Where is the Alberta Advantage when it comes to electricity rates?
According to September 2023 figures from energyhub.org, the average residential cost of electricity in Canada, based on an average consumption of 1,000 kWh, including both fixed and variable rates, is $0.192 per 1,000 kWh.
The Canadian average total cost is 19 cents per kWh. The highest rate is in the Northwest Territories at 41 cents per kWh. The lowest rate is in Quebec at 7.8 cents per kWh, B.C. is 11.4, Saskatchewan is 19.9 and Ontario is 14.1. Albertans pay 25.8 cents per kWh.
Alberta has a unique electrical market in Canada. The Alberta electricity grid was privatized by a previous conservative government looking to pay off our provincial debt.
The high electricity rates Albertans pay indicate how well that decision has worked out for the Alberta taxpayer.
Jeff Toffin, Calgary
Ottawa holding back productivity
Chris Varcoe has written an intelligent and accurate article on the recent Canada’s Productivity Summit event, which addressed the decline in Canadian productivity and an inability to get important projects approved and implemented.
Although trade barriers between provinces are a problem, the elephant in the room is the heavy-handed ideology of the federal government, which seeks to block any projects that do not conform with their narrow view of Canada’s future, driven by their extreme left-wing support base.
Tom MacKay, Millarville
Paying the price for compassion?
Re: Child welfare deal, Oct. 17
Here we go again with the cheque-writing. Our government is very good at it.
It seems saying “we’re sorry” is actually “How much is this going to cost?”
Now, we Canadian taxpayers are having to financially compensate Indigenous children for being put into foster care. When children, Indigenous or not, are put into foster care there are reasons for it.
So we are having to pay for putting children from an unsafe situation into a hopefully better one.
It shouldn’t matter if it was an Indigenous foster family or not, a safe home is a safe home. Someone really needs to hide the chequebook.
Dixie Watson, Calgary
Smith can shift focus off Trudeau
As our hospitals and schools are understaffed and overwhelmed, Premier Danielle Smith saw fit to spend $7 million to promote her anti-Trudeau, anti-emission cap ideologies.
It seems to me that if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were to go, Smith’s easy target of hate and vitriol would be gone, and just maybe she could come up with a positive plan to actually help Albertans.
Mary King, Calgary
Alberta at risk of being burned by policies
Alberta is burning up; Jasper, Waterton, Fort Mac to name a few, but now the province wants to further restrict renewable energy.
Logic would dictate it’s time to restrict oil and gas drilling, pipelines and oilsands excavation — not solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. It appears logic is beyond the grasp of our elected officials.
This is the same government that thinks carbon capture is a viable solution and is supporting the Pathways Alliance greenwashing.
Remember the UCP and their bedfellows when your water dries up, the house burns and your children can’t breathe.
Ian Wishart, Calgary