There have been a deluge of letters to the editor of late over Dr. Pete Sarsfield’s ongoing efforts to ban smoking in all enclosed public places as well as whether Wal-Mart will proceed with building a store here.
But where’s the outcry over an equally serious, if not moreso, problem facing Fort Frances residents. Namely, that we’re being ripped off by our own provincial government.
The first blow came when Queen’s Park deemed Fort Frances Power Corp. customers were not eligible for the $75 rebate that most every other hydro user in the province was entitled to in the wake of whopping rate increases ushered in when the electricity market was open to competition last May.
The reason? We already were paying a lower rate than most everyone else in the province due to the almost 100-year-old power agreement between the town and mill—an agreement that was upheld in a Supreme Court decision back in the early 1980s.
Now, the province has the audacity to say FFPC customers are not eligible for the 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour price cap because—due to the 1.23 cent credit we get from that power agreement—we were paying less than 4.3¢/kWh before last May 1.
Instead, the province has decreed the FFPC must charge its customers a blend of spot market prices (which fluctuate wildly and have been, on average, higher than 4.3¢/kWh) and the power agreement credit.
That’s a rip-off, plain and simple.
As FFPC CEO Mark McCaig correctly noted, the power agreement was intended to benefit residents of Fort Frances, not penalize us. But that’s exactly what the province is doing. And that’s wrong.
The FFPC is consulting legal counsel on this matter, and a local delegation apparently is heading to Toronto shortly to plead our case. In the meantime, it’s up to the rest of us to pressure the government, directly or through local MPP Howard Hampton, to give us a rate of 4.3¢/kWh minus the 1.23¢ credit.
We need to make noise to get what we rightly deserve!
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
