We’ve unearthed another way Enbridge is getting a free ride right here in Guelph. It’s literally under our feet. Every day.
Enbridge pays little to use the City owned public property (under our roads and other land) to run their pipelines. All other utilities using city land like: cable, phone, fiber optic, water, sewage, Alectra/Guelph Hydro, provide more compensation to the City for the use of that land.
Meanwhile we the taxpayers are subsidizing Enbridge.
Ironically, that’s not the case in Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC, Manitoba or Nova Scotia. But this is the situation throughout Ontario.
If we charged Enbridge similar fees to some of the other municipalities we could potentially bring in yearly revenue between $4,000,000 and $9,000,000 per year (see note 1).
Imagine what we could do with that money to fight climate change and social justice in Guelph.
There’s much to learn on this issue and we’d like to work with the City to dig deeper and understand how we can take advantage of this opportunity.
eMERGE hosted Dianne Saxe, Toronto City Councillor and former Environmental Commissioner who is leading the charge on this issue in that city. She was also joined by Gaby Kalapos, Executive Director, Clean Air Partnership and Aaron Freeman, President and Founder Pivot Strategic.
It became very evident that we have an opportunity to eliminate what looks like a tax payer subsidy to Enbridge. Charging the fossil fuel company could bring in an additional $9,000,000 to City coffers that could help fight climate change and improve our social services.
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Note 1 – This figures were calculated by eMERGE using the formulas that are referred to in the Ottawa-Fair Payment For-Profit Gas Utilities use of City Property communicationfile-177656
Background
The Narwhal: Enbridge Gas is ‘fighting for its survival’ — and that means keeping Ontario on fossil fuels
Toronto mulls ending Enbridge’s free pass (March 15, 2024)
Clean Air Partnership: Model Franchise Agreement Review (a model that could be used to change the current system)
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Note: this item is a separate Enbridge issue. This link is provided for context only:
Guelph City Council Supports residents not Enbridge – (March 14, 2024) The community was successful at getting the City to pass a motion urging the provincial government to end subsidies for gas hookups for new homes.
