Energy deregulation has cost Albertans billions, says AFL

A new report says when the province deregulated electricity generation in 2001, it forced Albertans to pay billions more for their power.

The Alberta Federation of Labor (AFL) says it has cited its report Power in the public interest“exposes the shortcomings of the current system.”

“The change to deregulated electricity generation was an ideological leap of faith,” said AFL president Gil McGowan.

“Returning to a regulated system is the opposite of that: it’s a return to the tried and true.”

In its report, the AFL says Albertans are currently paying “the highest consumer electricity prices in the country.”

“Since the province deregulated power generation in 2001, Alberta’s consumer price index for electricity has risen an average of 1.8 percent per year higher than that of Canada as a whole, or double the difference before deregulation,” the AFL said.

That amounts to $24 billion more for electricity in Alberta than in other Canadian provinces.

The AFL says electricity should also be “treated differently” as a commodity.

“Regulated markets do not allow companies to exercise their market power at the expense of consumers, such as what happened with Alberta’s 2021-2023 price spikes, which were enabled by Alberta’s energy-only market,” the group said.

McGowan says recent efforts by the provincial government to help have resulted in lower prices, but says there is “a lot more volatility” in Alberta.

“We used to be regulated, we had predictable prices, and they were lower,” McGowan says.

“The law the government introduced has maintained the deregulated energy market, so prices have now fallen but are likely to rise again.”

He says Alberta needs to re-regulate energy generation to eliminate price gouging and ensure reliability.

AFL is also proposing the creation of a Crown corporation, Alberta Power, to restore control of the province’s energy system and take it away from a small group of private companies that currently own 54 percent of the province’s energy generation.

“This isn’t just about lower bills – it’s about creating good jobs, ensuring a stable grid and accelerating our transition to clean energy. As workers and as citizens, we have the right to demand better,” he said.