CONSUMER ADVOCATE SHOULD BE TAKEN TO WOOD SHED

The Consumer Advocate to the Public Utilities Board (PUB) is not on your side.

What other conclusion can be drawn from the actions of an Office that gives so much energy to providing cover for Nalcor's devotion to secrecy?  Newfoundland Power, another paragon of conflicted loyalty, is also unsure of the constituency to whom it owes the greatest duty.  It, too, needs a comeuppance.

What is going on?

The PUB has convened a “Paper Hearing” to deal with a request from Newfoundland Hydro (NLH) to quash the requirement that Nalcor answer a list of questions submitted by the Grand River Keepers (GRK) of Labrador and Danny Dumaresque.  Both GRK and Dumaresque are interveners in the PUB’s investigation into DARKNL.  The PUB is compiling information for Phase II of its Report dealing with the “adequacy and reliability of the Island Interconnected system over the short, medium and long-term…after the commissioning of Muskrat Falls”.

Nalcor does not want to answer GRK’s and Dumaresque’s questions.  It is telling the PUB that they are not relevant to the issue it is investigating.

What is wrong with those questions? Let’s take a look.

CONSUMER ADVOCATE: THE LAP CAT HAS NO CLAWS

The Office of the Consumer Advocate (CA) plays a useful role protecting the public from unsupported or excessive charges by our regulated utilities, Newfoundland Power and Newfoundland Hydro.

But, is an advocate’s sole role one that is directed towards keeping our power bills lower by a fractional percentage? 

I prefer to think of an advocate as an ‘activist’, a persistent ‘promoter’ of his mission, an ardent ‘defender’ of consumer interests; one who sees the big picture of change in the power industry, who is fearlessly determined not to let Government secrecy or bullying thwart him in the execution of his public duty.

This is not the image or the record of the current Consumer Advocate, Tom Johnson.