Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement on energy policy, and I direct it to whichever Minister takes responsibility for the current energy policy vacuum under which we are operating.
The government, as a regulator, needs to provide and be seen to provide a level playing field for businesses to be able to fairly compete and thrive.
How fair and level is the playing field when a private, highly regulated utility must bid against a publicly owned business directly and indirectly subsidized by over $100 million in recent years? And I mean this. On what basis has this Cabinet possibly met and decided that there’s a fair and level playing field here? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are cost of living issues here. There are decisions being made in a community that’s interested in lowering those costs of living challenges, and it’s an issue for the territorial government. The Power Corporation is a vehicle for all people in the Northwest Territories, a Crown corporation with 42,000 shareholders. That’s the underlying impetus here. Thank you.
I will let that stand for itself. Government has decided to support communities in opening their franchises for power delivery and distribution, suggesting that there is money to be saved, as the Minister just said, and that the cost of living will be lowered significantly through competition. The cost of power generation is as significant, or more significant even, than distribution.
Is the Minister now also prepared to give communities the discretion to open power generation to competition in order to fully address power costs for both our consumers, the environment and our communities? Mahsi.
We already have the practice of entertaining power purchase agreements and buying power from folks who are generating it. For example, the people of Lutselk’e.
There wasn’t an answer there, but I do congratulate Lutselk’e by taking the bull by the horns and finessing a power purchase agreement, a rare animal indeed, from the Power Corporation.
Cabinet has severely restricted the power of the supposedly arm’s-length Public Utilities Board to protect the public by restricting their ability to adjust power rates by more than 1 percent per year. This change means correction to the 30 percent excess NTPC charges South Slave Power was assessed in 2008, the last time they did a cost of power study, could take decades.
As the government has arbitrarily taken this regulatory power away from the PUB, are they similarly prepared to arbitrarily roll back this unfair windfall for the Power Corporation at the expense of power consumers in the South Slave? Mahsi.
Nothing has been arbitrarily taken away and we provide a role, as government, in an orderly measured way when we think it’s required to make sure that the system that we have before us functions to the best efficiency possible.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
I will take that as a no, they won’t protect the people of the South Slave from that excess power charge.
This government seems willing to make decisions in a policy vacuum and without input, any input, an iota of input from Regular Members or Aboriginally owned communities, companies and consumers or communities, for that matter. As a Regular Member, I am acutely aware of the lack of such a policy and am uncomfortable, to say the least, to leaving such decisions to Cabinet’s most recent whims.
My question is: When can we expect a rigorous, comprehensive and collaborative process to develop the umbrella energy policy on which to base the decisions, transparent decisions, that so greatly affect our communities, our cost of living, which the Power Corporation has never addressed, and our environment? Mahsi.
I would suggest that for the last eight years now, we’ve been hard at work with our evolving energy strategy, from the time we put $60 million in our last government to a serious investment, $60 million towards alternative energy that we’ve come up with an energy plan. We’ve had energy charrettes that have helped structure and focus that energy plan. We’ve had another energy charrette last November and there is going to be a response tabled in the House this week. We have a power system plan from NTPC power as it was looking at infrastructure for the transmission line expansion to see if that was a viable option. We have a Biomass Strategy, a Solar Strategy, all of which have involved MLAs, have involved committees with regular briefings. So, the Member is erroneous in his assertions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
