Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, speak in favour of the motion. It is, indeed, high time that the premise and the thresholds that were established I think about 15 years ago now, in the original policy, that this government chose to do were set and have not been amended since then. As Members have said, yes, the cost of delivering that service across the NWT has escalated considerably, but also, Mr. Speaker, so have the demands of the modern household and the modern business. So while we're all coping with growing energy bills, we're also all coping with increased consumption. It is to some degree a choice, a matter of lifestyle and then part of this equation, Mr. Speaker, that comes back to us as legislators, to what degree are we going to choose to subsidize the provision of this essential service for our communities and our businesses and our residents. This argument for me, Mr. Speaker, has almost nothing to do with the actual rates or the service provided by the Power Corporation and Northland Utilities, it's a circumstance of our day and age.
So when this report comes back to us, I think it's going to be pretty predictable, it's going to recommend yes, let's increase our subsidy. How much more are we going to be prepared to do that? I think, Mr. Speaker, that will be as the motion requests or suggests, that it is something that the next Assembly will hopefully look at. Where we do now get I believe it's in the neighbourhood of a $3.5 million dividend from the Power Corporation, this Assembly has routinely been voting about $1 million more every year from the general taxpayers' pot to fulfill that subsidy. That's going to be about a $9 million bill. So
we're seeking right now about $5 million to provide the subsidy at the level we know.
It's also, Mr. Speaker, I think important to recognize that a fundamental purpose of the program is we're not out there to pay everybody's power bill in full no matter how much power they want, it is a subsidy and in that it also has a built in intention or purpose to provide an incentive for conservation. So we should not lose sight of that. I do look forward to the examination of this, Mr. Speaker. It is absolutely essential that our communities and our residents do have a predictable and affordable source of electrical energy.
The other aspect of this that is long overdue of this motion, Mr. Speaker, is the request to review the regulatory framework for energy provision in the NWT. The Public Utilities Board operates within a certain framework and a certain mandate, but we know, Mr. Chairman, that there are many other jurisdictions that have adopted different ways of providing regulatory approvals and frameworks for what amounts to a monopolistic situation in the case of bigger utilities. The system we have now is really very cumbersome, hugely administrative, it costs all of us about $1 million a year just to have a regulatory system for electricity. That is quite plainly something that we should be able to dispense with; we should be able to replace it with something that has much more efficiency, but still gives us the assurances that electricity is being provided at a good rate.
Mr. Speaker, providing that electricity is so much more than having generators turned on and pouring diesel fuel in and making sure there's linemen there and people to send out the bills. It's a tremendously sophisticated type of service, it is enormously regulated. It's probably within the top two or three that have such an extraordinarily regulatory burden. There's new technology, new standards, safety, the environmental conditions that have come upon the energy generating sector in even the past five or 10 years are enormous. So when we're customers, we're paying for, as I say, a tremendously sophisticated type of service and we demand a lot from it. The consistency, the quality, the availability of power, we deem it essential. We have extensive backup systems. A lot of research and work goes into making sure that the lights are on just as much as possible. So while we have I think an extraordinarily high level of service and safe service, this does not come without cost. So we have to balance all of these things. I welcome the measures expressed in the motion, Mr. Speaker.