Should P.E.I.’s power be publicly owned? The energy minister is thinking about it [Video]

Prince Edward Island’s energy minister is looking at whether and how the province could take over Maritime Electric, given the utility’s multiple requests for customer rate hikes over the past year.

On Friday, a 2.5 per cent increase for residential customers kicked in — the electric utility’s third increase since the middle of last year. 

All told, Islanders are paying nine per cent more on their bills than they did for the same amount of energy in May 2023. 

Energy Minister Steven Myers called the constant rate hikes “a major concern” during question period in the P.E.I. legislature on Friday. 

“This is obviously something that’s been bothering me for a while,” he said in response to questions from his fellow Progressive Conservative MLA Zack Bell and Liberal Robert Henderson about Maritime Electric’s costs. 

‘We will not only look into it, we’re going to research reports to see what it would …