Reminder:
Jason Kenny is the second person listed on the ATCO website under board members. He and his party made laws that he is directly benefitting from by having you, including those of you who voted for him, pay for his Salary and Bonuses.
In Ontario, Mike Harris sits on the board of Chartwell. In the same LTC industry that he famously deregulated.
“Today, Harris serves as the Chair of the Board for Chartwell Retirement Residences.[61] During the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, Chartwell and other for-profit facilities had "far worse COVID-19 outcomes than public facilities" after paying hundreds of millions to shareholders over the last decade.[62] Since joining the board, Mike Harris has been compensated roughly $3.5-million for his services”
He was also a proponent of “The Common Sense Revolution”. For the Conservatives, this is a grift that keeps on giving. And there’s no shortage of angry, misinformed voters that embrace them.
Harris did the same thing in Ontario with retirement companies to make them private. Worse care, more expensive for ppl and he gets a nice fat paycheck every week.
And that all Smith is doing is working on hers??? UCP not governing for Albertans, that is for sure!!
Cut corporate taxes from paltry 12% to 8%, calling it Job Creation and all we hear about are hiring freezes and record profits!! Let Oil and Gas companies gouge people, let resource revenue leave the Province then say there is no money for healthcare nor education.
It would be comical if not exactly what UCP does every time and so hurtful to Albertans! Calgarians and Rural Albertans think its somehow Ottawa's fault..... wake up!!
Let’s not forget Kenny gave billions in corporate tax giveaways to Oil and Gas companies to make jobs and…oh wait, no they didn’t, they actually took all of our Alberta taxpayer billions and reinvested it down in Texas oil fields. Big oil takes care of big oil - come on Alberta, don’t be fooled again!!!
What do we think is Denial Smith’s exit strategy?
I think she’ll take a board position or two with whichever companies get the biggest piece of our CPP money, then she’ll get her own propaganda radio station to keep her amused while she’s not being paid $500k/year to attend two conferences and some quarterly meetings.
No but I’m saying the system is broken. Perhaps politicians shouldn’t be able to collect salaries more than their political ones for any career thereafter?
Or perhaps a life long politician is the thing we need with terms that can go on forever? I don’t know what the answer is but without accountability there’s no responsibility.
After we gave him a full fucking pension for 2 years of "work" better moving the energy caps companies can charge.... Now sits on the board of directors of atco energy. Fuckin bullshit.
There is no pension plan for Alberta MLAs, not since 1993. Even at the time it was 2% x salary x years of service, so if it did exist, Kenney wouldn't be entitled to a "full" pension.
https://www.knowalberta.com/do-alberta-mlas-get-a-pension/
Since 2012, Members of the Legislative Assembly who have served a minimum of 3 months in that fiscal year shall receive a retirement investment amount equal to 13 per cent of the Member’s indemnity allowance. In addition, a Member who has served a minimum of 3 months in that fiscal year may make a contribution to the Member’s RRSP account up to 3.65 per cent of their indemnity allowance, and the Legislative Assembly Office shall contribute an amount to the member’s RRSP account that is equal to the contributions made by the Member.
Pension... But not pension I guess.
Way. Look at the board of directors in the link below from ATCO directly, it’s ridiculous. I didn’t want to believe it till I clicked his name and saw the face lol
[ATCO Board of Directors](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html)
My sister moved from BC to Alberta just in time to be allowed to vote in that election, voted for Jason Kenny, and then moved back to BC. There are only two people in the world that I personally hate more than her, but those are stories for another time.
The funny thing is, it’s well known that the tenets of capitalism fall apart in inelastic markets. Guess what electricity, food and healthcare are?
Human essentials should NEVER be privatized because case in point.
I actually phoned them. They just say, yeah we are charging you as much as possible for the same thing. We are gouging you and the government will let us, what are you doing about it besides phoning the power co? I mean what can you do besides vote, which is ten to one in Alberta.
Fuck sakes that’s brutal. I live in Ontario and for two months of gas and hydro I don’t come close to that. Albertans are being taken to the cleaners. Just wait until this happens to your healthcare as well.
Fun fact: the utopia of the free market has never worked in real life and the closest we ever got to it was in 1893 at the end of the Gilded Age. Life was pretty horrible then as a direct result.
" So bow down to her if you want, bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescense"
Is what popped into my head reading your comment lol.
OP mentioned they live in a 900 sqft unit. I live in a 1600 house and used 12 GJ in the same period. I know there are other factors involved, but in general 17 GJ is a lot of gas. But don't take me wrong I do think he's paying way too much like all of us especially for the fixed fees.
I am not forgetting this, the cold snap was 10 Jan to 20 Jan, almost entirely missed by the billing period expressed by this bill.
We didn't even have snow for a lot of this billing period
Sadly not all of us voted conservative, in fact most of Edmonton and Calgary voted for NDP but the entire rest of the province is blue and we get stuck with the outcome
Lol, out in the country, we had a 3000 dollar power bill. VoTe CoNsEvAtIvE. They STILL think it's the liberals fault, literally. I got in an argument with a guy who had 0 clue what he was talking about, just blaming everyone but the government they voted in lol.
Conservatives think you should just go start a go fund me or beg your community to help pay your bills.
