The irony of Efficiency Manitoba

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/03/2017 (3134 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has incredibly bad optics and drips irony and now it’s up to the Manitoba government to sell the idea.

The Manitoba government is expected to table legislation later today to create a new Crown corporation called Efficiency Manitoba. The new stand-alone corporation would be responsible for the achievement of the government’s legislated target to reduce electricity growth by 1.5 per cent a year over the next 15 years. For natural gas, the savings target would be three-quarters of one per cent. These figures are roughly in line with Manitoba Hydro’s current targets.

With the new legislation, Premier Brian Pallister is making good on his election promise to create a separate entity for consumer demand for energy that may include Power Smart. This follows a recommendation from the Manitoba Public Utilities Board (PUB) made three years ago.

The PUB suggested a need for an independent energy-efficiency authority to facilitate the management of an effective energy-savings program.

Certainly, there are concerns that Manitoba Hydro has moved from being a conservation leader to a laggard, as noted by Phillippe Dunsky, president of Montreal-based Dunsky Energy Consulting and conductor of a comprehensive audit of Manitoba Hydro’s conservation efforts in 2013.

In 2014, Mr. Dunsky was hired by the Manitoba government to set up a new, arm’s-length body to set and measure targets annually for Manitobans to conserve more power.

The NDP failed to set the plan in motion.

It would appear that now the Pallister government is moving forward on that plan by setting it up as a Crown corporation.

But the optics are awful here, particularly after repeated pronouncements by Mr. Pallister about the need to rein in costs at Crown corporations as well as government organizations and his repeated push to find efficiencies within the public sector.

Malcolm Bird, an associate professor in political science at the University of Winnipeg, says the decision to create a second Crown corporation allows the provincial government some control over the way the organization is run.

If Efficiency Manitoba begins to go off the rails and stops meeting its targets, then government can step in.

But there are other ways that this could have been dealt with that don’t scream “more government” at a time when less government is being pushed.

Take, for example, Efficiency Nova Scotia, operated by EfficiencyOne, an independent, non-profit organization operating on the East Coast. This is Canada’s first energy-efficiency utility, which works toward saving Nova Scotians money on energy and reducing the province’s greenhouse gas emissions. According to its website, it is “funded by revenues from supplying electricity efficiency and conservation activities to Nova Scotia Power, which helps the utility meet Nova Scotia’s electricity needs. The cost of these services is included in electricity rates.”

This may sell better to Manitobans. But, given that 78 per cent of Manitobans want Manitoba Hydro running Power Smart, Mr. Pallister will have to do quite a sales job to gain power on this one.

Do we really need a second Crown corporation?