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Don Iveson EPCOR Kevin Taft Public Interest Alberta

transparency and epcor privatization.

Edmonton City Council’s vote to privatize the power production portions of EPCOR was held as a private shareholders meeting (the City of Edmonton owns 100% of the shares), but no rules were broken. What’s the real issue? The privatization or how the decision was made?

– While I thought the Edmonton Journal’s ‘MAJOR ABUSE OF POWER’ headline was a tad bit sensationalist considering that Council conducted itself within the rules laid out before them, I do think the transparency issue needs to be addressed for future decisions. Councillor Don Iveson has already said that he plans on introducing a motion that would require councillors to make decisions about significant Epcor asset sales or restructuring at council rather than shareholder meetings.

“There are a number of fair reasons why the recent Capital Power decision was made that way, but I don’t want to be asked to make any further decisions that way.”

“Our accountability is clearer when we are meeting as councillors than if we’re meeting as shareholders.”

Edmonton-Riverview MLA Kevin Taft has written an op-ed on the EPCOR issue, arguing that Council should put entire process on hold to allow public scrutiny.

– The Our Power Citizens Group is trying to start a larger debate on the EPCOR issue, but who is behind this group? The address listed on their website is the same as Public Interest Alberta. The group will be hosting a meeting on Wednesday, July 8th at 7:30 PM at the Central Lions Seniors Centre 11113 — 113 Street.