Discussions

NDP spent a pile of money, we have to pay for it somehow. 2.9 isn't bad at all. If going to the PUB of course it would ask for 8%, negotiations back and forth they settle on 3.5%. My average hydro bill increases $3 a month.

People are going to get squeezed out of this province.  
 
In fact, it shouldn't be Manitobans facing hydro increases, the Americans are effectively being subsidized by these rate increases. It's a very corporate move: clearly an antisocial one.  
 
There are lots of people who can't afford it: it is clear sign that people with low incomes are going to take the brunt of this increase. They are the ones that don't have efficient appliances or homes.  
 
There are rules that allow higher income people to basically flat-rate their hydro. They don't see these rate increases.  
 
This is another hit on Manitoba's affordability: you will start to see an slow outflux of people who don't fit these supposedly "smart" energy pricing schemes.  
 
Edited by PiEyedSquire, 2020-10-15 11:06:33

What rules allow higher income people to flat rate their Hydro?

I guess we’ll just have to reduce our electricity consumption to offset the price rise.

And where do you find this information that you speak of?  
People are going to get squeezed out of this province?  
https://www.energyhub.org/electricity-prices/  
Manitoba has the 2nd lowest rates in Canada. So they get squeezed out of this province and move to a higher rate province? Seriously?  
Higher income people can flat-rate their hydro?  
https://www.hydro.mb.ca/accounts_and_services/rates/residential_rates/  
I checked the rates and I don't see how you can change the rates of hydro. There is one rate unless you are on a reserve. Being all hydro in my house the only thing I get a break on is the pst.  
Please share this info on "smart" energy pricing schemes.

Was just talking to my brother in law about Hydro rates. In Manitoba we are paying 8.74 cents per kilowatt. He said the rate for his cabin in Ontario is 28 cents per kilowatt. A bit more than 3 times as much.

Hydro had some major expenditures over the past 15 years, or so. Bipole 3 and the office tower in Winnipeg both come to mind. Maybe they are at least receiving some revenue from renting space in the office building? Bipole 3 doesn't look like it will ever make sense financially, but it's done. I would strongly suggest that we don't follow Ontario with anything. They've had much higher rates than us for as long as I can remember.  
 
Raising the minimum wage won't eliminate or even help to eliminate poverty. It gets people ahead for a couple of weeks until all the stores and businesses have to raise their prices to make up for having to pay higher wages. I would even rather see a slightly lower wage, right now, if it would mean more jobs. That may involve reducing or eliminating the payroll tax, though.

Well don’t expect anything to get any better as covid worsens, more businesses will close and more people will be out of work as the economy sinks into the deep recession that is coming. Do anything you can now to mitigate the pain to come in the next few years.

Pallister is akin to a dictator IMO. Flouting human rights and bypassing the PUB in this case.

If he followed the rules, I don't see how he is flouting anything.

How do you figure he followed the rules by bypassing the PUB in this case? He is also appealing the Bill 28 ruling which the judge told him is unconstitutional. What a waste of taxpayer money.

When I used to comment more often I sometimes would comment on critical mass. Science explains it as the amount of energy needed to start a process, but there is the other side of it, and that is when a process ends. Think of a car running out of gas, or a jet running out of fuel, the end is not what we want, now think of the consumer running out of money.  
It’s not just government, but everything, think groceries, used to buy 1 litre of chocolate milk at Walmart for a dollar, it’s still a dollar but you only get 750 milliliters, and if soda crackers get any thinner they’ll break just from looking at them.  
It’s just not our provincial government, but everything that we need, sure we can put a political spin on it, but that won’t solve the problem, in the simplest words,”the patient is terminal”.  
Sure a lot of denial out there,

The CBC news story linked by the OP references the Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act as a basis for the directive and called it unusual, not contrary.  
 
I was annoyed when Trudeau pushed through the gun ban but was repeatedly told that was fine because, although unusual, it didn't break any laws.  
 
All bets seem to be off these days in politics. No decorum, courtesy or unwritten rules.