On January 17, 2024, the BC Court of Appeal rejected an appeal from the City of Richmond (Richmond) to overturn a BCUC decision.
The matter concerned an agreement between FortisBC Energy Inc. (Fortis) and Richmond for the utility to move its gas pipelines to make it easier for the city to upgrade its drainage sewer, water main and sanitary system. The BCUC had previously resolved a dispute between the two parties, and set out the terms on which the work would be done.
Richmond then requested that the BCUC reconsider its decision, particularly with respect to a limitation of liability clause which the BCUC had ordered. The BCUC denied this reconsideration request.
Richmond’s appeal challenged the BCUC’s authority to impose the limitation of liability clause.
The BC Court of Appeal rejected Richmond’s appeal, stating that section 32 of the Utilities Commission Act gives the BCUC express powers to impose terms on agreements between municipalities and public utilities so long as those terms are consistent with the “scheme and purpose” of the Act and with the BCUC’s “core mandate”.
The Court cited the ATCO decision in defining the “core mandate or “main function” of the BCUC as “grounded in… fixing just and reasonable rates (‘rate setting’) and in protecting the integrity and dependability of the supply system.”
The Court drew on its previous decision to reject an appeal from the City of Coquitlam, in which that municipality had questioned the BCUC’s powers to allow Fortis to abandon a pipeline rather than removing it.