Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a follow-up to my Member’s statement, I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance, is it the intention of Cabinet to waste taxpayers’ dollars to expropriate a successful First Nation-owned business in the Northwest Territories when this money can be better spent and more responsibly used to address real issues? We heard some today here from Mr. Bromley such things as homelessness, housing, mental health or education.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I’ve indicated previously, the Town of Hay River has initiated a public process through a motion in their council on Monday for a public process to renew their franchise, and we, the Power Corporation, are going to submit a bid sometime before the call for proposals closes on July 3, 2015.
I would also point out that the Power Corporation is a Crown corporation owned by every man, woman and child in the Northwest Territories. We, in effect, have about 42,000 shareholders, and about half of those shareholders are Aboriginal, and about over 3,000 of them live in Hay River, and they have expressed a very strong interest to have a public process to see if they can deal with the cost of power, the cost of living. This is not about ATCO. This is about the people of Hay River and the high cost of living that they’re trying to come to grips with.
I was trying to find an answer in that to my question. The issue will be eventually if NTPC is successful, we are going to be talking about taxpayers’ money, and I think we need to come back to the point of the question.
To change things up a bit, I would like to take a moment to ask the Minister about a report, a report that the Minister has been referencing publicly in this House at a recent energy charrette and in media, whereas the Minister has more or less summarized that having one electricity distributor in the North will be more cost effective and can lower rates.
Can the Minister indicate what report he is referencing? Thank you.
This is a public process in Hay River and there is no guarantee that NTPC will be successful. We have to find out who else is going to submit bids. At the end of the day, it is a competitive process because Hay River is looking for the best bid possible because there is a 30 percent differential between the price of power in Hay River and the neighboring communities of Fort Smith and Fort Resolution.
In regards to reports, there have been a number of reports done, in 2009 and, previous to that, the Robertson Report. As well, we’ve had many discussions, we have had our own Energy Strategy, we’ve had two energy charrettes, we had a power system plan put out by the Power Corporation as well at the time we were contemplating expansion to the transmission grid build-out. Thank you.
Can the Minister of Finance please clarify that this report that he doesn’t want to answer the question to, a report that we know and we have some degree of reassurance that was done in secret by the Cabinet without any knowledge to Ordinary Members and that we assume and are led to believe was done by the same consulting firm InterGroup that is on the payroll of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, the exact organization that the Minister is responsible for and is set to gain from the expropriation of Northlands?
All I am asking is for the Minister to clear the air and set the record straight. Thank you.
The Premier has indicated earlier today that consultants on the work that we did on the franchise agreement and whether we issued support to NTPC bidding was done in house. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To put the Minister’s answer in context, this was a response done in camera, so I can’t believe we are talking about that in the House here. But I can tell you that, quite frankly, Ordinary Members have not seen this report yet, so we are talking about a report that is still not before the House or before Members, and what we know is that I can’t comment on something we haven’t seen.
NTPC is the only organization set to gain anything from the expropriation of Northland Utilities, and yet the Minister of Finance claims to open up competition. Yet it is he who writes the policy and sets the rules for the electric industry.
Can the Minister explain how Cabinet is providing a path to competition and lowering of electricity rates when they’re working in a vacuum? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In point of fact, my understanding is that the authority for bidding on franchises is enabled in the legislation for the Cities, Towns and Villages Act. It comes under the purview of Municipal and Community Affairs, and the community of Hay River – and every community has the right in the Northwest Territories – chose to trigger that process on their own behalf after doing their own due diligence on what they thought would best meet their needs and help them deal with the high cost of living and the inequities between the power rates in the neighbourhood that they reside in in the South Slave. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
