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Rate Control of Public Utilities in british Columbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

A. W. Currie
A. W. Currie*
Affiliation:
The University of British Columbia
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Extract

The report of the provincial Public Utilities Commission into the rates and services of the British Columbia Electric Railway Company Limited and its affiliates breaks new ground as far as rate control in Canada is concerned. Because of the war, the Commission did not consider it opportune to make a complete review of the rate structure. Nevertheless it laid the basis for such a review when normal conditions return and dealt realistically with many problems which have not heretofore been carefully considered in Canada.

In the process of regulation the first task of any Commission is to arrive at a rate base, that is, the amount on which the Company is entitled to a fair return. The Commission emphasized that such a base is for rate-making purposes only and has no necessary relation to value for any other purpose such as sale, taxation, or judicial condemnation (10).

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , August 1944 , pp. 381 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1944

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References

1 Composed of W. A. Carrothers, D.F.C., Ph.D., L. W. Patmore, LL.B., K.C., and J. C. MacDonald, B.A., B.E.

2 This group of companies supplies electricity, gas, street railway, and bus service to Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, and adjacent municipalities: also electricity to Kamloops, Alberni, and other communities. Some of the interurban electric railway lines of the lower Mainland were excluded from this investigation because they are subject to Dominion jurisdiction. Interurban bus lines were also excluded from this case because they are subject to regulation under the Motor Carrier Act.

3 Figures in parenthesis refer to pages in the Report of the Commission to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, July, 1943.

4 federal Power Commission v. Natural Gas Pipeline Company, 42 P.U.R. (1942) 131.

5 Public Utilities Act, British Columbia, 2 Geo. VI (1938), c. 47, sec. 44.

6 In addition to including the Adjustment Account for the Stave Falls project in the rate-base, the Commission followed the same practice in electric service at Kamloops but in the cases of electric service at Alberni and other small Vancouver Island communities it included only part of the amounts paid to the original interests because it claimed they were excessive.

7 For example, the Bell Telephone case, Appendix A, Report of the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada, 1927.

8 Order dated November 13, 1943.