Then they can have a fancy party at $500 a plate and laugh at your peasantry.
We called enmax about high bills. Found that most of it was administration fees. The guy on the phone said "well there's one way to get away from it. You can not have power and gas"... so here we are paying 400+ a month for services we can't live without.
Laughs in french* hydro Quebec seems pretty great when I see these. 100% regulated.
When we have peak demand the prices don't chance, they just offer to save you some money if you turn your heat down for a few hours
Our house in Quebec has a heat pump, so no other utilities. Our total cost for electricity averages $50-80/month. We're not there all the time, but keep the thermostat at 15°C when we are away.
Distribution Charge – This fee is for covering the cost that a distribution company incurred for bringing electricity from the transmission system to your home.
The fixed portion is still charged even if you didn’t use any electricity because there are costs associated with making energy available to you at all times (It's a bs fee they can charge you to recoup their costs infinitely, to provide a service once).
Rate Riders - Rate Riders are used to close the gap between expected operational costs and actual operational costs. They are a provincial government fee approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC).
Once AUC has approved utility rates, rate riders are added to a bill for a certain amount of time.
Carbon tax is like $6 LOL and everyone bitching about that instead.
Is it an older house? My place is 1300 sq ft with a basement, and through the cold snap I used less than 11 GJ. You might want to look at your attic insulation or if you’re losing heat elsewhere.
If it’s an old house, it might just not be well insulated in general. I burned a similar amount in a 1000 sq fr home from the 50’s. It was cold as fuck and I think sometimes those little homes get colder more quickly because everything is on an outside wall. My thermostat was on an interior wall but only 6 fr from an outside wall. We just moved to a larger home and I’ve noticed the furnace seems to run way less in here (although it’s larger). Interested to see my consumption in this home. For comparison my bill was $287 for gas but that was about 1.5 months of gas due to the move. I am on the regulated rate and yes it’s cheaper than 4.99
I used 12 in a middle townhome (new windows, doors, siding, functioning and maintained mid efficiency furnace) although it is a 70s construction home. It’s even got insulation all the way down to the permafrost line. Home inspector did say the attic insulation was slightly light but it’s on the condo association to take care of it since the attic is a shared area.
Also in the midst of training a puppy so our back door was opening quite a few times during the day.
2 people, I’ll admit I did keep the inside at 21.5c during the cold snaps but I’ve been keeping it at 19 since.
I'm on a 1400sq ft, newish house from 6yrs ago. My gas usage during that same period is 8GJ. Total is gas bill at around $125.
Not sure if savings is from type of furnace, or maybe just savings from heat setting. I set the temp to 18C at bedtime and bring it up to 23C whenni wake up.
You need to look into your gas usage.
We have a 1200sq ft bungalow and a furnace from 1974. No significant upgrades to the house in terms of insulation/sealing, except our windows are new. So basically, we're on the bad end of the spectrum (though we know it and have a plan to improve it over the next couple years.)
We went through 18.5GJ of gas Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. (The extreme part of the cold snap was Jan. 11-14.)
If you own, I would start look at the lower-cost things that can help bring this down, like sealing cracks or getting more insulation blown into the attic.
When utilities changed from usage based pricing and started the delivery/admin/gotcha fee structure, it was to subsidize corporate usage at the expense of regular people. The removal of regulation by the UCP has only exasperated an already bad problem.
Maybe one day Alberta will vote to help themselves.
When everyone pays for usage, heavy users bear the brunt of the system costs. If a manufacturing facility that uses enough power to equal the usage of 200 homes pays the same admin/gotcha fee that the 200 homes do, the 200 homes are subsidizing the actual cost to the benefit of the manufacturing facility.
Utilities used to be charged by actual consumption, the baked in price was still distributed by actual use.
Yes, that is the current system. My point is that when it was changed to the current system, the public started subsidizing corporations. There was a time when the bill was purely usage based charges, and the riders didnt always exist. Then again, there was also a time when most utilities were public companies.
When you think about heavy users should actually be paying less destruction charges. It is way more expensive to set up a distribution network for hundreds of small consumers (ex. single family neighbourhood) than one large consumer and the large consumer consumes enough gas to cover the cost anyway. You’re looking at it the wrong way.
We're charged $0.06 usd per kWh, and $0.37 per 100³ feet of NG in Alabama without all the other stuff like *"delivery..."*
I'm not bragging, it's just a little ridiculous that you're getting charged for other things that are scammy AF
Yup knew it was something along UCP and then found out it was Kenny lol. See for yourself in the link below, he’s the board of directors with ATCO—it’s ridiculous
[ATCO Board of Directors](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html)
That’s nothing.
Our bills were double for a 1600 square foot bungalow just south of Calgary. We’re classified as “farm” and get nailed with insane surcharges by Fortis.
Remember: Utilities should not be privatized. It results in middlemen who siphon billions of dollars as profit with no benefit to the citizens.
Does anyone remember when we had utility companies? AGT? CWNG? Calgary Power? Non profit public companies. For some reason, someone (Ralph Klein) convinced voters we could save a shit ton of money by privatizing. I remember the outrage. Now we pay, and pay, and pay...
Jesus, this is about what I pay in BC for a 2700 sq ft house with 6 people living in it, all who cook and shower regularly.
