NB Power Wants Rate Hike
FREDERICTON– NB Power wants a two per cent rate increase for all customers of the electricity monopoly. It filed a rate application with the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board today. The rate increase would take effect April 1, 2016.
“Small annual increases today will help us make financial progress now and allow us to continue to pay down debt to protect our customers over the long term,” said Gaëtan Thomas, the company’s president and CEO.
Not everyone is pleased with another rate hike.
“This rate hike doesn’t make sense, when NB Power’s President took home a $50,000 to $100,000 pay hike last year and now they’re coming back and asking average New Brunswicker to pay more in power rates,” Kevin Lacey of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told Huddle.
“Average consumers shouldn’t be saddled with these rate increases when highly paid executives are given big pay hikes.”
According to Lacey, NB Power’s CEO picked up a pay increase of somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 in 2015. He found the raise in the government’s “unaudited supplementary employee lists.” Thomas could make as much as $499,999 according the government figures.
By comparison, New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant earns $152,150 after taking a pay cut of 15 per cent in recognition of the province’s troubled finances.
Lacey says more than 1,000 NB Power employees make over $100,000 per year.