Community members in Charlotte County have expressed concerns about the trust and transparency of the recently undertaken review of NB Power.
In a small gathering of about 10 people, there were questions about whether the report could be trusted and not watered down by the government.
“There were instances in which this new government decided that a fulsome, comprehensive review should take place to look at rates … affordability, reliability … and just about everything that impacts the utility,” said Anne Bertrand, one of three individuals tasked with the review.
Bertrand, Michael Bernstein, and Duncan Hawthorne are conducting several in-person and virtual sessions across New Brunswick as part of the review.
Hawthorne is considered an internationally recognized utility and energy expert, according to a biography provided on GNB’s website. Bernstein has experience within the Canadian energy sector. Bertrand was the former director of the New Brunswick Power Corporation and was New Brunswick’s first Access to Information and Privacy Commissioner.
All three came to Saint Andrews last week to hear the concerns of residents in Charlotte County – an area impacted by NB Power’s reliability issues.
On Canada Day in 2024, Saint Andrews’ busiest tourism day of the year, the power went out due to an animal contact with utility infrastructure.
In December 2023, the utility faced what it described as the worst power outage in the past decade. It was caused by severe wind and rain storms that struck the region.
This winter, residents and customers of the utility began to outcry against spikes in power bills. It led to an independent audit of those bills, which confirmed the accuracy.
It attributed those spikes to rate increases, more power usage, colder weather, longer billing cycles and “fewer” power outages.
Electricity rates also increased on April 1, 2024 by 13 per cent.
Bertrand told the small crowd that all three people are invested in figuring out what is the right path for both the utility and rate payers.
Questions around Lepreau
Many of the questions centred around the Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. In April 2024, Lepreau was scheduled to go offline for about 98 days, but ballooned into an eight-month shut down.
It was reported the shut down cost the utility between $1 million and $9 million per day, but the total costs are not known.
Kim Reeder attended the meeting to ask questions about Lepreau.
“This whole issue, NB Power, every person in New Brunswick takes service from NB Power so that part is really important,” she said in an interview with The Courier.
Reeder is a resident of the municipality.
During the meeting, she said “Lepreau isn’t cooking toast,” signalling to the amount of time the generating station has been offline.
“It seems during marketing that nuclear and Lepreau is promoted as the be-all-end-all, but there are so many days a week, and so many months a year, that Lepreau isn’t running,” she said. “And we act like it is.
“Facts are really unfortunately someone’s opinion of what’s true,” she said. “I think that is something that is going to be very important in this process: actual fact.”
Mary Casement, another Saint Andrews’ resident, also questioned the public trust in the review. She asked who would produce the answers included in the final report, would they be factual, detailed and accurate, and would there be political spin.
“At the end of the day, we’re doing a large due diligence on everything,” Hawthorne said. “We’ll also look at whether the people driving the bus are capable of driving it where it needs to go.”
Hawthorne said it will be about whether both the utility and government are prepared to accept what the review is going to deliver.
“This isn’t about shaving a little off the door to see if it’ll fit a bit easier, it’s about bulldozing the wall,” he said.
He also said NB Power is in “the last chance saloon” when it comes to the path forward and the job of the panel is to ensure all the items it recommends are actionable.
Bertrand said the meetings in Saint John and Saint Andrews were the first time the group heard about the lack of trust in the process it was undertaking.
“We are trying really hard to put it across that we are very serious about this review,” she said in an interview with The Courier. “We were in Saint John this morning and we heard that as well.”
She said this is a good conversation to be having.
“We’re glad to answer it, we need to convince people we’re very serious about this,” Bertrand said. “Because we see the cliff, we see that unless something is done and this is just another review … this is not us.”
Frank conversation about the future
All three were frank about the situation the provincial utility is facing.
Bernstein said in his dealings with other review panels his first lesson is always: “stop doing stupid.”
“As you progress, what is more complicated, is [to] understand the options, do good analysis, and then hopefully the future will prove that you’ve made good decisions,” he said to the crowd.
Bertrand spoke about the cliff, which is 2040, where major assets are coming to the end of their life. She said consumption is not decreasing and revenues are not growing – so it requires a creative path forward.
Hawthorne said the plan is to think locally but act globally.
“Whatever we recommend, we see as being actionable and if there isn’t a will to action, then I don’t know why we’re here,” he said.
Premier Susan Holt has set a one-year deadline for the review and decision to be made about the utility’s future by March 2026.
