The Black Rod

We appreciate the emails from concerned readers who have asked, where have we been?  Working diligently on Project X. Thank you for your tips. It took the train wreck known as Manitoba Hydro to get us to set things aside and get back into the arena. Manitoba Hydro has applied to the Public Utilities Board for another hike in rates. This year they're asking for a rates to go up 3.95 percent. Something about that number seemed odd. But what? It didn't take long to answer the question with a clipping from a Canadian Press story posted two-and-a-half years ago. "Manitoba Hydro's CEO says customers can expect rate increases of about 3.5 per cent a year for the foreseeable future as the Crown-owned utility builds new generating stations while export prices are soft."  ( CP, Sept. 19, 2012 ) So Hydro's minimum rate hike has climbed by almost half a percent a year.  And that's  after the plan to build Manitoba's biggest generatin...

Manitoba Hydro is fighting tooth and nail to keep the Public Utilities Board from finding out the details of their latest contracts with American buyers. They're going to court to keep the contracts secret and the PUB blind. You can understand why the PUB is antsy about Hydro's deals. The last time Hydro signed on the bottom line, they wound up selling power to the U.S. at less than it costs to produce it, meaning that your rates have gone up to subsidize the Minnesota users of Manitoba electricity. And the dam they built to provide the subsidized power (Wuskwatim) was partially privatized without the approval of the Legislature, with a third being sold off to a group of Indian reserves, who couldn't pay for their share and had to borrow the money to pay Manitoba Hydro -- from Manitoba Hydro. To top it off, Hydro agreed to pay the reserves profits from the power sale even in the years when there were no profits, which is the foreseeable future. You know ...

You don't need an advanced degree in Economics to understand why people are worried about Manitoba Hydro's finances. All you need is a bank book. Two years ago the Public Utilities Board looked at Hydro's multi-multi-billion dollar plans for expansion and it made them antsy. From what they could see, Hydro was taking risks worthy of high rollers at Monte Carlo. Maybe there was something they didn't know, so they asked Hydro to produce the risk analyses behind the expansion plans. "Sure, sucker," replied Hydro. So far they've managed to keep the PUB in the dark for another 14 months and counting, knowing that the government minister in charge of Hydro (and the current unelected Premier) Greg Selinger wasn't going to support the public watchdog over the NDP's milk cow. What Hydro CEO Bob Brennan didn't plan on was the news that one of the consultants he hired to look at the risks, and who he thought he had muzzled, would be so concerned about wha...

Manitoba Hydro has quietly postponed its next planned megaproject, the $3.5 billion Keeyask generating station, for at least a year because it can't agree on a contract with with its American customers. Hydro is preparing to double in size over the next decade with the construction of three new power stations on the Nelson River---Wuskwatim, Keeyask and the big daddy of them all, Conawapa. Getting the Americans to pay a fat premium for the "clean" power from these plants is supposed to cover most of the $17 billion cost of building them. But the Yanks' reluctance to sign on the dotted line is making Hydro's house of cards wobble. Hydro officials told the Public Utilities Board that two factors are affecting negotiations---the economic downturn in both countries, and the unexpected development of shale gas. The PUB is holding hearings into Hydro's insatiable desire for rate hikes to its Manitoba customers. Manitoba Hydro wa...

Reading the transcripts of the Public Utilities Board's current hearings into Manitoba Hydro's requests for rate hikes is a lot like mining. You enter a deep, dark, scary tunnel of near-impenetrable verbiage. Sometimes you wander off into passages that seem to go nowhere, leaving you crying for help. You often feel stifled, struggling for breath as the walls seem to close in on you and the lights dim and you wonder what possessed you to be here in the first place. But then you stumble across a vein of gold. Here are some nuggets from the last few days of hearings: Winnipeg Lawsuit Update Ten months after the City of Winnipeg launched a lawsuit against Manitoba Hydro for $10 million, Hydro still hasn't filed a statement of defence . The city claims it was shortchanged when Hydro remitted money it collected from a 2.5 percent tax on electricity and natural gas. Hydro calculated the tax on pre-GST sums; the city says it should have added the tax after the...

Two things sent chills down our backs this week. First, was the magnificent performance of Winnipeg's own Samantha Hill at the Tony Awards, a show which was watched by 7.2 million people.  She had the honour of singing the immortal showstopper 'Music of the Night' during a tribute to Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'The Phantom of the Opera', which, this January  became the longest-running show in Broadway history. This year Hill reached the top of the theatre mountain, taking the female lead of Christine Daee in the Broadway production, opposite Peter Joback as the Phantom. If you missed it, you can catch their performance at the Tony's here:   http://broadwayworld.com/article/VIDEO-PHANTOM-OF-THE-OPERA-Cast-Performs-at-Tony-Awards-20130610 At the other end of the scale, we read the full 30-page heart-stopping commentary by Graham Lane, former chairman of the Public Utilities Board, on Doer's Folly , the runaway tr...

Manitoba Hydro is running scared. This past week they have shown they will go to any extent---from breaching court orders to openly violating the Whistleblower Act---to silence a former consultant who has seen from the inside how they work. Think back. You've seen this movie before- --starring Shermie Kreiner and Bernie Bellan in leading roles. It was called Crocus, the Scandal . - The principals of the Crocus Investment Fund strutted across this province like Medieval princes. Throwing around millions in an investment-starved desert, they too had plans to remodel Manitoba--- into a socialist paradise. And they would brook no opposition. They used their financial power to crush anyone who dared to challenge their exalted position. - Crocus intimidated whistleblower Bernie Bellan into silence through threats of lawsuits and humiliated politician John Loewen by forcing him to eat crow in public and stop asking questions about Crocus business. - They bitchslapped ...

That chill down our collective spines had nothing to do with the coming winter. We were reading the 160-page, Manitoba Hydro-commissioned Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, by a group you've never heard of, fronted by a Swedish "hydro-power expert", discussing Hydro's planned multi-billion-dollar Keeyask generating station.  It's really scary. We first heard of this report from a story in the Winnipeg Free Press: Expert applauds dam project Team spent months assessing Keeyask By: Bruce Owen   Last Modified: 10/26/2013 10:14 AM | Updates A Swedish hydro-power expert has given a thumbs-up to Manitoba Hydro's next big dam in northern Manitoba. Bernt Rydgren's report is far from the final say on the estimated $6.2-billion Keeyask generating station project, but Hydro maintains it goes a long way toward demonstrating the Crown utility has set a new globally recognized standard in how large hydroelectric projects a...

Manitoba Hydro CEO Bob Brennan dropped a barrage of bombshells on legislators Monday. At the same jaw-dropping meeting Liberal Party leader Jon Gerrard revealed the first details of the Hydro whistleblower's controversial 2008 report to Brennan, while the Conservative's new Hydro critic Rick Borotsik mocked the consultant and her advice to Hydro prompting Brennan to (reluctantly) come to her defence. And NDP Hydro Minister Rosann Wowchuk said the government is satisfied knowing that the whistleblower's complaint has languished for 15 months already, with no end in sight, because "the legislation is working." Given the gush of important Hydro news, we've delayed our planned evisceration of CBC's The Fifth Estate to do what the Mainstream Media failed to do---report the news. ******************** Bob Brennan revealed the following to the Crown Corporations Committee: * Hydro's revenues from U.S. sales are off this year almost $40 million be...