Alberta premier says province may modify energy rebate process

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces a new $13 billion data centre to be built north of Edmonton.

Premier Danielle Smith says her government has heard the thousands of Albertans having troubles applying for the energy rebate.

In order for Albertans to receive their money, the province’s requirement that many applicants verify their identity through Interac to receive its $100 energy rebate has raised questions about privacy.

One caller into Smith’s Saturday radio program, Your Province, Your Premier, said neither he nor his wife used online banking. As a consequence, he said he had to provide a photo of his driver’s license and a photograph of himself. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to get his rebate.

“We are looking at that because there are credit unions who don’t use Interac verification so that’s one of the things that we’ve heard is causing some concern,” Smith said. “But I can tell you, we’ve already identified 35,000 fraudulent requests for money as well that we’ve been able to stop.

“That’s part of the reason why we’re putting additional measures in is we don’t want people fraudulently going on and taking millions of dollars and that’s one of the things we have to make sure we do from the perspective of the auditor-general.”

Smith said it’s possible the verification process could use a tweak or two.

“We’re looking at some other measures to do the verification in a way that is a bit simpler, and so I’m talking with my finance minister and my minister Nate Glubish of technology and innovation and if there is a modification we need to do, we’ll be rolling that out in the next couple of weeks,” she said.

“Keep in mind, the payment is eligible until September 30 so there is time to be able to receive it. We’ll work out these glitches and some of these frustrations that we’ve heard about and I’ll report back to you once we’ve figured out what the answer might be.

“It might involve just having a code where you say what your Line 30 was on your income tax and then we can cross-reference that with CRA data – like it may be those kinds of very simple fixes, but those are the kind of things that we’re talking about right now."

To apply for the Alberta Energy Rebate, go here.