Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in the House the issues of the cost of living and the cost of power were raised. Twenty-five years ago I was honoured to be appointed to the first board of directors of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. With the repatriation of what was a federal Crown corporation, the Northern Canada Power Commission, to its rightful place in the northern territories, one of the first orders of business was selecting a community for the headquarters office. Pine Point was closing down and the economic fallout from that for Hay River was going to be immense. After a concentrated lobbying effort, Hay River was selected. I could have not been more pleased to be a part of those initial days of setup in the North.
NTPC was a new asset of the GNWT. With the headquarters in Hay River came job opportunities, economic activity that went a long way toward offsetting the loss of Pine Point. Over the years NTPC has paid multi-million dollar dividends to their shareholder, the GNWT. That dividend was partially used to fund things like the Territorial Support Program. NTPC is a regulated for-profit Crown corporation. It has been served well by excellent management and leadership.
Unforeseen cost overruns on capital infrastructure upgrades on replacement volatility and fuel prices, these things all the while NTPC was investing in exploration of alternate energy sources and greener ways to generate power.
Northland Utilities is a private utility company that has operated in the Northwest Territories since 1951 with Hay River as their headquarters. After the decrease in hydro demand from the closure of Pine Point, that excess hydro from the Taltson was rerouted to Hay River and purchased from NTPC. NUL has also been an integral part of Hay River’s economic base, contributing to employment and economic activity in its oversight and distribution of power in Hay River as well as the communities of Fort Providence, Kakisa, Trout Lake, Enterprise, Hay River Reserve, Dory Point and Wekweeti.
Ross Stanley, for example, by the way, the manager of NUL, as a point of interest, has worked for NUL in Hay River for over 40 years. Jim Thom in Fort Providence has worked for NUL for 25 years. NUL has millions of dollars in infrastructure on the ground in the NWT and is amongst the longest private sector companies in the North. NUL also boasts Aboriginal ownership and partnerships.
Fast forward to today. It is incumbent on us as elected leaders at all levels of government to ensure we do all we can to mitigate the high cost of living, including power, on behalf of our constituents. To that end, the Town of Hay River has undertaken an exercise to review the franchise agreement with Northland Utilities. Our government has hosted energy charrettes and much investment in exploring alternate energy prospects to address concerns within the broad mandate of cost of living.
I’d like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
I appreciated the Premier and Minister Miltenberger’s comments yesterday that the cost of power is a complex issue that our government is committed to taking a measured and thorough approach to examining if there are ways to reduce the cost of power to consumers in the North. There are many discussions, analysis and inquiries to be made to that end fully considering the full impact of any potential changes.
In the meantime, I want to come clean about my interest in this topic. Firstly, I am an MLA for Hay River, the headquarters of NUL, NTPC and the PUB. While these discussions are taking place at a municipal and territorial level, I want our comments and actions to instill confidence in the workplaces of these institutions. I also represent constituents, the private and business consumers of power to whom we owe direction and decisions with clear communications and due diligence that fully contemplate options and the effects of the actions and decisions we may make. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
