MEDICINE HAT, AB - Plans to increase regulation on the Alberta electricity market will reduce costs for consumers, Liberal Leader Raj Sherman said Saturday.

Speaking in Medicine Hat, Sherman contended consumers are being gouged on their power bills and a Liberal government would lower them.

"Deregulation of electricity has not been accompanied by the promised reduction in prices," he said.

"By increasing the powers of the market administrators, stiffening penalties on gouging and fixing the way power is bought and sold, we will save you money."

With Sherman was the famous debt clock former Liberal leader Laurence Decore used in 1993 to highlight the growing debt under former PC leader Don Getty.

Only now, it's been refurbished to show how many additional billions of dollars consumers have spent since the industry was deregulated.

The clock sat at $2.2 billion and counting on Saturday.

"The ratepayer and the taxpayer are the same person," he said. "And deregulation was a tax on the little guy ... and the tax collector in this case was Alberta's wealthiest corporations and individuals.

"In the end, the PC approach to electricity deregulation amounted to little more than a transfer of wealth from the public to the well heeled and well connected private interests."