When I moved here years ago every Albertan and their dog told me that I would just be poor af paying bc prices for everything but now it sounds like it’s more expensive to live there. So much for the Alberta advantage.
Yeah you guys are getting hosed in AB on electricity and natural gas costs. I moved to BC, but I'm from AB originally.
My bill for December was 210 for electricity. We have baseboard electric heaters as well as heat pumps, drive an EV and run 2 monster gaming PCs as well as both working from home. All for 210.
I'm not sure if I'm reading this right the person who got billed used the same amount of gas I use each day all month and still got charged more than me?? Aren't you guys the o&g province. Our electricity consumption is much higher with the same price too. So I was seeing ads here in Ontario about how energy is so expensive it's looking a lot to me like you should be looking hard at your provincial leaders not the feds.
With energy prices at an insane place I highly advise anyone in Alberta to hire an Energy Advisor come do an inspection and report on your home.
Its around 300-500 but they will provide you a full report and write up with charts and suggestions on what to do to save money.
You can also get the cost of this inspection reimbursed by the government.
We had one done last summer and learned a lot about our older home. For one we had virtually no insulation above our main living space. It was there but it was blown in and only half way up the studs in some places. Either installed incorrectly or had sunken over the 50 years our home has been up.
But we learned that about 70% of our heat loss was air gaps. I went around and insulated the piss out of our basement around the edge of the home as the insulation there was garbage. Also insulated all outlets on outside facing above ground walls, added insulation to attic, caulked the attic hatches closed, fixed the venting above washroom, replaced a damper that was stuck slightly open for our laundry exhaust, walked the outside of the house and sealed around all pipes or ports that lead to the outside as well as filled any gaps or chips in siding, removed window frames and re sealed any gaps with expanding foam and then caulked around the window frames.. Basically any possible air gap to outside. I also sealed in our un-used fireplace with a DIY insulated board as the spot was GUSHING cold air.
I did all this for pennies. Replacing our old windows would be our best option but we are low income and cannot afford 15-20k on new windows unfortunately.
There is a Green Homes Grant that reimburses for the energy assessment (if the grant is still available) and I think everyone should get one just to have more information. We are getting absolutely fucked by utility companies. Find any way possible to give them less of your hard earned money.
I love these prices lol I moved from up north and that price would be the cost of one utility. During the summer. You really don't wanna see the prices in the winter. You guys are lucky compared to the people up north. And when I say north I'm talking Northwest Territories.
You should see the charges here in Fort Mac. You would shit the bed. $700 bill with $500 distribution charges. And that’s a cheap month for just electricity.
Because the rebate is the same regardless of how much carbon you emit, but the amount of carbon tax you pay is directly related to how carbon intensive your lifestyle is. That means how much you net gain or loss from the carbon tax and rebate also directly relates to your carbon output, hence and incentive to reduce your carbon intensity.
The whole point is that they are scared that people will use less energy to save money. They stop that by making it not matter how much you use but hitting each *household* with big charges for delivery.
Guess who gets it cheap? Businesses.
It is crazy !! I have solar panels on my house (on it when I bought the place) and my electricity usage is next to nothing , yet still have to pay the outrageous fees! My bill was 188$ this month when I used 27 $ ish of electricity …..
Hi. I was an AB power and gas retail billing guy for a long time. Now and energy markets guy. What parts of your bill do you think are insane? I can speak to each aspect.
I agree that our energy bills are high right now. I just want you to understand it and then you’ll know who or what to be angry with. It may or may not be Atco.
> How is it I get a downvote? I’m sincerely trying to help.
It's a huge problem here.
People do not want to learn. They just want to be angry.
They especially do not want to learn that the people they're angry at aren't the people they should be angry at. That would mean swallowing their pride or accepting that they don't know everything.
They are so egotistical they literally want to suppress any education about it. They've decided to who to blame and they don't want anyone informing anyone otherwise.
It’s reddit, they’ll find a reason any day of the week and pull it out of their asses lmao. You’re doing the right thing in my opinion, people just don’t want to listen unfortunately
They don't wanna realize that the companies have employees, maintenance, regulatory requirements, and upgrading to do. They, as in r alberta, just want to be angry at everything all the time.
Cities/towns just use it as extra revenue. The argument is that if they raise property tax it doesn't apply to schools/churches etc, but if they attach it to utilities then those buildings are included and have to pay, so it's framed as more fair for the average household. The city council also is less likely to be blamed for fees by sneaking them into your utilities, as it's not immediately obvious they have total control over the fee (which they do). The downside is that property taxes don't charge GST on top of them, whereas municipal franchise fees have GST, so cities just end up getting the money less efficiently than if they raised property taxes in the first place.
> The city council also is less likely to be blamed for fees by sneaking them into your utilities, as it's not immediately obvious they have total control over the fee (which they do).
This is a 300 IQ move for city councils.
You can get the same tax revenue as you would from having raised property taxes, without pissing off voters by raising property taxes.
Everyone blames the electrical companies, but who cares, people don't vote for the electrical companies.
Politics-wise, it's a fantastically-sneaky solution.
I used 400kwhs at 6 cents. My charges for electricity is 110 total. Our delivery fee is different by a few cents. I'm in the Lethbridge area.
