Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in this session I brought up the issue of unresolved property damages in Yellowknife, Behchoko and Detah in the wake of an extended power outage that took place on December 29, 2013. Mr. Speaker, I brought to the floor information regarding millions of damages, which was echoed also by the media. Unfortunately, I was trying to get some more information here for the public and I was put on notice, which means I was shut down for asking more questions. So I asked the Minister to table a written response to what happened, what was the chronology of events, which was then later tabled to the House.
So, I have questions that continue that journey with the Minister responsible for NTPC on what was tabled. Clearly, within the framework of the chronology, there was some faulty equipment in this outage and that was kind of echoed also by the Minister in other dialogue that we had during this session.
Can the Minister indicate to the House here was this equipment repaired and to what cost? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it hasn’t been all done, it will be done. I haven’t got the final costs yet.
As we indicated a month or two ago here, well, at least six weeks ago, we had millions of dollars of damage anticipated with this. Can the Minister indicate whether his office or NTPC have performed a full cost accounting on this recent power outage to evaluate the extent of the current and potentially future damage caused to residents and businesses, and if not, why?
We have looked at the impact and cost of the event, the weather event that triggered this cascading of events resulting in a power outage. We’ve had this discussion in the House. We have our policies and approaches to responding to acts of God. Where there are situations where we are responsible for because of our actions or things that have happened that come back on us, we have looked at that approach, as well, but the broad-sweeping assessment that the Member has asked about hasn’t been done that I’ve seen.
This is clearly the point of my argument here. If we don’t know what the damage cost us, if we don’t know what the damage cost taxpayers, how do we know the severity of the situation?
Can the Minister indicate if the concept of an income-tested contingency fund for disaster relief directly associated with such things as extended power outages at extreme cold temperatures has ever been discussed by this government, and if not, why?
No, it hasn’t, and because the position of the government at this point is that what is currently in place is sufficient.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Giving the word sufficient to some of the residents of the Northwest Territories saying you’re stuck with the bill, I don’t think is sufficient. Given the reported damages of almost over $2 million, and given the fact that we’ve heard that faulty equipment was to blame and that the equipment was not working properly, according to what was tabled in chronology, and given that the government has not performed any cost accounting with the recent disaster, how can the Minister sit here in the House and indicate very little to satisfy the public’s outcry for financial help? What is this Minister prepared to do to mitigate the situation?
The Member makes a lot of assertions and a lot of statements that he cites as fact. There was an initial event, a weather event that initiated the cause. We’ve looked at that. We’ve set out an extensive review to make sure we improve our services and our communication, but we have existing processes in place to deal with circumstances related to those types of outages. We’re going to continue to work on our quality assurance and our communications and improvement to services including a $10 million battery that would potentially level out and give us 15 minutes time to adjust to power outages. I can stand here quite easily to discuss those types of things which are, in fact, facts and reality.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Hawkins.
