Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use the opportunity to ask some questions to the Minister of the Northwest Territories Power Corp about the latest damage and repair process that’s happening. As I see news reports point that it’s costing the NWT Power Corp over $40,000 a day additional to run that operation, that burden is going to fall on someone. Maybe the Minister can highlight what’s being done and how we’ll recover some of that process to make sure that that cost isn’t falling on the NWT residents.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. They are looking at the repairs. We, earlier on, made a contribution of $20 million to the Power Corporation to offset some of the diesel requirements due to the low water. This is related but not directly tied to that. However, we had anticipated that we would be saving some money with the lowering price of diesel and that we will be using that $20 million to offset the additional diesel costs as the appropriate repairs are affected. Thank you.
Thank you. What’s the anticipated cost of this particular problem that we have going on right now? Can the Minister qualify the additional cost it’s going to run? Although he’d pointed out how we’re going to pay for it, let’s find out exactly how much we think it’s going to cost. Thank you.
I don’t have a definitive estimate at this point, but I will keep the House up to date when I do get that number. Thank you.
Is the Minister able to speak to the issue of when we think it will be repaired? I mean, I can do my own math at $40,000 a day. The territorial resident needs to appreciate and understand are these parts available, are we going to see the NWT Power Corp run on diesel for how long? That’s part of the issue here, is we’ve got a dedicated service, which only has parts that probably can be sourced from one or two places in the world, who knows where, and we need to appreciate how long and how complex this is. So can the Minister speak to the availability of this? Thank you.
Those are all legitimate, real concerns that we are as well very cognizant of, and as we plan to affect repairs, those are issues that are being addressed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
If we estimate that this could take – one day is $40,000 – six weeks, that’s almost $1.7 million. This is certainly an expensive meter running at the cost of the NWT taxpayers.
Is the Minister able to update us at all other than what the media report has already covered out there? Otherwise, we’re just sitting in the dark not knowing what’s happening and it’s very difficult to deliver any type of accountability on this particular initiative. It’s not about criticism, it’s about transparency as to what’s happening and what will taxpayers be on the hook for. Thank you.
Thank you. I will commit to provide all the most current information to the Members before the end of the week. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
