Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all know that the trappings of progress may be marching forward in a way that not only are helping us but on some days they put us in peril. You’ve often heard the peril argument from Mr. Bromley, but that’s not what I’m here to describe.
The benefits of progress sometimes provide us the opportunities such as power and being able to turn your lights on and the great opportunities that they create.
My question for the Minister of the NWT Power Corporation is: Can he explain in simple terms how power can be supplied to a particular community in single digits, such as the Hay River region to the Pine Point area, picked up by the franchise holder and sold to its customers at over 30 cents a kilowatt? I’m trying to understand how the distribution works, the fairness of how it works and certainly the evaluation the NWT must be keeping a keen eye to this particular problem. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to observe first, though the budget address is replete with references to the cost of living, an issue that the Member raised earlier in the House and about the McLeod government not paying close enough attention. I would suggest when you read the full budget address you would note that it’s replete and I’m somewhat offended at the fact that the Member didn’t notice that when he perused it in great detail because they are standout in significant numbers.
As it relates to the issue that the Member raised, I think the fundamental piece that we’re looking at as a territory that ties into the Member’s statement is the cost of living and how do we bring down the cost of living, we bring it down by reducing the cost of energy, and when we do he has raised some good points about how we do the generation, how are we structured to deliver power and distribute power and how are the costs distributed. Those are all good, legitimate questions that we intend to address as we move forward with the whole initiative of bringing down the cost of living. Thank you.
I want to thank the fine, old Minister because he was calling me young Member yesterday. So the very old and elderly Minister of NWT Power Corporation of pointing out the budget dialogue that he read. By the way, I followed it keenly word for word, I enjoyed reading and I will enjoy reading it for years to come if I ever get sleepless and have to find ways to cure that.
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On a serious note, though, it’s my understanding that some hydro communities are subsidized. Rather than pointing out a particular hydro community, one over another, maybe the Minister can put officially on the record which communities are subsidized and to what cost they’re being subsidized. Furthermore to the point, what are we doing about that subsidized problem to hydro communities that were supposed to be baseline costs for power? Thank you.
The intent of the Territorial Power Support Program was to make sure that thermal communities are subsidized to the Yellowknife rate, and as the Members have heard, there’s one hydro community whose rates are higher than the Yellowknife rate and that’s Hay River. Thank you.
One of the particular problems I’ve noted is that power, in my view and the view of many others, by the way, including the mayor of Hay River, Andrew Cassidy, is power, in our opinion, should be delivered a lot cheaper than it is.
Competition could be argued as a good thing for everything, but maybe not, as well, but the argument I usually see is competition is good. So the question for the Minister of the NWT Power Corporation is: In their capacity as an organization, why have they not bid to provide the distribution services in these types of communities that do have franchise agreements in communities like Yellowknife and Hay River, which would create a bit of competition and hopefully those who’ve been receiving these sole-sourced franchise agreements would probably have to really sharpen their pencil? Thank you.
The ability to put out a franchise call is the community’s responsibility and right. They’ve done that. We can’t speak to the past. There is a current one coming out. We’ve been asked to consider bidding on it and we are considering that and we’re looking at it, as we discussed in this House earlier this week.
I would just point out that when it comes to the NWT Power Corporation, and I believe all of us in this room, we would see that provision of electricity is an essential service and the same as we deliver and we look after all the fuel in the small, off-road communities to ensure that there are those essential services there, we provide that service at cost. Our interest is keeping the cost of energy down, keeping the cost of living down and the Power Corporation over the years has evolved out of Alberta and out of Edmonton coming north and it’s a vehicle for our Energy Strategy and our fiscal policy and we are intent on, across the land as we’ve said as a priority, looking at the cost of living and energy is one of those key factors. We’d have to look at all facets of how that issue is generated and delivered. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really glad that the Minister described it as an essential service because that’s very important. We all know that the government, or I should say the Power Corporation through the government is working to create generation of power as cheaply and efficiently as possible. We know without more customers it’s difficult to continue getting it any cheaper without, of course, technology as well.
We know customers are encouraged through energy efficiency programs and encouraged to reduce their consumption, and that’s a very important element, but the distribution side seems to continue to be the solution, or maybe the obvious problem that’s evading us. The Minister did say the other day about how they are looking at this. Perhaps the Minister could explain a little further into the detail as how they’re evaluating the distribution process in these communities, if not in all communities, how we can lower the cost of that delivery of power to our citizens, which is absolutely an essential service.
We’re looking at a number of things. In fact, we’re looking at the whole range of challenges as we look at how we’re structured historically and as we look to the future, distribution is definitely one. The question was posed at the Energy Charrette, it was posed by myself to the attendees at the charrette with the question of how many distributors of power do we need in the Northwest Territories to make this as efficient as possible. That is a question that we have to look at. We know we have to look at generation in thermal communities, bring down the costs. Total reliance on diesel is not acceptable and we’ve made a commitment with the government that with the borrowing limit one of the big areas we would make critical economical investment would be in the thermal communities and Yellowknife to look at using alternative energy, looking at generation where there’s a significant need in Yellowknife and the small communities.
I might as well put on the record again here, I put it on the record in the budget yesterday, that does include looking at the efficacy and value of liquid natural gas as well as other alternative energies like biomass and solar, batteries, wind. Anything that’s better and cheaper than diesel is being considered. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