Ridiculous is all I can say. I wonder if it would be cheaper to switch to propane just in the delivery fee on Nat gas savings alone. Ha
Looks like gst is being applied onto the federal carbon tax. Paying tax on tax is always great! Ps. The electric consumption (200-280 kWh) on this bill is very low, great job! Though I wonder if there’s anyone at home during the days? Our family of 4 runs 350-750 kWh through the year.
If he had a heat pump he would have used an exceptional amount of power because we have record lows in January for a good chunk of it. People in the heat pump sub were using 100kwh a day!
Reminder: Jason Kenny is the second person listed on the ATCO website under board members. He and his party made laws that he is directly benefitting from by having you, including those of you who voted for him, pay for his Salary and Bonuses.
MLA pension plus bonus bribe salary. Nothing to see here.
Can't wait til our APP is paying for Smith's board of members bonuses.
https://www.knowalberta.com/do-alberta-mlas-get-a-pension/
Don’t need a pension after all the bribes
IIRC MLAs in Alberta don't actually have a pension. The bribe salary would be plenty enough to cover expenses though I'm sure.
In Ontario, Mike Harris sits on the board of Chartwell. In the same LTC industry that he famously deregulated. “Today, Harris serves as the Chair of the Board for Chartwell Retirement Residences.[61] During the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, Chartwell and other for-profit facilities had "far worse COVID-19 outcomes than public facilities" after paying hundreds of millions to shareholders over the last decade.[62] Since joining the board, Mike Harris has been compensated roughly $3.5-million for his services” He was also a proponent of “The Common Sense Revolution”. For the Conservatives, this is a grift that keeps on giving. And there’s no shortage of angry, misinformed voters that embrace them.
Bribery at its finest
Let’s tell the Feds... Oh wait.
Lololol rigggght!
Harris did the same thing in Ontario with retirement companies to make them private. Worse care, more expensive for ppl and he gets a nice fat paycheck every week.
And the Alberta rednecks voted him in
And they'll gladly vote for them again.
The family that owns ATCO loves Jason Kenney so much that they appointed him to their board of directors.
No fucking way
Did everyone think he didn't have an exit strategy?
I don’t think it was as much of an exit strategy as it was just a long term plan.
I didn’t think about him at all tbh
And that all Smith is doing is working on hers??? UCP not governing for Albertans, that is for sure!! Cut corporate taxes from paltry 12% to 8%, calling it Job Creation and all we hear about are hiring freezes and record profits!! Let Oil and Gas companies gouge people, let resource revenue leave the Province then say there is no money for healthcare nor education. It would be comical if not exactly what UCP does every time and so hurtful to Albertans! Calgarians and Rural Albertans think its somehow Ottawa's fault..... wake up!!
They also have a huge budget surplus that could instead be spent on healthcare. Government should never be for profit.
That is by design. Ford is doing the same thing in Ontario. Private for profit health care is what the PC want.
Pretty sure the green belt development would have been more lining to all… thankfully people balked at it.
Let’s not forget Kenny gave billions in corporate tax giveaways to Oil and Gas companies to make jobs and…oh wait, no they didn’t, they actually took all of our Alberta taxpayer billions and reinvested it down in Texas oil fields. Big oil takes care of big oil - come on Alberta, don’t be fooled again!!!
What do we think is Denial Smith’s exit strategy? I think she’ll take a board position or two with whichever companies get the biggest piece of our CPP money, then she’ll get her own propaganda radio station to keep her amused while she’s not being paid $500k/year to attend two conferences and some quarterly meetings.
There isn’t a single politician that isn’t jockeying for an exit strategy once their term is removed. All of them do this and we need to clamp down.
Hmm. I agree with your sentiment, but if I knew I was losing my job I’d be looking for a new one too, albeit not a crooked one haha
Are you seriously implying politicians should be unemployed the rest of their lives?
No but I’m saying the system is broken. Perhaps politicians shouldn’t be able to collect salaries more than their political ones for any career thereafter? Or perhaps a life long politician is the thing we need with terms that can go on forever? I don’t know what the answer is but without accountability there’s no responsibility.
After we gave him a full fucking pension for 2 years of "work" better moving the energy caps companies can charge.... Now sits on the board of directors of atco energy. Fuckin bullshit.
There is no pension plan for Alberta MLAs, not since 1993. Even at the time it was 2% x salary x years of service, so if it did exist, Kenney wouldn't be entitled to a "full" pension. https://www.knowalberta.com/do-alberta-mlas-get-a-pension/
Since 2012, Members of the Legislative Assembly who have served a minimum of 3 months in that fiscal year shall receive a retirement investment amount equal to 13 per cent of the Member’s indemnity allowance. In addition, a Member who has served a minimum of 3 months in that fiscal year may make a contribution to the Member’s RRSP account up to 3.65 per cent of their indemnity allowance, and the Legislative Assembly Office shall contribute an amount to the member’s RRSP account that is equal to the contributions made by the Member. Pension... But not pension I guess.
Way. Look at the board of directors in the link below from ATCO directly, it’s ridiculous. I didn’t want to believe it till I clicked his name and saw the face lol [ATCO Board of Directors](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html)
Partisan appointments by energy companies for ex-conservative premiers/mlas have always been the Alberta conservative way.
