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Losses at Alberta’s Balancing Pool from the controversial power purchase deals have now topped $1.8 billion, but the bleeding is finally slowing — just as the new Kenney government prepares to call in the auditor general to study the fiasco.

“This is a mess entirely of the NDP’s making,” Christine Myatt, spokeswoman for Premier Jason Kenney, said in a statement.

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“Albertans deserve to know how this happened and how much they are on the hook for.”

The Balancing Pool, a government agency that backstops the province’s power purchase arrangements (PPAs), released its annual report last Friday, showing the organization with net liabilities of $946 million at the end of December, down 26 per cent from the previous year.

That’s good news, I guess.

But looking at the total costs connected to the return of power purchase arrangements from industry players to the Balancing Pool in late 2015 and 2016 shows the mountain of red ink is still growing.