Medicine Hat shouldn’t consider energy business revamp until after election, MHURA says

Wesley Pratt, who sits on the Medicine Hat Utilities Ratepayer Association’s board of directors, said this council shouldn’t vote on creating a proposed arms-length agency for its energy division and launching a rate-setting committee.

“We concur with the mayor’s position that this really needs to be an election issue,” Pratt told CHAT News in an interview Thursday.

“Like the Saamis Solar Park investment, these things need to be fleshed out a lot more so the citizens make a decision, and that should be an election decision, not something that’s being rushed towards.”

After electricity bills skyrocketed over the summer of 2023, council requested a third-party review of its energy business with the aim of improving its operations for the benefit of Medicine Hat residents now and into the future.

KPMG, the chosen auditor, came to council in November 2024 recommending the city create a municipally controlled corporation run by experts to oversee the energy business and a rate review committee that would determine utility bills for residents and businesses.

With council’s approval, staff worked with KPMG over several months to create a blueprint for the proposed new structure and presented it at Tuesday’s council meeting for information.

Council — and the public — will on May 20 be presented with more details about what the proposed restructure could look like and will vote on if it will proceed to a public consultation phase.

Mayor Linnsie Clark first proposed council wait to make a decision until after the election during Tuesday’s meeting and reiterated the point during a later CHAT News interview.

“I just don’t think it needs to be rushed through,” Clark said Wednesday.

While councillors have made it clear that public consultation is crucial before a final vote on the proposed changes, the mayor said there are differences on how much feedback is appropriate.

“There’s maybe a little bit of a difference in terms of the level of community involvement that various counselors are looking for,” Clark said.

“I would like to take more time.”

Coun. Alison Van Dyke said Tuesday the speed at which the city is moving ahead is the best approach as the next term of council wouldn’t be as well-studied to make a decision.

“Someone coming into it in the fall would have to start from square one and if they were being asked to make that decision right away they would probably be ill-equipped to make it, unless they were coming from the energy sector in their non-council lives,” Van Dyke said.

Moving through the initial stages quickly also allows more time for crucial public feedback, Van Dyke added.

“The part that you want to make sure you have enough time for is the public consultation and information because you want to make sure that people in the community are not caught unawares,” she said.

“But when it comes to information being presented to council, I don’t think the speed at which that happens makes much of a difference.”

The city is required under Alberta law to hold a public hearing as part of the consultation phase but staff said Tuesday they will go further in making sure every resident has a chance to hear about the proposal.

Pratt maintained MHURA is still unimpressed.

“On paper it may be sound promising, but there’s there’s far too much information that’s not being shared here,” he said.

“There’s a lot of details that have not been put out for the public information, at least about what the real benefits are to the city other than streamlining and taking some of the decision away.”

Rochelle Pancoast, the city’s energy, environment and land division head, said at Tuesday’s meeting that council plays three different roles.

“Today, council wears three hats: one to represent the ratepayer, one to represent the energy business as a business and one to represent the taxpayer,” Pancoast told reporters.

The municipally controlled corporation and the rate review committee aims to solve the multi-hat problem by each taking on a role — but without taking away ultimate authority from the city, and therefore, residents.

— With files from Dan Reynish

by Olivia Thorington

Medicine Hat shouldn’t consider energy business revamp until after election, MHURA says

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