Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm given 20 minutes here, and I know we all want to leave, but I'll make a promise. If any Member of Cabinet yells out the estimated cost of the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project at any time, which I know all of them know, I will stop talking.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I love hydro. I believe it is the future to getting to carbon net zero. I love hydro for the Northwest Territories. I am so glad for the mines that came before and built our hydro power. We need more hydro, Mr. Speaker. I also love mining, and we need more mines, Mr. Speaker. It would be absolutely irresponsible to allow more mines go in production in this territory that run off diesel, Mr. Speaker. I don't believe renewables are going to get us there. We have seen our solar and wind projects to date come in at an astonishingly high price per megawatt, and they are intermittent. I think the hope of micronuclear is a pipe dream. There's not a single micronuclear reactor in Canada that is currently active, Mr. Speaker. One day, perhaps, maybe we can put them on the back of a truck, and those can power a mine, but I don't believe in fantasies. But you know who does believe in fantasies, Mr. Speaker?
The Department of Infrastructure and the GNWT, because 25 years ago someone had a dream about expanding the Taltson Hydro Project and running a transmission line to the diamonds. And if we built it, Mr. Speaker, it would have been amazing. We would be sitting here rich, paying it off, and all of our power bills were lower. But, instead, we spent 25 years not building it. And, Mr. Speaker, in the life of this Assembly, the most significant thing to happen in this project in the last 25 years occurred; that is, this government secretly, without really telling anyone, decided that it was no longer going to the diamond mines, which was the whole point in the first place, Mr. Speaker.
And, Mr. Speaker, why is that project 60 megawatts? Because that's how much power the diamond mines needed, Mr. Speaker. We have been talking about expanding Taltson at 60 megawatts for 25 years, Mr. Speaker. And we have forgot that we actually have 10,000 megawatts of undeveloped hydro potential in this territory. We have the Bear, La Marte, Lockhart, MacKenzie, Snare, Snowdrift, Taltson, and Yellowknife River, Mr. Speaker, all with undeveloped hydro potential, and no one has ever even talked about those in 25 years because they got so laser focused on a project that they have repeatedly failed to build, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister talked about well, we got too focused on who was on the board. Well, Mr. Speaker, the previous government fired that board because it had members who said listen, I'm not going to take this Taltson project on without long-term power purchasing agreements. And the GNWT didn't like that. They didn't like an independent arm's length corporation having some say over what their hydro infrastructure looked like because, Mr. Speaker, if the NTPC gets given a dam and doesn't have anyone to buy the power, guess who's rates are going up? All the other ratepayers. So we are talking about enough money here, some questionable amount that anyone could yell out at any time, Mr. Speaker, but it is fair to say it is enough to pay every single individual's power bill in this territory for the next 50 years, Mr. Speaker. And that's not surprising because we're talking about 60 megawatts. Essentially doubling all the current power we sell, Mr. Speaker. Every single power bill you have ever paid in your life is how much we are talking about for 50 years, Mr. Speaker, for all our residents. You could do the math on that, and you'll get to the number. I may have just kind of leaked it, but whatever.
Mr. Speaker, it is billions and billions of dollars. There is zero transparency in this project. There is zero transparency from the government about the cost overruns. There is zero transparency about any of our energy projects.
We have been promising a line to Fort Providence and a line to Whati for years. Well, I still don't know the cost of those projects. We are light years behind on them, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and no one, despite years of asking has -- answered a simple question, why don't we just build a transmission line to Alberta? Mr. Speaker, we keep talking about selling power to Alberta and Saskatchewan. You know why they don't want our power? Because it's currently at 35 cents a megawatt, Mr. Speaker. And you know what they're selling power for in bulk? 9 cents a megawatt, Mr. Speaker. Let's build a line south and buy their power. Stop trying to sell our 35 cent power, Mr. Speaker.
Every single mine we could ever open in this territory is a drop in the bucket of what Alberta currently produces and provides to industry. We should tie into their grid and call it a day, Mr. Speaker, but we are stuck on this one project. We are stuck asking federal government. We are stuck wasting Indigenous government's projects. And no one will even tell me what they think it costs.
Mr. Speaker, the cost matters. The cost per megawatt on production is the entire debate we are having. It tells you whether you are going to develop another hydro system. It tells you whether you are going to continue to burn diesel. It tells you whether you're going to use LNG. The cost per megawatt is the entire debate. That is why we need to know how much it's costing to build 60 megawatts, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this is my plea. Say the number. Bring some transparency until we have an election. Until then, I ask every single worker in the GNWT who spent 25 years, some of them their entire career on a project that's going nowhere, stop working on it. I am so sorry for you. I am sorry we have wasted your time on this hopeless endeavour, on this fantasy of made up math and made up numbers that does not work.
To all of the Indigenous governments we are meeting with right now, that we are keeping in a room, leave, walk away. Our government is lying to you. They are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in P3 funding that is going to be a terrible investment for your people. And, Mr. Speaker, that business case we have is absolute garbage, and the government needs to make it public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
