Emera’s public relations efforts come under fire

Board of Utility and Review in Nova Scotia needs to ‘rigorously enforce the company’s legal and moral obligations’

Public relations efforts by Nova Scotia Power (NSP, aka Emera) recently to defend their corporate accounting practices make a mockery of their obligations to serve the public interest.

Merely claiming repeatedly that “we put our ratepayers first” does nothing to excuse questionable behavior highlighted by the external auditor. There is little or no evidence that Emera puts its ratepayers - that is, its customers’ - interests first anywhere it operates. Actually, it can not. As a private corporation, its first legal duty is to maximize shareholder’s return, NOT to serve the public interest. This it is does by minimizing costs. These include wages and benefits of its NON-executive employees, (Emera senior execs receive enormous salaries: CEO Chris Huskilson’s exceeded $5 million in 2016) and maintenance to the equipment needed to keep the lights on; and by maximizing the price it charges for electricity and related services. Nova Scotia already has some of the highest electricity costs in Canada.

Thanks to these practices, Emera’s return for its investors is a shareholder’s delight. Emera currently pays its shareholders a dividend higher than that of the Royal Bank, Microsoft or Apple Computer. (When my father was a kid in Sydney, electrical power was free in the month of December because by that time, ‘the electric company’ had already made all the money it was permitted to make in one year!)

This letter was originally written in the dark, at the North Sydney library on Dec. 12 - a calm, clear day. When the librarian phoned asking for the restoration time on the power outage, NSP did not even know that power was out over much of the town – including traffic lights, gasoline stations, banks and grocery stores!

This electricity monopoly should not have been privatized. When basic public services are put in the hands of private, for-profit corporations whose first goal is maximizing shareholder’s return on their own private investment, the public interest usually takes a back seat and ordinary hard-working families pay the price. Just ask the good people of Walkerton, Ont., what happened when their water testing was privatized; or the shattered community Lac-Megantic, Que., when rail was privatized.

Or ask famous Harvard economist, Canada’s John Kenneth Galbraith, about the comparative economic efficiency of crown corporations versus private corporations. To date our provincial government leaders have lacked the courage to correct this fateful public policy error that is causing so much hardship to Nova Scotia families.

Until NSP can be returned to a crown corporation, the Board of Utility and Review in Nova Scotia needs to end its cozy relationship with Emera and rigorously enforce the company’s legal and moral obligations. Our province would be better served by using a crown corporation to distribute electricity, which all citizens need, versus distributing marijuana.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia has the highest rate of child poverty in the country. And the lowest minimum wage in all of Canada. Unfortunately, Emera is not part of the solution to this province’s many woes, (with or without Muskrat Falls). Instead, it is part of the problem of living in Nova Scotia which every citizen confronts.

This has to change.

Dr. Brian Richard Joseph, now retired, was a commissioner with The Law Reform Commission of Nova Scotia and previously a Knox CANADA Fellow at Harvard University where he earned a Ph.D. He lives in North Sydney.

“This electricity monopoly should not have been privatized.”