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VOL. 25 NO. 37
www.terracestandard.com
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Residential gas rates rise PACIFIC NORTHERN Gas (PNG) wants to raise its rates next year, saying it needs more money to meet rising costs. In an application for an interim price hike as of Jan. 1, PNG forecasts an overall increase per gigajoule burned of 4.4 per cent. That works out to a hike, says PNG, of from $17.911 a gigajoule now to $18.699 a gigajoule in 2013. Overall, PNG says it needs to charge customers another $600,000 in 2013. It cites general inflation, wage increases of three per cent, hiring two new executives (at a cost of $180,000), a $146,000 executive compensation program, initiated by new owners AltaGas of Calgary which is meant
to keep valued employees from moving on and $346,000 in fees to be paid to AltaGas as some of the reasons a rate increase is needed. PNG does say that while the above may be regarded as new costs, in some places they replace costs that had been in place earlier. One such example cited is the $346,000 fee to AltaGas with PNG saying it’s lower than what PNG might be paying out had it still been an independent company and not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Alberta energy company. One cost item that won’t change as of Jan. 1 is the cost of natural gas itself – it’s to remain at the current rate of $3.375 a giga-
joule. That’s being regarded as about as low as it can get after several years of price drops because of a sudden increase in supply across North America. PNG isn’t allowed to put a mark up on what it pays for gas and simply passes that cost to its customers. But when taxes, fees and assorted costplus factors are added, the true rate per GJ nudges $20. The provincial Liberal carbon tax alone amounts to $1.490 a GJ or about 41 per cent of the actual cost of the natural gas itself. PNG’s requested increase comes just after a slight decrease it says will amount to $8
a month for both November and December. Although the BC Utilities Commission did allow PNG a rate hike of $0.098 a gigajoule as of Nov. 1, a special account maintained by PNG resulted in a credit of $0.595 a gigajoule, enough to offset that increase and result in a temporary decrease. Whenever PNG collects more money than it told the utilities commission it originally needed (chiefly arising when more gas is burned than anticipated), the excess is paid into this account. PNG can then use the account to cushion future price hikes essentially by refunding money to customers it has already collected.
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Northern B.C. bus service is key: inquiry The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry released a report on Monday, Dec. 17, examining the “phenomenon” of missing and murdered girls and women in B.C. The 1,448-page report, titled Forsaken, analyzes the circumstances related to missing or murdered girls and women – many of First Nations descent – across the province. The report largely focuses on the disappearances of more than 60 women, at least 26 of whom were murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton in Vancouver, over a 20-year period. “The loss of life is staggering,” wrote Commissioner Wally Oppal, a former B.C. attorney-general who directed the public inquiry. The disappearances and murders of girls and women along the Highway of Tears, which are the subject of an ongoing RCMP investigation called Project E-PANA, is also reviewed extensively in the report. “The number of missing and murdered girls in northern B.C. is unknown; people have been disappearing along the highway network of Highways 16, 97 and 5 for decades,” the report says. “The vast spaces between communities acutely increase women’s vulnerability to violence given the lack of public transportation, and create additional challenges to the initial search and investigation of missing persons.” Oppal recommended that an enhanced public transit system be developed “to provide a safer travel option connecting the Northern communities, particularly along Highway 16”. Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Mary Polak said work on the public transit recommendation will get underway after the holidays.
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Anna Killen PHOTO
■■ Cookies for everyone... Students at Skeena Middle School spent last week baking almost 900 cookies to be distributed to groups across town. Ksan House, the women’s shelter, soup kitchen and the Suwilaawks bazaar were some of the outfits who received the treats, thanks in part to donations from the local Safeway and $300 from Terrace Totem Ford.
Last chance
A look back
Sports 2012
Check out some of the community’s best moments of the year \COMMUNITY A17
Here’s a look at what happened in the Terrace news world, 2012 \NEWS A4
Here are some of the top sports moments in Terrace over the last year \SPORTS A26