Bill 50 – Electric Statutes Amendment Act (Committee of the Whole)
Ms Blakeman:
Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just can’t tell you how thrilled I am. I’ve tried really hard to listen to all of this debate – we’re now, I think, more than a week into the debate on this bill – on the Tannoy if I was back at the Annex, and if not, I have tried to follow along by reading Hansard. I cannot believe I did that, but I tried.
Currently we are speaking to the government amendment which is on the floor with no subamendments. It doesn’t seem to me that anybody has actually spoken directly to the government amendment that is on the floor, so I’d like to do that. Once the amendment has been dealt with, I’d like the opportunity to seek the chairman’s permission to stand again and just speak more generally on the clause debate in Committee of the Whole. Going back, I was going through my file, and I was noticing that, you know, I started to collect e-mails and letters and such from people back in the summer, which makes sense because the minister put this on the floor in the spring session so that there would be the opportunity for people to give him some feedback to the bill, thus all the wonderful people that I’ve had an opportunity to correspond with. But in listening to the debate and reading the correspondence, these are the issues that I’ve been hearing over and over again: the question of need, the question of crisis, the question of public consultation, the question of cost, the question of cost paid by others – I think we could refer to that now as the Lexus argument – the reliability of the line, and the question of whether the lines are for us or for export.
There have been sort of subquestions there about how fast this needs to proceed, who pays, and who decides. As I see it, those are the issues that are live in this particular discussion. What we saw coming forward in the government amendment was an attempt, I think, to address some of the criticism that had been levelled over the summer and, indeed, some of the issues that I just highlighted in that sort of shopping list. The first is section A, which deals with the needs question, as I understand it. I’m sure that if I’m wrong, the minister will be happy to correct me. He certainly didn’t hold back from correcting anyone else. I think that what I see in the government’s attempt to correct this is that we didn’t really correct the problem with this amendment.
The bill continues to bypass the needs identification process. So the changes that are being proposed by the government don’t actually do anything to address that concern. We have the original wording that the Alberta Utilities Commission Act does not apply to critical transmission infrastructure. Now we have a subamendment here that’s being put in under section (2), which is being added under the original section. It clarifies, essentially, that other hearings are still in play, that they remain, that they’re accessible, such as for the siting of the lines. The minister has been very clear that that continues to be available, but it’s not what’s being addressed here.
The section actually only deals with the AUC’s role independent of government to assess the need for the transmission lines. If the commission cannot give consideration under 17(1) to whether that critical transmission infrastructure, which is a term I keep seeing come up, is required to meet provincial needs, then 17(1) itself no longer applies. It should be as simple as that. So I’m arguing that there’s no substantive difference made to Bill 50 by what we see in what we’re calling amendment A. If I can go on to section B of the amendment, which is amending section 2(6), appearing at the bottom of page 7, if you have a paper copy of the bill. Otherwise, it’s essentially appearing under subsection (9). What’s happening here is that there’s a whole other piece being added in on staged development, 41.4 The previous section was 41.3. This is a whole big section that gets stuck into the bill as an amendment.
What we’ve got here is mostly around language: critical transmission infrastructure, CTI. Okay. It’s subject to regulations, to “specify and make available to the public milestones that the Independent System Operator will use to determine the timing of the stages of the expansion of the terminals.” But what’s missing here is what the timing is. It’s one thing to come forward in the act and say: “All right. We’re going to give stages. We’re going to implement stages, or milestones, into the bill.” Fair enough. But part of this was the issue around a sort of larger understanding of timing. If you tell me that you’re going to do this in stages but you don’t tell me how far apart the stages are – they could be a week apart, a month apart. I don’t mean to be frivolous but quite genuine in saying that you haven’t resolved the problem. To tell me that this is going to be staged and then not tell me what the increments are in the staging is not helpful. It doesn’t move the issue ahead, or it doesn’t resolve the issue that people were concerned about. So it talks about those milestones.
The second piece of it is that the facilities that are referred to “shall be developed in stages in accordance with subsection (3).” Subsection (3) talks about that the schedule shall be developed first, may initially be energized at 240 kV, and the ISO shall, subject to the regulations, specify, et cetera, et cetera. It says it’s going to be staged and then doesn’t tell us how far apart or even give us an example. Is it a year, or is it five-year increments? Nothing. If you don’t give me those increments, it didn’t make this meaningful. So that’s not going to help.
Moving on to the next section, which would appear as amendment C, which, for people following along on the paper bill, appears on page 10. Again, it’s another whole piece that gets inserted. It’s under section 2(12)(b), and following (l)(v.4), we’re inserting section (v.5). This talks about the establishment of a committee with the ISO, representatives of customers, and other persons determined by the regulation, which again gives us no detail, to provide records to customers in relation to construction of transmission facilities. This one I think is getting a little closer to what I was looking for in that it’s supposed to be giving these records in relation to costs, scope, and construction schedules of the transmission facilities.
The second piece of it is that the records of the ISO, transmission facility officers, and persons directed under different sections must be provided to the committee for the purposes of doing the first, which is to provide that to the public that have asked for it. Essentially, this is giving the public more information on the lines, but again what’s missing here is a timeline. I take it that this information gets passed on but once everything has already been approved.
