Many Albertans Not Eligible for Utility Rebates
Number of condo owners frustrated by exclusion for Alberta electricity rebate.
COF continues to advocate on behalf of the thousands of Alberta Condo Owners who are finding themselves holding an empty bag of promises as they look for their share of the Utility rebates promised by former Associate Minister Nally’s Natural Gas and Electricity department in April.
As soon as the program was announced, with the passing of Bill 18 Utility, the Commodity Rebate Act, we know there was a potential problem.
COF reached out to Service Alberta for clarification on the program. Service Alberta referred us to Associate Minsters Nally’s department for further comment. The department of Natural Gas and Electricity told us that they were still developing the regulations which would be passed later this summer.
As suspected, the program was detailed in June and was not kind to all Condo Owners fairly or equitably.
As we found out once the program was released, many Alberta condos that have one electric meter for the complex, larger users and those buildings that were sub-metered would be ineligible.
As the legislation is currently designed, many condo owners would not benefit from the rebate on both electricity and Natural Gas strictly because their utility bills are paid by their Condo Corporations, despite paying for their utilities as part of their monthly Condo contributions/fees.
COF, at that time, wrote a letter to former Associate Minister of Natural Gas and Electricity, Dale Nally, containing a detailed list of concerns and possible solution to this shortfall in a letter dated July 11th, 2022, and have did not get a response for two months, READ Response Letter
The solution we suggested was to have all Condo Corporations apply for the rebate by registering with the utility consumer advocate. Once this was done the utility companies servicing a registered Condominium would have their rebate applied based on registration and the number of occupied units in the complex.
Rachel Notley's team reached out to us and told us that we had their support.
Not hearing from Associate Minister Nally’s department in response to our letter, Rachel Notley reached out to us to invite us to a press conference in Calgary that she was holding to support the needed changes to this program. We participated in a press conference in Calgary that was widely broad cast on CBC and Global News. We also received interview requests locally from Global Lethbridge. Stories were run in most major newspapers in the province including the Lethbridge Herald, Medicine Hat News and Red Deer Advocate.
