Work done over the past year has Lethbridge-East’s MLA excited for 2025 and legislation he says will be going forward in the spring session.
Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf says while the cost of living continues to be a top issue for Albertans, there has been a lot of work done throughout 2024 to as he says “set up what I think will be a tremendous 2025.” According to Neudorf some of this work includes revamping and restructuring the electricity market to improve reliability by addressing some of the issues that have raised over the past decade and updating the provinces transmission regulation.
“Transmission is what transmits electricity from where you generate it to where you use it and we’ve needed reforms for some time because if you look at your utility bill, it’s not the cost of electricity that’s the biggest cost, it’s the cost of transmission,” Neudorf explains. “If you’ve built that electrical tower and put all those lines in, you can’t take those away. We need them, we use them every day. But we can, through optimization, slow the rate of how much new stuff we’re building so that it [better aligns] with population growth or industrial, commercial growth, and we equate those factors so that your individual bill doesn’t continue to grow at the rate that it was growing.”
He adds his ministry has led a number of files over the past year that are related to the growth and development of the province and he has sat on numerous boards and committees; including the productivity review cabinet committee and treasury board.
In Lethbridge, Neudorf says there were a number of funding announcements in 2024 that stand out as highlights to him, including the funding for the wastewater treatment plant and the funding towards medical training at the University of Lethbridge. He says these are just two announcements that will serve those in the region for years to come. Additionally, Neudorf says Lethbridge College receiving polytechnic status is something he has been working on over the past five years and thinks the change is “great for Lethbridge and area as well.”
“I think it just shows the growth and development of our region and polytechnics by definition can grant degrees where colleges typically just do diplomas,” Neudorf says. “Lethbridge Polytechnic now can really use that to attract even more students to our area, strengthen their relationship with the university for programs that they do dual training on and increase the ability to meet the needs of our economy, local economy and even beyond that.”
Neudorf says heading into the new year he is looking forward to continuing to work cross-ministry for provincial needs, along with serving his constituents by promoting the region’s strong suits, “which is agriculture and value-added products beyond that, as well as our post-secondary and the drivers that those two institutions play in our economy here.”
Neudorf says as he continues to work on concerns about affordability he will continue to work with his counterparts at the federal level and push for the reduction or elimination of the federal carbon tax.
“I’ve written to my counterparts in Ottawa quite a bit saying, you want to help affordability? If you remove that carbon tax, you’re going to save people a lot of money on their natural gas bill, a lot of money on their electricity bill, all across their utilities,” he says. “Then the knock-on effect means that groceries will be less expensive, clothing will be less expensive, housing will be less expensive, and all of these other things will be less expensive. If you really want to help with affordability for Albertans, get rid of the carbon tax.”
