Mr. Speaker, once again I want to talk about the problems families are facing with their power bills and how they relate to the cost of living. So, what better area to focus in on today than the subject of power companies having specifically tuned to their franchise purchase agreements with the communities in the North?

Families taking care of families matters to me most, and that’s something I think most of us know every day here, is we worry about our constituents and we don’t lose sight of that. So, keeping that in mind, I’ve been looking at the franchise agreement process, and what I’m noticing is franchise agreements can easily be described as, or even somewhat compared to, sole-source negotiated contracts. In fact, the similarities are so close I’m not sure anyone can really tell the difference between them. So if a person isn’t a contract expert or certainly an administrator, I don’t think they can tell the difference.

So now that we’re starting to put our finger on the problem in the right way, looking at it with the right eyes, whose interest is being served? Well, let me draw the House’s attention to a particularly great Member’s statement made some time ago here that puts the finger on the problem. It was a statement that drew the attention of the Cabinet’s increasing practice of awarding lucrative contracts without any competition. So, I quote the Member of the day: “I’m not suggesting that the people who have received these contracts are not competent. I’m not suggesting that they’re not offering a fair price. What I’m saying is that there’s no way to be sure of

either of these things if we do not use a competitive process like a tender or an RFP. This is particularly true when we are sole sourcing contracts to individuals with very close ties to government.” Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Member, MLA Ramsay, for that particular quote and passage provided on February 23, 2010.

What the issue really comes down to is we need to find ways to create a competitive environment that helps drive down the cost of power for Northerners so we can afford to live here, because the cupidity of these sole-source contracts are so aggressively sought after, people dare not let them go.

However, if we cannot create an environment of a robust competition, then we simply need to have the courage to break up the monopoly, because the Power Corp Minister said quite nicely the other day, this is an “essential” service. We must find a way to protect the public’s interest. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we should be fighting for. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.