Bill would protect YEC assets: Liberal

A private member’s bill making it illegal for the government to sell or privatize Yukon Energy assets without approval from the territory’s voters is the Liberal party’s latest gambit to safeguard the public utility.

On Thursday, Liberal Energy critic Gary McRobb unveiled the Yukon Energy Corporation Protection Act, his draft private member’s bill he expects to table when the legislature reconvenes later this fall.

“We don’t believe any government should be allowed to conduct secret negotiations to sell out our energy infrastructure from under us without a mandate from the public,” McRobb told reporters at a press conference in the Liberal caucus office.

“This bill is intended to enshrine that safeguard and ... would prevent backdoor privatization schemes.”

Word that Premier Dennis Fentie orchestrated negotiations to sell off, then privatize energy corporation assets, first came to light in June after four corporation directors resigned to protest the premier’s intentions for the public utility.

Through a series of subsequent media interviews, Fentie rejected allegations he spearheaded a deal with Calgary-based ATCO to liquidate, then merge public utility assets to ATCO’s Yukon subsidiary Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd.

Amidst calls by opposition parties that the premier resign, Fentie put two high-level bureaucrats into the firing line to support his claims.

When Fentie’s right-hand-man, now ex-Energy minister Brad Cathers, resigned in late August, his reasons for leaving the government caucus and relinquishing his cabinet post confirmed what the premier had previously denied.

“The premier was a lot more involved in discussions with ATCO than he had indicated ... and the government did in fact consider the sale of public hydro assets and privatization,” Cathers said the day he decided to break ranks with the ruling Yukon Party.

As his bombshell move reduced the government to minority status, it bolstered opposition chances of toppling Fentie’s regime, and the Liberals were quick to promise a non-confidence motion at the earliest opportunity.

However, Cathers and fellow-independent MLA John Edzerza have been non-committal in supporting such a motion and newly-minted NDP Leader Elizabeth Hanson has said she favours trying to work with a minority government, rather than turfing it.

Yesterday, McRobb dismissed any notion his private member’s bill was an acknowledgment the Liberals’ vow to topple the government would not prevail.

“It’s not related to the non-confidence motion, at all. This is something the Yukon Party side could support, which would not mean the fall of the government,” he said.

And Todd Hardy, the Energy critic for the NDP agrees, but not with the same enthusiasm as McRobb.

“The Yukon Party will vote for this because there’s nothing in the bill that contradicts what the Fentie government is saying now, so I’m very concerned,” Hardy said early this afternoon.

The government is crafting policy on independent power production which would allow “backdoor privatization,” he added.

“I believe the act is very weak, even wishy-washy, and it misleads the public into thinking the government can’t privatize power production,” said Hardy.

“Nothing here stops the government allowing ATCO to build a hydro dam and sell power back to the energy corporation at a fixed rate for 40 or 50 years, basically locking us into supporting a private company.”

Hardy did commit to trying to improve McRobb’s bill, but would not support it in its current form.

Mark Roberts, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, said an independent power production policy would come on the heels of a fall public consultation and “would not in any way privatize Yukon Energy Corporation assets.”

According to current legislation, to sell any assets of the public utility requires the support of Yukon Development Corp. directors, contingent on approval from the minister responsible, who is the premier.