Fortis To Create Up To 80 Jobs

how are they going to produce the power? In an environmentally and labour friendly, community minded way... Or is it perhaps a corporate deregulation scam to broker power and jack up the prices a la enron?

This is why I read this article with mixed emotions. I am ordering some excellent, highly recommended books from the Parkland Institute on deregulation and on the Alberta oil revenues. I'll probably be better able to have an opinion on it after reading those books.

anyone interested go to their website they have many excellent research studies. www.ualberta.ca
oops that isn't the whole thing. I'll get it and post it.

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Here it is... go to research, studies or news, all excellent info www.ualberta.ca/~parkland/

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

" <i>In an environmentally and labour friendly, community minded way</i> " A private company may begin operations with these in mind, but what happens when (not if) business becomes so cutthroat that massive cost-cutting is needed to survive? Then what? The only way a company like Fortis can "do business" is by having a monopoly or quasi-monopoly in their distribution area. That is NOT free enterprise. The consumer (remember us?) should have the freedom to switch from provider to provider to promote REAL free enterprise.

a better name for that would be "the race to the bottom". Everyone rushes around trying to save a few cents as the corporations are either firing workers or cutting wages so that they can undercut their competitor and keep the shareholders happy. Meanwhile the working people are having to work longer and harder to maintain what they have.

I know I'm in the minority but I buy locally even if it costs more and refuse to shop in places like walmart where they don't pay the workers enough to live on and sell cheap sweatshop garbage with bad karma attached to it. I would also be happy to pay more for energy if it was sustainable, green and the workers were being paid a living wage. However I would really be surprised if such a thing could happen because corporations are in business to make money at the expense of everything else. And which is why I can't see this thing as turning out to be a benefit. A mini-enron more likely although I'd love to be wrong here.

Free enterprise at work:

The first lesson taken from this research is that Albertans have not experienced lower prices, or a more stable supply of electricity under a deregulated electricity regime. In contrast, Albertans are paying a premium price for their deregulated electricity. Between June and October of 2000, the price of electricity rose from 5 cents to 25 cents per kWh (kilo watt hour). Without the $2.3 billion rebate program for households and businesses, Albertans would have seen their residential electric bills go up by 500% in this same period. Price hikes are especially harmful for small-business, residential, and low-income customers. Large industrial interests are more likely to be aggressively solicited by power producers and secure deals on the rising cost of electricity.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~parkland/resear ... BCAdv.html

I think it would be the more prudent move for governments to encourage small scale energy developments, instead of just the opposite. In other words, work towards eliminating the grid. http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-01/features/featlovin/

I'm a Fortis customer but not by choice, as they are indeed a monopoly in my area (Aidrie, AB). However, they just own the lines and are not the ones actually selling the electicity here. It is Encore (owned by the City of Edmonton). Encore also doesn't actually produce the electricity, I believe. If this is true,how much is being added to our bills because we are paying middle men that could be avoided if this was all under a government provider?

My last electricity bill was charging $5.70/kWh and $6.60/kWh. Anyone from outside alberta like to compare rates? I have never actually seen what rates are anywhere else.

As far as electricity deregulation bringing in lower electricity bills, a graph on my bill show my energy consumption going down over the last 2 or 3 months with the weather progressively getting warmer but my bill has increased. Go figure.

Umm, no. We need a strong public power grid, preferrably across Canada. Low-cost energy is one of our advantages.

A centralised power grid creates a dangerous control postion that may be exploited (see Enron). Better individualized power generation (see fuel cells et al) would remove manipulation potential, and help put power where it belongs in a democracy -- in the hands of the people.

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RickW