Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to this opportunity to get some clarity on some of our power rates here. The cost of living burden continues to weigh down on the everyday family, as we all know and we certainly hear about this. The question really continues to come to me is this McLeod government continuing to do the best that they can, and the question that arises is they’re concerned they’re not. Everybody knows the three components to the power issue, which is generation, distribution and certainly the customer access.
So I guess the question really comes down to, while we continue to squeeze generation and consumer efficiency is at an all-time high but power rates continue to skyrocket, what is this government doing with the distribution issue of the power rates here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a distribution system that’s been in place for some time. We have the Public Utilities Board that has been operating very effectively and we will continue to follow the policies of this government. From time to time we will review it to see if those policies should continue to be in place. Thank you.
I look to the gallery and my Yukon colleagues when I say this, Yellowknife is number one, and I say this as we have the highest power rate bill, be it Whitehorse, Iqaluit and Northwest Territories. Yellowknife, we have the highest power rate. So, we’re number one. The problem is, I don’t want to be number one anymore, nor does anyone in this city.
So the question now becomes why do we have southern distributors here in the Northwest Territories when we have an option to start squeezing this problem towards a positive solution. We have a southern distributor working here in the Northwest Territories who has an insatiable appetite for profit at a time when people’s cost of living factor has gone through the roof that they can no longer carry.
Would the Premier agree it is time to re-evaluate our distribution policy by maybe closing the door on that problem? Thank you.
I’m not sure what the Member means when he says we’re number one. All of the power and the communities and the rest of the Northwest Territories would be very pleased to have the power rates that we enjoy here in Yellowknife.
As far as power distribution, we manage it very carefully through the Public Utilities Board. Every rate increase goes through a regulatory review process, and as we go forward as a government we have the ability to review our policies to see if they are in our best interest to move away from the existing distribution system. Thank you.
When is it better than now, in this particular case, for us to start reviewing and maybe eliminate the process we have in place? We could eliminate and refine our distribution process by getting rid of this by allowing NWT Power Corporation to manage the power distribution to our communities by getting rid of the third-party process through the franchise agreement.
What could kick that process off, and I want to hear the Premier asking what path and journey can we take to finally have a true discussion about lowering our power rates because we could lower them 10 cents a kilowatt, in that range, immediately, if we reorganized our power distribution.
I would be very interested in seeing what kind of mathematics he used to come up to that conclusion. As a policy, we decided to go with the existing until such time as we decided to do otherwise. Thank you.
