Energy Minister Richard Brown, missing in action?

Province shows no interest in managing most important resource

The letter in the Charlottetown Guardian Turn Fortis into an election issue raised the perennial question of pubic ownership of our electric utility.

The writer argues Maritime Electric are arrogant and have poor customer service. “As it is now, Fortis is unmotivated to improve its service. It is time they faced the loss of their monopoly in favour of a new public utility – Island Electric. I hope our politicians will act upon this and that it becomes an election issue.”

Tim Banks argues Be Careful What You Wish For…. citing the penchant of civil servants to leave work at 4 pm in the summer and past failures at the hog plant, beef, golf courses and industrial plants.

Both writers have points. However, we can point to many civil servants in emergency or essential positions who work round the clock for Islanders and most of Maritime Electric’s staff leave at normal business hours.

The question is not an endorsement or slam of Maritime Electric staff. They are good people and most of them would be working for a Provincial Electrical Utility.

The facts are most electrical utilities in Canada are owned provincially. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and BC. Alberta has private and publicly owned electrical companies.

Ontario was provincially owned for generation and distribution. Distribution was handled by municipal units like Summerside. That changed with 1990s deregulation which threw the industry into chaos. During deregulation some of the cities amalgamated their electric companies.

Ontario’s de-regulation was driven by the American move to privatize utilities around the world. That policy, sponsored by the World Bank, impoverished small and developing countries. It put some countries into virtually bankruptcy and enslavement to the World Bank.

Ontario was convinced to go that route after a serious of scandals rocked Ontario Hydro, the provincially owned utility. However, privatization really only benefited banks, investment companies, law firms and international energy companies who scooped up Ontario’s strategic energy resources at fire sale prices.

Taking a utility public requires skill and a commitment to managing the process. Neither the Binns nor the Ghiz governments had the inclination nor the skill to manage these ventures. One only has to think back to Minister Alan Campbell’s pathetic announcement he was selling off buildings in the industrial park.

“We feel we don’t need to be competing with the private sector,” Innovation Minister Allan Campbell said.

“It’s part of allowing them to do their work and allowing them to grow and flourish in the province as well. It’s part of the one-Island-community theme.” CBC

This is not a man who wants to manage anything.

Since the government always has and will own crown land and buildings, the statement is either laziness on his part – we don’t want to be a landlord – or they are getting ready for more patronage hand-outs to the Liberal party inner-circle.

Minister Richard Brown

We were optimistic when Brown got transferred from PNP to Energy; however, he has not shown much initiative since he got the post. Brown is one of the most energetic people in cabinet and certainly smarter than most of them.

When I asked around, people gave me the bottle’s up sign. If Brown has gone to the bottle instead of to work, that would be too bad for him and too bad for PEI.

He is one of the few people in the past 10 years of PEI politics who could privatize Maritime Electric.