The bottom line is your electricity bills are going up.

Not now. Not today. But not far away in the future.

“It will be months. Certainly we’re not looking at an indefinite period of time,” says Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman.

The Notley NDP government is crunching numbers to figure out what the hike will look like, an increase to go into effect while a court battle between the province and power companies is being fought.

“We’re certainly doing that work to assess what the impacts will be and try to project it forward,” says Hoffman, who sounds all fired up.

“We expect those costs will show up on our bills but we’re fighting to make sure they get reimbursed back to ratepayers. It doesn’t feel moral and it appears not to be legal either.”

Hoffman is talking of a legal battle. Yes, the Notley government is going to court in November.

Electricity companies, such as city of Calgary-owned Enmax, are bailing out on contracts to buy electricity.

Enmax, for example, is using a clause in an agreement set up 16 years ago to get out of two contracts.

It says they can exit a contract if the province changes a law and makes it “more unprofitable.”

Enmax says when the Notley NDP government hiked the carbon levy for large carbon dioxide emitters they made the contracts more unprofitable and the company dumped the deals back to the province.

Enmax says if they’d kept the contracts their carbon levies would have gone from about $15 million in 2015 to $160 million in 2018. Enmax’s net earnings from continuing operations in 2015 was $154 million.

Enmax’s position is “the government of Alberta should have known about the implications of its actions.”

Given the hike in carbon costs Enmax says its actions were “foreseeable, legal and reasonable.”

“We are concerned with the approach the government is taking and the signals it sends for future investment in Alberta.”

Mayor Nenshi joined the chorus calling the NDP court case “outrageous” and said the government “apparently didn’t know its own policies” while adding Enmax did what was right for its shareholders, the people of Calgary.

Meanwhile, the NDP isn’t just standing there taking the punches.

They are fighting back.

It’s then they bring Hoffman into the arena.

“The sooner we win the better but ultimately we’re in this to win,” says Hoffman, sounding confident the province stands a very good chance in court.

The Notley NDP government says the “more unprofitable” clause isn’t legal and was negotiated years ago in secret at the eleventh hour.

They admit not knowing about the clause until this past spring.

They say the PC government of the day wasn’t looking after Albertans allowing such an easy “escape clause” for companies wanting out of electricity deals.

“Even if you’re wrong and you’re losing money, if the government does anything, even if it’s the smallest thing, don’t worry we’ll take back your losses. That is so lopsided.”

Hoffman says the electricity companies have made $10 billion in profits and should eat their expected losses of up to $2 billion and not pass those losses on to consumers.

“I get they want to have the biggest profits,” says the deputy premier.

“The reason they are trying to put this on somebody else is because they don’t want to be seen as the bad guys. I get that.”

Hoffman takes a moment to weigh in on Nenshi’s entry into the ring.

She says there is something outrageous. It’s the escape clause the NDP does not believe is lawful.

“If business was done that way at the City of Calgary you and every reporter in the city of Calgary would be outraged and you’d be moving to shine light on what happened.”

So how does the deputy premier counter those companies laying the blame at the NDP’s doorstep?

Hoffman says they made “extreme profits” in the past but in this circumstance they are unprofitable.

“They’re arguing because they were already unprofitable, and now this is just going to tap on a little bit to that loss, they think they have the right to be able to give these contracts back. What we’re saying is: No, you don’t.”

rbell@postmedia.com