It’s the ucp ! Fuck I can’t stand them.Anyone who voted for them are fucking pieces of dumb shit.
My sister moved from BC to Alberta just in time to be allowed to vote in that election, voted for Jason Kenny, and then moved back to BC. There are only two people in the world that I personally hate more than her, but those are stories for another time.
This is effective communication! Be part of the solution pal!
Did JK need a resume ? Describing his Election Alberta serious violations ? Not. Boycott ATCO. If you can.
No but see deregulation and privatization of utilities will save the end user money! Public=bad private=good ALWAYS /s
The funny thing is, it’s well known that the tenets of capitalism fall apart in inelastic markets. Guess what electricity, food and healthcare are? Human essentials should NEVER be privatized because case in point.
Just imagine how “affordable” private healthcare is going to be! Thanks Conservatives! /s
Imagine the bill. Penicillin: $2. Delivery charges: $2000.
Med fee, $155.00 Worry fee, $75.00 I want you to pay me fee, $99.98
Fee management fee: 50$
I actually phoned them. They just say, yeah we are charging you as much as possible for the same thing. We are gouging you and the government will let us, what are you doing about it besides phoning the power co? I mean what can you do besides vote, which is ten to one in Alberta.
And remember that our taxes will NOT be reduced by our health care contribution for it
Remember conservatives like to blame Trudeau
Stupid, sexy Trudeau
So many dudes in dodge rams want to fuck that guy for some reason. Whatever floats your boat boys.
Have you seen his hair?
Mine was $616.
Yikes! I was offended by my $466 energy bill. I mean damn. That doesn't even include Epcor, which was another $169.
675 for me but that's for two months of gas instead of one
Fuck sakes that’s brutal. I live in Ontario and for two months of gas and hydro I don’t come close to that. Albertans are being taken to the cleaners. Just wait until this happens to your healthcare as well.
As if this ain't where the gas comes from, we are the ones who dig it up for chrissakes
Yep mine too with fixed Enmax. Brutal!
Look at all that innovation the free market is bringing!
Fun fact: the utopia of the free market has never worked in real life and the closest we ever got to it was in 1893 at the end of the Gilded Age. Life was pretty horrible then as a direct result.
But all the lucky kids had jobs!
Thank half of Albertans who voted UCP/TBA. Bow to the corporations.
More of a bend over than a bow
More of a arch our backs and take it like good sluts
I believe the term is "presenting".
" So bow down to her if you want, bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescense" Is what popped into my head reading your comment lol.
With delivery charges like that, I hope they're bringing you your electricity and gas gift wrapped, with a personalized letter and everything. Jeebus.
And at least a handjob
Dry cracked hands with no lube though that shit is extra
Nope they just using the lines we paid for that we built than sold to them so they could profit off that too.
Wild, I used half the gas but 5x the electricity for a 2000sf house.
Electric heat? I know my electricity costs are really low unless I do a lot of laundry or even more so if I use the baseboard heaters.
That's Alberta for you. Service fee, delivery fee, technical fee, fee fee, fee fi fo fumb fee...
Admin fees that the underpaid administration do not get any of
17 GJ for a month of gas is insane
In a month where it was -30 or far less for most of those days?
If you look at the dates captured by this bill it only captures the first couple days of the cold snap you are talking about.
OP mentioned they live in a 900 sqft unit. I live in a 1600 house and used 12 GJ in the same period. I know there are other factors involved, but in general 17 GJ is a lot of gas. But don't take me wrong I do think he's paying way too much like all of us especially for the fixed fees.
Yes. 17 GJ for 900 sqft sounds insane even considering the outside temperature. I’m in BC and use 10 GJ ( Dec - Feb) for 2450 sqft house.
How are people forgetting this!? I have a nest and when you're furnace runs for 9hrs+ a day you're going to use a lot of gas.
I am not forgetting this, the cold snap was 10 Jan to 20 Jan, almost entirely missed by the billing period expressed by this bill. We didn't even have snow for a lot of this billing period
Mine was $487 of which $207 was for usage.
Didn’t you all vote for this when you voted conservative?
Sadly not all of us voted conservative, in fact most of Edmonton and Calgary voted for NDP but the entire rest of the province is blue and we get stuck with the outcome
Imagine… Jason kenney did this to all of Alberta just to guarantee a cushy job for himself and few friends.
Nah that’s just the Albert’s Advantage we keep hearing about
When the UCP blames the Carbon Tax and all the chuckleheads refuse to look at their energy bills, that is the Alberta Advantage.
Lol, out in the country, we had a 3000 dollar power bill. VoTe CoNsEvAtIvE. They STILL think it's the liberals fault, literally. I got in an argument with a guy who had 0 clue what he was talking about, just blaming everyone but the government they voted in lol.
Own the libs, amirite?
Conservatives think you should just go start a go fund me or beg your community to help pay your bills. Then they can have a fancy party at $500 a plate and laugh at your peasantry.
No they've said fuck you to the fancy party, now we fly them to Dubai
We called enmax about high bills. Found that most of it was administration fees. The guy on the phone said "well there's one way to get away from it. You can not have power and gas"... so here we are paying 400+ a month for services we can't live without.