Do you know what it reminds me of, Mr. Chairman? It’s the whole process that we get involved with in trying to get information around P3s, especially around P3s but also around any kind of contract that the government does. We have a process in which the requests for proposals, or the old-fashioned concept often dered bids, are always closed. We see the very initial request that the government puts out, but it’s not very specific.
We have no idea how the various entities are responding and what they are agreeing that they will do or not do to what level. We don’t get to see that because it’s always a closed process. From that the successful bidder is chosen, and they enter into a contract with the government. Then when we try to get information at that stage, we’re told: “You can’t see the contract. It’s a contract with a third party, business product, blah blah blah. Sorry. You can’t see it.” So the public, the media, the opposition never get a chance in that process to see things. When we were trying to determine, for example, how cost effective it was and what was included and not included in the contracts for some of the P3s – the courthouse is one that comes to mind, and of course that one didn’t proceed – we actually couldn’t get any information about it.
This process is a little bit similar, to me, because it says that the information will be provided, but it’s provided once all the deals are made, all the contracts are out, and the thing is under construction. “Now you can have the information about it.” Nice but not very useful because what are the people that now get this information supposed to do with it? Stand on the highway or down the middle of the right-of-way and go: “Excuse me. I’ve now got information, and I wish you hadn’t done this. I have information that says that you could be doing it cheaper. Whoa. Stop. Don’t put that up.” You know, it’s kind of lip service. It’s addressing part of what people were so angry about but not in a way that ends up being meaningful.
You know, if pressed, I would say that, yes, I would support this particular section of the amendment more than I would support the previous two, but I kind of wonder what difference it would make. Let me move on to D, section 2(13), which is appearing on page 12 of the hard copy. I’m sorry if I back up a bit. Here they’re replacing the sections that you see currently and giving what is in effect a staging of the line that is supposed to go up to Fort McMurray. If you read the two of them, what was and what will be in this amendment, you get two different versions of it, but essentially it creates a staging for that line. There’s something else in here. In section (2) it talks about that the terminals should have an initial capacity of at least 1,000 megawatts each and be expandable to a minimum capacity of 2,000 megawatts each. Interesting. Remember that earlier I was talking about a reference that will turn up. This is the reference that turns up.
It proposes that the lines can go forward in stages rather than all at once, and it’s adjusting, as I said, in a minor way the connection between Edmonton and Fort McMurray to allow for the staging of that. Now, unless I’ve missed something, this is not dealing with the one that goes between Edmonton and Calgary. I think the argument here is that it can get at that charge of overbuilding, the kind of Lexus complaint that we’ve heard, that with these lines, which are the HVDC lines, which are the more expensive technology, if it was felt they were overbuilding: you could see this amendment as addressing that. It allows it to kind of back off of that gold-plated status. But we’re still getting that jump from 1,000 to 2,000 and no details in there about a minimum of one year in increments or a minimum of six months or five years. There’s no timing involved with that. So, again, part of the same problem. You get a gold-plated approach, but it’s a staged gold- plated approach. It doesn’t really change the principle of the bill.
Again, if I was pressed to it, it does include the staging, it does deal with the gold-plated, but it doesn’t have a huge effect on the final shape of the bill. Section E is amending section 19, which is on the bottom of page 12, and striking out “or is not in the public interest.” Again, this is looking to me as though it’s a cosmetic change that does not address any of the major issues that have been brought forward. It removes one of the restrictions in section 3 that was placed on the Alberta Utilities Commission, but it leaves in place others of equal import and force. So it’s not even one step forward, two steps back; it’s one step sideways, and another one back. It’s just another dance step that leaves you standing in exactly the same position where you were.
The commission is still prevented from saying whether or not the transmission lines are needed. You know, what it reminded me of is a toggle switch. What you get is an off/on position. All we’re allowing in a number of places in this bill is for the agencies in power to say yes/no but not anything else and not to deal with anything else. I think the government – well, the government clearly set out in this bill to do something very specific. They feel justified in doing it. But, frankly, based on everything I’ve seen since and listening to the debate that’s happened, there are a lot of experts not in this House – and that’s not casting aspersions – who are questioning whether this is needed and how fast it proceeds and how expensive it is. There were a lot of them.
We had the University of Calgary School of Public Policy. I mean, there are statements like: “It is less likely that project approval and conditions will be driven by short-term political interests and more likely that the regulator’s perspective will reflect long-term benefits and costs to the province.” Then it goes on to talk about: “A public process allows for greater scrutiny of alternative points of view and . . . [requirements] to provide . . . rationale.” So they don’t seem very keen on it.
We had the Environmental Law Centre saying, “Instead of enhancing the transmission approval process, Bill 50 would make the problem of needs assessment and approval for transmission infrastructure in Alberta worse.” We had EDC Associates for the Utilities Consumer Advocate: “Much ofthe data and logic presented by AESO is unconvincing and overstates the sense of urgency.” We had the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta: “Forcing a new transmission build program on existing ratepayers that will treble and potentially quadruple transmission costs in the next 10 years, without any cost control or oversight mechanisms. . .” They go on.
One that I would have thought would have been a favourite of this government, which is the Fraser Institute, you know, with commentary like: “That’s nonsense . . . Although transmission upgrades in Alberta are needed, the growth in demand for electricity has actually slowed in recent years and the network operators have determined there’s no imminent adequacy gap under even the worst scenario.”
I’ll look for another opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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