Consumer advocate promises to scrutinize proposed Manitoba Hydro rate hike
Opposition leader accuses NDP government of meddling with Crown corporation
A consumer advocate is promising heavily scrutinize a Manitoba Hydro proposal to raise electricity rates nearly 11 per cent over three years.
The provincial Crown corporation applied on Friday for a series of three annual electricity rate hikes of 3.5 per cent, beginning in 2026.
In an application to the Public Utilities Board, Hydro said it needs to raise rates to service $24.6 billion worth of debt and a $31-billion tab over the next two decades to repair aging infrastructure — including two of its three main transmission lines — and create more generating capacity.
Katrine Dilay, a Public Interest Law Centre lawyer who works on behalf of the Manitoba branch of the Consumers Association of Canada, suggested Hydro's financial challenges do not warrant a rubber stamp on its plan to raise rates by nearly 11 per cent.
"The significant financial pressures are front of mind, so we want to ensure that we have a strong Crown corporation who provides reliable, quality services, but also that they're doing their job to make sure that rates are just and reasonable and not one cent more," Dilay said Monday in an interview.
For the past five months, Dilay has questioned the fiscal wisdom of a Manitoba Hydro's rate freeze in 2025, arguing it might be wiser to raise rates modestly this year instead of being forced into a steeper hike in subsequent years.
Manitoba's NDP government promised a rate freeze even though decisions about rates are set by the Public Utilities Board, not elected officials.
Lawyer, Opposition question NDP moves
The NDP government has nonetheless taken credit for a one-year freeze by virtue of the fact Manitoba Hydro did not apply for any changes to electricity rates for this calendar year.
"We've worked closely with Hydro executives to bring in a one-year period, 2025, where we're going to see no Hydro rate increases," Adrien Sala, the minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro, said Monday in an interview.
Dilay described any effort to bypass the Public Utilities Board's public-hearing process as problematic.
"To see decisions being made that are not flowing from those public processes, that are not based in the evidence and without input from the public — that's where the problems come from," she said.
Manitoba's Progressive Conservative opposition went further, accused the NDP government of "meddling" with Manitoba Hydro and breaking its own rate-freeze promise.
"I think they're going to say one thing to get elected and another thing once they're in power," interim PC leader Wayne Ewasko said Momday in an interview.
Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura said the Crown corporation's rate hike would have been even higher if the 2025-26 did not include plans to reduce revenue fees paid by Hydro to the province.
