by John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter. Source: Fredericton Gleaner.
May 28, 2026

Premier Holt speaking at an online news conference on Monday

New Brunswick’s Liberal government has released a plan for NB Power, with a push to make skyrocketing electricity rates more affordable.

But New Brunswickers can’t count on a cap or price freeze.

Both the premier and the province’s energy minister are promising not to meddle in the Crown corporation’s rate setting, as provincial governments have done so many times in the past.

Instead, the Liberals introduced legislation this week to create an independent energy sector consumer advocate’s office, meant to better represent residential and small business customers.

The new advocate will replace the public intervener for the energy sector, who represented all NB Power customers at EUB rate hearings including the one on the proposed Tantramar gas/diesel plant.

It is only one of a suite of NB Power reforms the Liberals promised to introduce before their mandate runs out in 2029.

Opposition parties predicted rates wouldn’t go down any time soon, a harsh reality considering that residential rates have gone up by roughly 26%  in the last three years, costing the average household hundreds of dollars extra in yearly bill payments.

“More than a year ago, we were seeing New Brunswickers experiencing significant increases to their power bills, and big challenges when it came to the cost of living, and specifically, electricity and power in this province,” Premier Susan Holt said at news conference Monday.

“We knew we needed to do something,” she added.

“We couldn’t continue with the kind of nine per cent increases year over year that New Brunswickers had seen…So, we took action and assembled a panel of experts to do a comprehensive review of NB Power.”

Expert report

Energy Minister René Legacy

That three-member expert review panel delivered a report eight weeks ago after nearly a year of consultation and study.

Holt said her government had accepted all of its 50 recommendations, but warned that many would take years to see through and that they had to be done in stages.

The key actions include developing a new provincial energy policy, modernizing the Electricity Act, and advancing discussions around greater regional co-operation and integration among utilities in the Maritimes.

The government also believes it can improve NB Power’s performance measurement, staffing reviews, project management, and customer service.

But six of the recommendations won’t be acted on any time soon, or at least not until they are analyzed further. Energy Minister René Legacy said they couldn’t be done right away because other changes had to happen first.

These are glaring omissions, considering how controversial some of them would likely be.

In the near term, the provincial government will not introduce bonuses or performance-based pay for the public utility’s employees, including its senior executive team.

Public feedback showed many New Brunswickers felt NB Power’s 2,600 workers were already well paid to do a good job.

And the province won’t immediately investigate adding more natural gas to replace electrical home heating, another hot-button issue.

Fracking moratorium

There’s been a moratorium on fracking natural gas in New Brunswick for a dozen years, an environmental safeguard the Progressive Conservative opposition wants lifted to create jobs and more wealth in a have-not province.

PC Energy Critic Kris Austin speaking in the legislature last fall

Kris Austin, the PC energy critic, said it was a big mistake to leave an estimated 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the ground.

“These recommendations, whether they do them or don’t do them, it’s very clear, are not going to reduce rates, and in the short term, I don’t even think they’re going to stabilize rates,” he told Brunswick News. “Rates are going to continue to go up.”

Austin argued a better long-term plan would have been to wean households off electrical heat, which is hugely inefficient compared to heating with natural gas. Most New Brunswickers use electrical baseboard heating.

“You’ve only got to look to the U.S. Northeast to see your answer. Electricity rates in New England are high. They’re very high, but people don’t worry too much about it because they only use electricity in the Northeast mostly to turn the lights on and, you know, for some basic stuff. They heat their homes with natural gas. So, there’s your model.”

Nor will the provincial government immediately write down the public utility’s teetering, $6-billion debt, considered far too big for a utility NB Power’s size.

No Point Lepreau plan

The idea of spinning off the troubled Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station into a separate Crown corporation has also been put on the backburner.

Green Party leader David Coon blames many of NB Power’s financial problems on Lepreau, which underwent an expensive refurbishment more than a decade ago, but still breaks down more than it should.

“The action plan is underwhelming,” Coon told reporters. “It’s not going to make one bit of difference to people’s power costs whatsoever. They’re not even keeping up with what Nova Scotia is doing in terms of really being bold with helping to get people’s energy costs down through major energy efficiency programs and a major focus on solar.”

Coon said the public utility should go full-bore into offering smaller, renewable electricity, produced by wind and solar energy, backed up by powerful batteries. He said more New Brunswickers would make their homes more efficient, with heat pumps and better insulation, if they were offered no-interest loans to do the work.

To read the government’s plan for NB Power, click here.

This story was written by Local Journalism Initiative Reporter John Chilibeck of Brunswick News..