N.B. news: Power rates loom over provincial election [Video]

NB Power’s historic rate increase request isn’t likely to be lowered by this fall’s provincial election, with the Progressive Conservative government and official Liberal opposition both signaling intentions to stay out of the Energy and Utilities Board’s (EUB) process.

NB Power has been making its case before the EUB this summer for a two-year residential rate increase of nearly 20 per cent, saying it’s needed to address aging infrastructure and a debt of more than $5 billion at the utility.

The Progressive Conservatives and Liberals, which both have a political history of enforcing rate freezes at NB Power, have taken a different approach over the past several years. Of the most recent NB Power request, PC Premier Blaine Higgs and Liberal leader Susan Holt are suggesting the EUB process play out without any government intervention.

“There’s been a culture of political interference at NB Power where they’ve been told what rates to do and what policies to put in place… and that has come from political masters that …