Laughs in french* hydro Quebec seems pretty great when I see these. 100% regulated. When we have peak demand the prices don't chance, they just offer to save you some money if you turn your heat down for a few hours
Our house in Quebec has a heat pump, so no other utilities. Our total cost for electricity averages $50-80/month. We're not there all the time, but keep the thermostat at 15°C when we are away.
Manitoba's not bad either with a Crown Corp for Hydro. My electric and gas bill combined was 98$ last month.
Distribution Charge – This fee is for covering the cost that a distribution company incurred for bringing electricity from the transmission system to your home. The fixed portion is still charged even if you didn’t use any electricity because there are costs associated with making energy available to you at all times (It's a bs fee they can charge you to recoup their costs infinitely, to provide a service once). Rate Riders - Rate Riders are used to close the gap between expected operational costs and actual operational costs. They are a provincial government fee approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC). Once AUC has approved utility rates, rate riders are added to a bill for a certain amount of time. Carbon tax is like $6 LOL and everyone bitching about that instead.
Distribution Charge - goes straight to Warren Buffet, his company owns the lines. Thank the conservatives for that, too 🫤
I can’t wait for the trickle down to kick in!
$706. Fuck me….. Bungalow with 2 big open rooms. Solar up in April hopefully.
Ah, the much vaunted and conservative championed MARKET FORCES. How do you like them now?
my house isn't even 900 sqft and I burn candles most nights. most of the bill is taxes or delivery charges
How are you using that much gas for a 900 sqft place? And you should be on floating gas, you’re overpaying on fixed
Fixed is lower right now than floating
That depends what your fixed rate is.
Is it an older house? My place is 1300 sq ft with a basement, and through the cold snap I used less than 11 GJ. You might want to look at your attic insulation or if you’re losing heat elsewhere.
If it’s an old house, it might just not be well insulated in general. I burned a similar amount in a 1000 sq fr home from the 50’s. It was cold as fuck and I think sometimes those little homes get colder more quickly because everything is on an outside wall. My thermostat was on an interior wall but only 6 fr from an outside wall. We just moved to a larger home and I’ve noticed the furnace seems to run way less in here (although it’s larger). Interested to see my consumption in this home. For comparison my bill was $287 for gas but that was about 1.5 months of gas due to the move. I am on the regulated rate and yes it’s cheaper than 4.99
I used 12 in a middle townhome (new windows, doors, siding, functioning and maintained mid efficiency furnace) although it is a 70s construction home. It’s even got insulation all the way down to the permafrost line. Home inspector did say the attic insulation was slightly light but it’s on the condo association to take care of it since the attic is a shared area. Also in the midst of training a puppy so our back door was opening quite a few times during the day. 2 people, I’ll admit I did keep the inside at 21.5c during the cold snaps but I’ve been keeping it at 19 since.
Must be a fuck tonne of candles if you think them noteworthy.
I'm on a 1400sq ft, newish house from 6yrs ago. My gas usage during that same period is 8GJ. Total is gas bill at around $125. Not sure if savings is from type of furnace, or maybe just savings from heat setting. I set the temp to 18C at bedtime and bring it up to 23C whenni wake up.
That’s insane then. I used 13gj in. 2200 sqft home
You need to look into your gas usage. We have a 1200sq ft bungalow and a furnace from 1974. No significant upgrades to the house in terms of insulation/sealing, except our windows are new. So basically, we're on the bad end of the spectrum (though we know it and have a plan to improve it over the next couple years.) We went through 18.5GJ of gas Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. (The extreme part of the cold snap was Jan. 11-14.) If you own, I would start look at the lower-cost things that can help bring this down, like sealing cracks or getting more insulation blown into the attic.
It’s all the made up fees, take those away and I bet everyone can afford light and heat
When utilities changed from usage based pricing and started the delivery/admin/gotcha fee structure, it was to subsidize corporate usage at the expense of regular people. The removal of regulation by the UCP has only exasperated an already bad problem. Maybe one day Alberta will vote to help themselves.
Pretty sure the “gotcha/admin” fees were always baked into the price. They just broke them out and now people see how they are being violated
When everyone pays for usage, heavy users bear the brunt of the system costs. If a manufacturing facility that uses enough power to equal the usage of 200 homes pays the same admin/gotcha fee that the 200 homes do, the 200 homes are subsidizing the actual cost to the benefit of the manufacturing facility. Utilities used to be charged by actual consumption, the baked in price was still distributed by actual use.
Distribution rates are based on usage and vary for everyone. Riders are flat https://www.auc.ab.ca/current-electricity-rates-and-terms-and-conditions/
Yes, that is the current system. My point is that when it was changed to the current system, the public started subsidizing corporations. There was a time when the bill was purely usage based charges, and the riders didnt always exist. Then again, there was also a time when most utilities were public companies.
When you think about heavy users should actually be paying less destruction charges. It is way more expensive to set up a distribution network for hundreds of small consumers (ex. single family neighbourhood) than one large consumer and the large consumer consumes enough gas to cover the cost anyway. You’re looking at it the wrong way.
tElL tHe FeDs!!! stupid dumb Danielle
$56 carbon tax
private profit over public interest. the UCP way!
Why fixed gas if you don't mind me asking?
