Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s great to be back in the House.
I want to bring everyone back to Sunday, December 29, 2013, when the lights went out in Yellowknife, Behchoko and Detah at approximately 3:40 p.m. Like many, I scrambled to light my fireplace, my gas stove, my kerosene emergency heaters, and light my candles while my thermometer outside showed minus 40 Celsius.
While social media was abuzz with emergency tips and suggestions and updates from stakeholders – but not from NTPC, I must add – many, including myself, could only wait patiently hoping for the power to be restored. For over three hours and in extreme cold temperatures, over 9,000 Northwest Territories Power Corporation and Northland Utilities clients waited for that flicker of light to be restored.
As of today, our communities are still dealing with the aftermath of frozen waterlines, damaged pipes and busted sprinklers. Many residents and businesses are angry and frustrated as to why it took so long to get power restored when we have a perfectly good diesel generator backup system. Why did it take over three hours to fire up generators when we are told that the process is no more than 30 minutes? Why is this at least a third occurrence in the past couple years at such extreme cold temperatures where NTPC power equipment failed? These are very real and valid questions that have not been answered.
In the aftermath of this incident, my office undertook to investigate the extent of damage caused by this recent power outage. Now, I know this exercise received wavering degrees of skepticism and motive to opinions of permitted reimbursements of regulated electric companies, but I can assure you my motives were purely analytical to truly evaluate the financial impact that this incident had on the taxpayer.
Here is what I was able to conservatively calculate. There were 231 residential and commercial clients that came forward. The average wait time for repair was between three to seven days. The total amount of repair bills was approximately $350,000, and the average repair cost was about $1,500 per client.
My office did reach out to collect as much data as possible, and I want to thank the many residents and Members of this House who shared their stories, but we all know there are many more costs out there, plus with the recent Yellowknifer article reporting that we may have burst pipes expecting to cost the City of Yellowknife upwards of $1.5 million makes us one of the first key issues of 2014.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
I leave you with this: When does the act of God cease and when does faulty equipment start?
With that, I will have further questions today for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
