This past week it was confirmed by Manitoba Hydro that the rate Manitoba homeowners pay for their electricity is nearly three times the rate that we sell that electricity to the United States for.

Undoubtedly this will come as a surprise to many Manitobans. For years the NDP have been telling us that Manitoba’s ticket to prosperity was the combined effect of having affordable electrical power at home and the ability to sell that power for top dollar to the United States. In fact, only last month, NDP Premier Greg Selinger, told Manitobans that our American neighbors are “willing to pay a premium international price for power, which will pay for the assets that we’re developing.”

The way things are going, it will be Manitobans who will be paying most of the cost of new Hydro projects while export customers get the cheap electrical power. In fact, the average export rate for hydro in 2009/2010 was 2.37 cents per kilowatt hour. That was about half of what Hydro sold electricity internationally for the year before. And it is well below the 6.38 cents per kilowatt hour that Manitobans are charged.

Manitobans not only have the right to question why it is that we pay so much more for the electricity that we generate than we charge those who buy it from us, they also have reason to be concerned. That’s because the NDP government has been justifying adding $1.75 billion to the cost of a new hydro transmission line (Bi-Pole III) by saying that our export sales will pay for it.

That transmission line is coming from northeastern Manitoba all the way to Winnipeg and instead of choosing the shorter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly route on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, the NDP forced Manitoba Hydro to plan to build it along the west side of the Lake. That decision adds $1.75 billion to the cost of the project.

The decision is wrong for Manitoba Hydro and for future generations of Manitobans. It needs to be reversed simply as a matter of common sense. But now, adding to the concern, is the fact that Hydro is selling power internationally at such a cheap rate. If those conditions continue over a longer period of time, it will be Manitobans who are forced to pay the cost of the NDP government’s mismanagement of Hydro, not international customers.

Selling electricity at a price three times cheaper than Manitobans pay and wasting $1.75 billion is no way to run a Crown Corporation like Manitoba Hydro. Unfortunately, it is the NDP way, and it costs all of us.