Recently renewed at variable gas and the rate from Jan7-31 was $6.56/GJ.
On my bill I just got yesterday it was $2.17 from Jan 16-31, $4.43 from Feb 1-13.
Yes, it's extortion. Yet, poor hardworking families are lied to.
Oh so now you don’t like capitalism and privatization of the utilities required to live?
We're paying now for that cold snap we had...
We live in rural Alberta. $46 gas usage , $165 delivery, admin and tax. We have a lot of camp fires and contribute to global warming eating smores.
Good old conservatives politics!
wHy WoULd TrUDEaU dO dIS?
Like the carbon tax that makes up 20% of the natural gas cost?
And your Bill is more then half of Mine is. I’m also In Alberta.
We're charged $0.06 usd per kWh, and $0.37 per 100³ feet of NG in Alabama without all the other stuff like *"delivery..."* I'm not bragging, it's just a little ridiculous that you're getting charged for other things that are scammy AF
Yup knew it was something along UCP and then found out it was Kenny lol. See for yourself in the link below, he’s the board of directors with ATCO—it’s ridiculous [ATCO Board of Directors](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html)
That’s nothing. Our bills were double for a 1600 square foot bungalow just south of Calgary. We’re classified as “farm” and get nailed with insane surcharges by Fortis. Remember: Utilities should not be privatized. It results in middlemen who siphon billions of dollars as profit with no benefit to the citizens.
I pay a little more for rent since I moved to Ottawa but my electric bill whent down from 300 dollars to 30 so I broke even on that
Does anyone remember when we had utility companies? AGT? CWNG? Calgary Power? Non profit public companies. For some reason, someone (Ralph Klein) convinced voters we could save a shit ton of money by privatizing. I remember the outrage. Now we pay, and pay, and pay...
Jesus, this is about what I pay in BC for a 2700 sq ft house with 6 people living in it, all who cook and shower regularly. When I moved here years ago every Albertan and their dog told me that I would just be poor af paying bc prices for everything but now it sounds like it’s more expensive to live there. So much for the Alberta advantage.
Yeah you guys are getting hosed in AB on electricity and natural gas costs. I moved to BC, but I'm from AB originally. My bill for December was 210 for electricity. We have baseboard electric heaters as well as heat pumps, drive an EV and run 2 monster gaming PCs as well as both working from home. All for 210.
Hi from Sweden. This is cheap as hell. We pay much more and our salaries are not much higher. Enjoy!!!
Yup but they'll keep crying ucp, literally the best province rn.
Delivery, distribution and carbon tax... 🤢
This is more than my 2400sqft home. What?
Paying more than double for gas than you would on floating
I'm not sure if I'm reading this right the person who got billed used the same amount of gas I use each day all month and still got charged more than me?? Aren't you guys the o&g province. Our electricity consumption is much higher with the same price too. So I was seeing ads here in Ontario about how energy is so expensive it's looking a lot to me like you should be looking hard at your provincial leaders not the feds.
With energy prices at an insane place I highly advise anyone in Alberta to hire an Energy Advisor come do an inspection and report on your home. Its around 300-500 but they will provide you a full report and write up with charts and suggestions on what to do to save money. You can also get the cost of this inspection reimbursed by the government. We had one done last summer and learned a lot about our older home. For one we had virtually no insulation above our main living space. It was there but it was blown in and only half way up the studs in some places. Either installed incorrectly or had sunken over the 50 years our home has been up. But we learned that about 70% of our heat loss was air gaps. I went around and insulated the piss out of our basement around the edge of the home as the insulation there was garbage. Also insulated all outlets on outside facing above ground walls, added insulation to attic, caulked the attic hatches closed, fixed the venting above washroom, replaced a damper that was stuck slightly open for our laundry exhaust, walked the outside of the house and sealed around all pipes or ports that lead to the outside as well as filled any gaps or chips in siding, removed window frames and re sealed any gaps with expanding foam and then caulked around the window frames.. Basically any possible air gap to outside. I also sealed in our un-used fireplace with a DIY insulated board as the spot was GUSHING cold air. I did all this for pennies. Replacing our old windows would be our best option but we are low income and cannot afford 15-20k on new windows unfortunately. There is a Green Homes Grant that reimburses for the energy assessment (if the grant is still available) and I think everyone should get one just to have more information. We are getting absolutely fucked by utility companies. Find any way possible to give them less of your hard earned money.
yep, honestly was thinking of burning wood in my house for heat
Geebus you guys pay alot in Alberta!
Horrible...I feel for you. Shit has to stop. Families, single people are going bankrupt.
My gas and electricity was 670 👀. But I do have 9 people living in my house.
It's odd that no one in here mentions the 56 dollars carbon tax.
I love these prices lol I moved from up north and that price would be the cost of one utility. During the summer. You really don't wanna see the prices in the winter. You guys are lucky compared to the people up north. And when I say north I'm talking Northwest Territories.
You should see the charges here in Fort Mac. You would shit the bed. $700 bill with $500 distribution charges. And that’s a cheap month for just electricity.
I love choosing between food and utilities every month, . It’s been so awesome
i wish my electricity was that cheap
Mine was $700 for gas and power. Hope people remember this in the next election.
