Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on a Member’s statement made by my colleague from Nahendeh on the Northwest Territories Power Corporation.
Mr. Speaker, we recognize that the cost of living across the Northwest Territories is very high. Even Cabinet recognizes that, because they have a cost of living committee. They need to look no further than the Northwest Territories Power Corp to help try to bring down the costs across the Northwest Territories.
As Mr.
Menicoche said, there are three large
communities on the grid that are seriously considering pulling off the grid, and that will affect the costs for the rest of the people across the NWT. They’d like to have the same price, or a fairly level price, as what they have to pay down here.
Mr. Speaker, when NTPC in Inuvik converted to gas, I really thought their power was going to go down, but that didn’t happen. If anything, it went up even further. We’ve got the gas 20 kilometres from town, yet the price still didn’t go down. I’m sure that if they piped that gas down to Alberta, they’d pay less for it down there than we do up here.
Taltson hydro project is another one I have a hard time selling in the Beaufort-Delta, Mr. Speaker, because they want to know who is to benefit from this other than the diamond mines. Who will pay? It’s hard to sell that back home. There are no
immediate benefits to the residents of the Beaufort-Delta, so they have a concern with that.
In April of 2008 the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council had a meeting up in Inuvik. They passed a motion that said the NTPC is a corporation that’s accountable to the government and the residents of the Northwest Territories. They’ve also asked that this Assembly strongly consider instructing the Auditor General of Canada to conduct an audit on the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and see what they can do to improve their services without giving themselves huge bonuses in the process.
These folks represent communities that have to live with extremely high costs of utilities. This Assembly should listen to these people, and we should act on their recommendations. It’s important to them, Mr. Speaker. It should be important to us. As residents of the Northwest Territories affected by a corporation that’s owned by the Northwest Territories, I think all of the Northwest Territories should benefit from this corporation.
I’ll have questions for the Minister of NTPC at the appropriate time.