Mr. Speaker, when I was visiting constituents this summer, as I do each summer, I heard a number of complaints about this government, which should really be no surprise to anyone in this building. In fact, there were so many complaints about this government I don’t know if I can fit them all in, even in replies to the opening address.
However, particular attention was paid to this government’s lack of attention to families and their bottom line. People told me devolution is important over the long haul, but they can’t make the short haul, so the long-haul details really don’t matter.
In particular, families are struggling day by day and, when they see our cost of living go up to number one, they don’t like being number one. Who wouldn’t want to be number one in the real world, but when it comes to your power bills, they don’t like being number one.
We certainly have to thank the Premier, in his old role as Minister Bob McLeod, because Bob McLeod helped move our power bills in the method that they are going. He deserves the credit for this, and let me explain why.
A few short years ago, Members will recall the power rates were engineered so that they would be lower in the communities, but locked-in in Yellowknife. Let me be the first to say that the communities struggle day to day and certainly their power bills are no envy of anyone. In fact, if you’re not on the hydro grid, I don’t know how you survive. I believe it’s very necessary to pay particular attention to those problems and I certainly support solutions that work toward that.
Affordable living is a challenge everywhere in the Northwest Territories, but government does what government does. I’m not disagreeing with the first part. That took a bit of courage, but it’s the second time they have had to look at what else happened. So they were artificially lowered, and somebody had to pick up the costs somewhere.
What happened was power rates in Yellowknife were frozen, but what they didn’t tell is – and here it is – the rate riders in Yellowknife were just about to fall off. So in other words, they locked us in at a higher rate. Then they shifted the administrative burden from the regional centres to Yellowknife. Again, the cost of living continues to go up.
When you compare apples to apples, Yellowknife to Iqaluit, Yellowknife to Whitehorse, Yellowknife to even Barrow, Alaska, guess what, we’re number one. Our power bills are horrible. We want to do something about real-life working families who struggle to get by day after day. This Cabinet needs to come down from its perches and big salaries and lofty offices and see what it’s like for the living families to struggle each and every day.
I won’t have softball questions today for the Ministers, but they will be getting a bit of a push from me, that’s for sure.
