Calgary’s mayor and city councillors say city-owned Enmax is protecting its investment in a Maine power utility, as it spends millions on advocacy in an upcoming referendum in the state.
Voters in Maine will decide in a referendum later this year whether to replace the state’s two largest privately-owned power companies, including Enmax-owned Versant Power, with a public utility.
In an effort to lobby against the move to public utility ownership, Enmax has contributed $7.5 million so far this year to a U.S. based non-profit called Maine Energy Progress to sway voters to keep the privately-owned electricity companies.
The founding organizations of Maine Energy Progress are Enmax and Versant Power, according to the Maine Ethics Commissioner.
Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek told reporters that Enmax purchased Versant Power in 2020 to help increase profitability, and the spending is to protect their $1.8 billion investment.
“(Enmax) made that investment in the interest of growing the company and providing a better return to its shareholder, which is (the City of Calgary),” Gondek said. “Trying to protect that investment is what they’re pursuing right now.”
If Maine residents vote in favour of creating a consumer-based electricity utility, it would trigger a process to replace the two privately-owned power companies in Maine, as well as a negotiation to acquire the electricity providers and their assets from their parent companies.
“Therefore it would be a loss of investment for Calgarians and the loss of investment potential,” Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said. “That is essentially what they are trying to protect.”
Although Enmax is owned by the City of Calgary, and the city is its sole shareholder, nobody from the city or council makes any management decisions in regard to the power utility’s operations.
However, city councillors told reporters they’re largely supportive of Enmax’s opposition efforts in the Maine referendum.
“We govern, we don’t manage,” Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said. “So what they do to ensure the profitability of the organization, I’m completely confident that what they’re doing is in the best interest of the corporation.”
Enmax has said its electricity rates were not affected by the purchase of Versant Power or the paying down of the debt to acquire the company, and customers won’t be charged additional fees or rate increases to offset the cost of acquiring Versant Power, its operations or the referendum process.
“A decision will be made in Maine by Mainers and Enmax respects the process of the referendum,” the utility said in a statement Tuesday.
Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said it would be “horrible” if Enmax didn’t advocate in Maine and lost money on its ownership of Versant Power, and added the move is “not outrageous,” but rather the “cost of doing business.”
Enmax told Global News that it would be paid market value if the referendum were to pass.
“They’re going to spend money to protect the investment that they’ve made, and if they’re successful then it’s all good,” Carra said. “If they’re not successful, then we’re going to have to pivot to trying to make sure that the resolution of how that shakes out doesn’t cost us a lot of money.”
There is an Enmax shareholder meeting on Wednesday, and Gondek said she’s expecting some discussion and questions on the election spending, including how much more Enmax plans to spend on the campaign.
“This is not the standard election process, this is something that’s coming forward through an election process and it has an impact to an organization that owns that entity,” Gondek said. “I think that’s something that we absolutely need to clarify, perhaps the communication needs to be better on this. We will have a conversation about that (on Wednesday).”
Mainers go to the polls in the referendum on November 7.
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