Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Power Corporation wants to raise our power rates again. We keep hearing the same arguments over and over. Water levels are low, so hydro is compromised; rates have to go up. Homeowners and businesses are doing such a good job at using less power; rates have to go up. Our infrastructure is old and needs replacing; rates have to go up. It costs more and more to produce energy in the thermal communities; rates have to go up.

A 4.8 per cent hike last year, 4 more per cent this spring, now another 4 per cent coming: that's an increase of almost 13 per cent in just over a year. It will be almost 40 per cent over six years. It has become unbearable. In a government and Assembly that committed itself to transparency and openness, Mr. Speaker, the Power Corporation remains shrouded in mystery. Forgive me for the bad pun, but we are all in the dark when it comes to this organization.

The government pretends that the Power Corporation is still an arm’s-length Crown corporation, but in reality the government has brought the Power Corporation half in-house. By the Minister's own admission, he dissolved the board to save money. He admitted that, because the GNWT had significantly subsidized NTPC's operations during the low-water years, it was acting like a department anyway, so he assigned an internal government board of directors. He is right. In practice, it is almost another government department.

However, Mr. Speaker, the public deserves to know the government's vision for power generation and distribution in the NWT. As MLAs, we deserve the chance to question and evaluate that vision. We deserve to know when the rate hikes are going to end and what alternatives are being pursued to wean our communities off diesel. We deserve to know what is happening with the generators that we bought from a California company nearly three years ago. We deserve answers to all these questions, Mr. Speaker, because any Power Corporation issue affects everyone's bottom line.

Mr. Speaker, whether the vision is to make NTPC a government department or to fully privatize it, the people of the NWT deserve to know the plan. They deserve a government that will level with them. NTPC, bring your annual plans to MLAs for meaningful discussion and debate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.