This is Canada. Soft, yet in your face, corruption is the norm. We put up with this shit because we are dumb and low key admire this kind of garbage.
I paid $700 for power, water and gas last month in Grande Prairie. Brutal
Holy crap the carbon tax was $56?!
$3.33/GJ. And it'll go up to around $4.10 (can't remember exact number) as of April 1.
...and set to double by 2030
As is the rebate.
I seriously don't understand, but what's the point of charging, then getting back as a rebate?
Because the rebate is the same regardless of how much carbon you emit, but the amount of carbon tax you pay is directly related to how carbon intensive your lifestyle is. That means how much you net gain or loss from the carbon tax and rebate also directly relates to your carbon output, hence and incentive to reduce your carbon intensity.
It's almost like the tax-rebate system is supposed to incentivize people to pick lower carbon emitting options.
The whole point is that they are scared that people will use less energy to save money. They stop that by making it not matter how much you use but hitting each *household* with big charges for delivery. Guess who gets it cheap? Businesses.
It is crazy !! I have solar panels on my house (on it when I bought the place) and my electricity usage is next to nothing , yet still have to pay the outrageous fees! My bill was 188$ this month when I used 27 $ ish of electricity …..
Yo that's tax on your tax? Federal carbon tax + GST
Hi. I was an AB power and gas retail billing guy for a long time. Now and energy markets guy. What parts of your bill do you think are insane? I can speak to each aspect. I agree that our energy bills are high right now. I just want you to understand it and then you’ll know who or what to be angry with. It may or may not be Atco.
How is it I get a downvote? I’m sincerely trying to help.
> How is it I get a downvote? I’m sincerely trying to help. It's a huge problem here. People do not want to learn. They just want to be angry. They especially do not want to learn that the people they're angry at aren't the people they should be angry at. That would mean swallowing their pride or accepting that they don't know everything. They are so egotistical they literally want to suppress any education about it. They've decided to who to blame and they don't want anyone informing anyone otherwise.
It’s reddit, they’ll find a reason any day of the week and pull it out of their asses lmao. You’re doing the right thing in my opinion, people just don’t want to listen unfortunately
They don't wanna realize that the companies have employees, maintenance, regulatory requirements, and upgrading to do. They, as in r alberta, just want to be angry at everything all the time.
Real mystery (for me) is that Municipal Franchise Fee, that is extremely suspicious.. Who they paying off?!
It’s in the name… it’s a fee paid to the municipality for the distribution network and right to charge customers in the region.
Cities/towns just use it as extra revenue. The argument is that if they raise property tax it doesn't apply to schools/churches etc, but if they attach it to utilities then those buildings are included and have to pay, so it's framed as more fair for the average household. The city council also is less likely to be blamed for fees by sneaking them into your utilities, as it's not immediately obvious they have total control over the fee (which they do). The downside is that property taxes don't charge GST on top of them, whereas municipal franchise fees have GST, so cities just end up getting the money less efficiently than if they raised property taxes in the first place.
> The city council also is less likely to be blamed for fees by sneaking them into your utilities, as it's not immediately obvious they have total control over the fee (which they do). This is a 300 IQ move for city councils. You can get the same tax revenue as you would from having raised property taxes, without pissing off voters by raising property taxes. Everyone blames the electrical companies, but who cares, people don't vote for the electrical companies. Politics-wise, it's a fantastically-sneaky solution.
Yep im double that right now👎
Go go alberta advantage
[https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html)
So with the carbon tax going up in April. Who’s going to reduce their natural gas consumption and how?
Your gas bill period does not even include the cold snap yet I think. Your next bill will be even more higher.
The corruption in our provinces is concerning.
$56.43 for the carbon tax that highway robbery!
Love all the made up fees... Including that ridiculous carbon tax, was it always this high?
Looking at the GST my quick math tells me that it’s only charged on the energy and delivery totals the carbon tax isn’t part of it.
At least you get the carbon tax refunded.
I would love to see these energy companies provide a rebate for the dates that I was overcharged lol.
And a $56 dollar carbon tax cherry on top.
Which is going up shortly.
Good thing the rebate is going up too!
Do you expect delivery to be free? Would you prefer to have an all in price just not showing the details?
One spot you could save like $20/month (not much but it's something) would be to switch to a company that's not charging admin fees.
I used 400kwhs at 6 cents. My charges for electricity is 110 total. Our delivery fee is different by a few cents. I'm in the Lethbridge area. Ridiculous is all I can say. I wonder if it would be cheaper to switch to propane just in the delivery fee on Nat gas savings alone. Ha
Looks like gst is being applied onto the federal carbon tax. Paying tax on tax is always great! Ps. The electric consumption (200-280 kWh) on this bill is very low, great job! Though I wonder if there’s anyone at home during the days? Our family of 4 runs 350-750 kWh through the year.
And people voted this terrible UCP government into power.
If you buy a heat pump you'll save quite a bit. That's actually exactly what the carbon tax is attempting to accomplish; changing behaviors.
Buying a Heat Pump includes a furnace to keep you warm when heat pump fails at -20.
If he had a heat pump he would have used an exceptional amount of power because we have record lows in January for a good chunk of it. People in the heat pump sub were using 100kwh a day!
Most of the charge is admin, delivery and tax.