Albertans Facing Higher Gas Bills

Atco has applied for rate riders that could sharply increase utility bills for 110-thousand residential and farm customers in northern and eastern Alberta.

The company will offer evidence to provincial regulators that it ended up paying more for power last year and early this year than what customers paid.

Energy Minister Murray Smith told the legislature in March that "there will be no rate riders in the future".

A spokesman for the minister says Smith won't comment on these new rate riders until the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board decides whether to approve them.

But New Democrat Brian Mason says this makes a mockery of Smith's promises of lower power rates under deregulation.