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ANDY WALKER: Paying for Fiona over four decades

Islanders are going to be paying the clean-up cost of post-Tropical Storm Fiona on their electric bills for the next 40 years.

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The storm was unprecedented when it came to damaging the province’s electrical grid. Poles snapped like popsicle sticks from one end of the province to the other. Maritime Electric crews, supplemented by help from other utilities throughout Canada and the United States, worked around the clock to restore power– a job measured in weeks rather than hours or days.

Understandably, those repairs carried a heavy price tag. After some back and forth between Ottawa and the province, the federal government decided it would not help with the costs. Maritime Electric then acted like any other “for profit” company would and decided to pass on the cost to its customers.

However, the utility differs from other private sector companies in a number of key ways. Most importantly it is a monopoly. When companies operating in a competitive marketplace put their prices up, customers........

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