Suzy Thompson - please get your facts right (you are a reporter and have a duty to get things right - like it or not, people are depending on you to get things RIGHT!). The AUC did not find the Heartland project to be "critical". The Government of Alberta, under Bill 50, identified the Heartland project to be "Critical Transmission Infrastructure", which effectively removed the ability of the AUC to hold a hearing into the "need" for the transmission lines. There is a big difference there - you may not see it, but there is. Please make sure your facts are correct when you're writing an article (if you simply copied the content from another article and assumed it was correct - that's a whole other can of worms).

You’re absolutely right. In this case the AUC was only ruling on the route and structure of the line and the government did decide two years ago it is a critical project. Attributing the decision to the AUC was wrong and you do right to call me out on that.

Um, people care if the electricity goes to the U.S.? I went to Rimbey once, and now I am not surprised such a complaint came from one of its councillors.

Personally, I care that electricity flows from Alberta to the U.S. if it's polluting our air with coal-fired turbines to do so, and if it's our tax dollars that are paying for transmission lines so some private company can rake in the profit. Who benefits? In this matter, it does not seem to be the average Albertan. So why is it going to happen?

Yeah, but you have an opinion about everything, Rob.

good discussion but surprisingly unCanadian lack of being cordial : )

Yeah, officematt2002, Ron has an opinion about everything. That's called participation in life, caring about what goes on, trying to see that it fits within ethical and moral precepts to ensure that my life and the lives of everyone else on this planet can be as healthy, happy and lengthy as possible.
It seems patently ridiculous by every measure that I can imagine that my neighbours and I must foot the tab and risk lung disease so little Johnny in California can play games on his computer as some fat capitalist piggy who lives far away can use $100 bills for toilet paper. If you think that's a good thing, then I question whether you are a shill for good old Yankee capitalism or simply haven't thought through the full impications of the issue.
I don't know what this "Rob" guy thinks. Why don't you ask him?

Oh come on now, Ronnie. You know better than that. Stop having such a negative view on everything. So where is all this energy to go? You do realize it cannot be stored? I would rather see the power generation companies of Alberta enriched by our natural resources, which in turn creates more jobs, has a cascading effect of more jobs for Canadians in related and supplier industries, builds more infrastructure, etc. I hate to tell you pal, but North America is an integrated economy, it doesn't stop at the 49th parallel. What happens in California affects us all, and vice versa.

Negative view? That's a laugh. My view is simply:
As the power is not created unless someone here in Alberta burns coal, thereby polluting our air and;
As it will not be sent to the greedy maw of the U.S. market unless taxpayers here in Alberta get their pockets shaken down for a lot of $ to build transmission lines, there is no justifiable reason to proceed.
All this "integrated economy" notion is a lot of crap force fed to people by those who propagate the myth that free trade can ever exist between disproportionate economies. The fact of it is that the U.S. continues to extract from Canada. Canadians continue to be the "drawers of water and hewers of wood" - only now it's for the U.S., whereas it once was for Britain.
You could also produce "jobs" by putting every woman on the sidewalk to sell herself. Live is always so easy if you just take the eraser and wipe morality and ethics off the blackboard. Virtually zip that anyone does in Alberta has any effect on California or the U.S. at all. Many in the U.S. can't even find Canada on a map, for God's sake.

Always the negative spin, Ron. Cheer up. Stop pissing in your own corn flakes. Get a life. Enjoy it.

@Ron

Let's see, what happens when you sell electricity to the USA? Well, for starters you need people working to make the electricity and all the administration jobs that come with it. We call this employment.

And you commented that it's the power lines paid for by the taxpayers and used by private companies to make a profit. REALLY?

You mean like the roads built with public money and used by private people and companies? U know those roads, the ones all the trucks use to bring food, fuel, and all the other fixings of "society" to you? Why they even used those roads to deliver that computer to the store you bought it from.

PS. While you're whining about that "fat capitalist pig" in some far away land, realize it's all relative. To much of Africa, Central China, etc, YOU and your life = fat capitalist pig. Unless of course you're living in a effing mud hut & haven't eaten a proper meal for 2 years.

PS Ron. What kind of electricity powers your computer? I certainly hope it's wind power or solar (not Hydro because hydro is only green if you aren't a spawning fish).

I'd rather we sell electricity to the US than coal.

1. To Africa and China I say: get stuffed. They are the manufacturers of almost all of their misery. They could discover the blow job and stop having children like raindrops. Then they might have enough food for themselves.

2. I use the absolute minumum of electricity. I don't contribute to the problem by thinking that polluting our air to sell out to others who don't give a damn about us.

3. I'd rather we sold NOTHING to the U.S.

"[A] passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sypathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no common interest exists and infusing into one the enemies of the othre betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels of the lattre without adequate inducement or justifiaction. It leads also to concessions to the favourite nation or privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill will and a disposition to retalitate in the parties fromwhich equal privileges have been withheld. And it gives to the ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes with popularity; gliding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deferencefor public opinion, or a lauable zeal for public good, the base or foolish complinace of ambition, corruption or infatuation.... Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favourite are liable to to beomce susupected and odious while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests." - George Washington. Presidential Farewell Address, 1797.