Mr. Speaker, residents of Yellowknife have had a very concerning experience recently. With the air temperature below minus 40 Celsius, a total power outage happened. The city sat in total darkness for over an hour in many areas before it was restored. Yellowknife continues to get blackouts from time to time, and it’s a topic that has been raised in this House before. This case was extreme, because it was caused at a very serious time of our year, and it bothered many constituents in my riding. In these temperatures that are so cold, it doesn’t take long before the cold sweeps into your home and starts to cause problems with pipes that begin to freeze. I heard from some very concerned seniors that they didn’t know what to do, because if there were a problem, who would they call or where would they go?
That brings me to my point, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to touch on the topic of communications and the lack thereof on that issue. During prolonged power outages, information must be made available to the public. There are ways to ensure that the public is informed properly. A power outage hotline could be established and promoted. That way, our people would know that power is being turned on or being dealt with and that they don’t have long to wait. Or if there are problems, they can give them ideas and suggestions of where to go and what to do. This could provide some up-to-date information that’s very needed.
The facts are simple: power outages happen. But we do have distribution already in place. We have the NWT Power Corp and we have the Northland Utilities system here in Yellowknife. They could send out information pamphlets within their bills.
Mr. Speaker, the fact is a public campaign needs to be held, and we can do something very simple that means a lot to our residents. In times of crisis we don’t want to be hearing about the nasty stories; we want to be prepared in advance before they begin.
I will have questions for the Minister Responsible for the Power Corp to see if he will be willing to take on this initiative to make sure our constituents are informed properly if they need help.
Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery.
