“Optics can drive an economy” – Shane Douglas
It is unfortunate when “optics” become more influential than facts. My latest issues is the truth behind the UCP government “helping” those in financial straights due to the economic challenges of today. This $50 per month rebate on your power bill is a joke. Have you ever looked at your “bill”, well here’s mine for July including the rebate.
Take a look. My actual “power” cost was $19.37, not a lot. I don’t use a lot of power. How large of a bill do you think that homeless person is paying to live in his cardboard box.
What is that $23.67 “distribution” charge? Am I paying $19.37 for electricity so Enmax (owned by the City of Calgary) can turn around and charge me for “distributing” their product, energy?
Then there’s that $11.40 “transmission” charge. What is that? Am I now paying for the privilege of having my (already billed for) electricity transmitted to me. Meanwhile I deal with short power outages regularly. I would feel a lot better if I knew some of this was going into “maintaining” the distribution system.
Then there’s that 0.66 cents “Balancing Pool Allocation”, whatever that is. However this is partially offset by that 0.68 cent “Rate Riders” credit, wow I’m saving money. I may become a philanthropist and give that person living in the cardboard box that credit so they can purchase a half cup of coffee in the morning.
Then there’s that $7.92 amount paid to “Local Access Fee to Calgary” (as I mentioned earlier the owners of Enmax…and for the record, if it is owned by Calgary it is actually owned by the tax payers). But, hey, I did get the $50 rebate promised by the UCP.
Optics only works for those not paying attention. As you can see, my contribution to “optics” was my shallow attempt to “black out” my address.
Have a good one…
A Poster Child's Perspective 
Terry you are so right! The same thing goes on here in Edmonton with Direct Energy. Several years ago I tried to get an explanation for paying so much for a trifling amount of energy used. Naturally… no response. My biggest peeve is with the “administration fee” that I find on almost every invoice, receipt or billing statement… government and private. It’s just an unspecified money grab for a product I’ve already paid for and action I never see but have take their word for. SOMETIMES it seems like a small amount, but spread that over many thousands of invoices and it can become a big bonus for the institution. Maybe I should be charging them an administration fee for paying the bill. Not much chance of that happening. As with me their fee should be built in to the cost of the product, not an add on. It’s simply a normal cost of being in business. Anyway, enough of my ranting.
We are wined and dine with marketing hiding itself as politics