond!

To nominate, visit Events (sparcreddeer.ca)

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Addictions

‘Harm Reduction’ is killing B.C.’s addicts. There’s got to be a better way

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Susan Martinuk 

B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy

Since 2016, more than 40,000 Canadians have died from opioid drug overdoses — almost as many as died during the Second World War.
Governments, health care professionals and addiction experts all acknowledge that widespread use of opioids has created a public health crisis in Canada. Yet they agree on virtually nothing else about this crisis, including its causes, possible remedies and whether addicts should be regarded as passive victims or accountable moral agents.

Fuelled by the deadly manufactured opioid fentanyl, Canada’s national drug overdose rate stood at 19.3 people per 100,000 in 2022, a shockingly high number when compared to the European Union’s rate of just 1.8. But national statistics hide considerable geographic variation. British Columbia and Alberta together account for only a quarter of Canada’s population yet nearly half of all opioid deaths. B.C.’s 2022 death rate of 45.2/100,000 is more than double the national average, with Alberta close behind at 33.3/100,00.

In response to the drug crisis, Canada’s two western-most provinces have taken markedly divergent approaches, and in doing so have created a natural experiment with national implications.

B.C. has emphasized harm reduction, which seeks to eliminate the damaging effects of illicit drugs without actually removing them from the equation. The strategy focuses on creating access to clean drugs and includes such measures as “safe” injection sites, needle exchange programs, crack-pipe giveaways and even drug-dispensing vending machines. The approach goes so far as to distribute drugs like heroin and cocaine free of charge in the hope addicts will no longer be tempted by potentially tainted street drugs and may eventually seek help.

But safe-supply policies create many unexpected consequences. A National Post investigation found, for example, that government-supplied hydromorphone pills handed out to addicts in Vancouver are often re-sold on the street to other addicts. The sellers then use the money to purchase a street drug that provides a better high — namely, fentanyl.

Doubling down on safe supply, B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy — though for now that effort has been stymied by the courts.

According to Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague, “The stats tell us that harm reduction isn’t working.” In an interview, he calls decriminalization “a disaster” and proposes a policy shift that recognizes the connection between mental illness and addiction. The province, he says, needs “massive numbers of beds in treatment facilities that deal with both addictions and long-term mental health problems (plus) access to free counselling and housing.”

In fact, Montague’s wish is coming true — one province east, in Alberta. Since the United Conservative Party was elected in 2019, Alberta has been transforming its drug addiction policy away from harm reduction and towards publicly-funded treatment and recovery efforts.

Instead of offering safe-injection sites and free drugs, Alberta is building a network of 10 therapeutic communities across the province where patients can stay for up to a year, receiving therapy and medical treatment and developing skills that will enable them to build a life outside the drug culture. All for free. The province’s first two new recovery centres opened last year in Lethbridge and Red Deer. There are currently over 29,000 addiction treatment spaces in the province.

This treatment-based strategy is in large part the work of Marshall Smith, current chief of staff to Alberta’s premier and a former addict himself, whose life story is a testament to the importance of treatment and recovery.

The sharply contrasting policies of B.C. and Alberta allow a comparison of what works and what doesn’t. A first, tentative report card on this natural experiment was produced last year in a study from Stanford University’s network on addiction policy (SNAP). Noting “a lack of policy innovation in B.C.,” where harm reduction has become the dominant policy approach, the report argues that in fact “Alberta is currently experiencing a reduction in key addiction-related harms.” But it concludes that “Canada overall, and B.C. in particular, is not yet showing the progress that the public and those impacted by drug addiction deserve.”

The report is admittedly an early analysis of these two contrasting approaches. Most of Alberta’s recovery homes are still under construction, and B.C.’s decriminalization policy is only a year old. And since the report was published, opioid death rates have inched higher in both provinces.

Still, the early returns do seem to favour Alberta’s approach. That should be regarded as good news. Society certainly has an obligation to try to help drug users. But that duty must involve more than offering addicts free drugs. Addicted people need treatment so they can kick their potentially deadly habit and go on to live healthy, meaningful lives. Dignity comes from a life of purpose and self-control, not a government-funded fix.

Susan Martinuk is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of the 2021 book Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health Care Crisis. A longer version of this article recently appeared at C2CJournal.ca.

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