Neither the Liberals nor the Progressive Conservatives have seriously addressed the elephant in the room as we approach the provincial election.

That “elephant” is the actions and plans of Manitoba Hydro, now engaged in implementing a mammoth expansion and refurbishment plan that will cost households and businesses big time, while risking the future stability of Manitoba’s economy.

Under the NDP government’s direction, Hydro has already spent about $7 billion towards a plan that could end up costing $40 billion, all guaranteed by Manitoba taxpayers.

It includes the construction of three northern generating stations, the wrong-routed Bipole III transmission line, a new Manitoba-Minnesota transmission line and the refurbishment of existing assets. The plan is based on shaky forecasts of construction costs, market demand and pricing.

Hydro has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to northern First Nations to allow those communities to acquire equity interests in the new generating stations.

The why of this partial privatization of Hydro, represented essentially by giveaways, has never been questioned or fully discussed.

Towards financing the overall scheme, Hydro has entered into unrewarding commitments to sell electricity to American utilities.

Hydro’s capital cost estimates are routinely off-target. Construction costs for Wuskwatim were double the estimates and the cost forecasts of the big build’s other elements have all proven terribly wrong. Prices that will be gained from exporting excess supply have nosedived.

The favourable market conditions Hydro initially banked on to justify its plan have headed south, the result being that Manitoba ratepayers will end up paying rates double or triple what could be expected had NDP politicians not pushed Hydro to undertake this gamble.

The “big build” is a disaster and is ruining what has been Manitoba’s Advantage — cheap electricity. Assuming a more competent government in April, the expansion should be “paused” and a commission struck.

It should investigate just how deep taxpayers are into the glue and determine options for pulling back from the brink. This independent inquiry should determine the best path to minimizing future costs to consumers and risks to Manitoba’s future.

Past and future losses should be recognized and no longer hidden. Losses attributable to faulty political direction should be transferred out of Hydro to the government’s books to be amortized with interest against future government budgets or, less desirably, via a monthly charge to all power customers — either way providing a highly visible reminder of the folly of building unneeded generation and transmission capacity (perhaps best named the Selinger surcharge!).

The NDP is running Hydro, an important public asset, into the ground.

The lessons? Public assets should be properly managed with full public reporting and transparency. Boards of Crowns and regulatory agencies should be populated by industry — experienced and independent people.

So far, though, it’s almost like the silence of the lambs from the prospective political inheritors of this NDP mess. The leaders of the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties need to inform the electorate of their take on the elephant in the room and their proposed fix going forward.

— Graham Lane leads Manitoba Forward (manitobaforward.ca).