Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 27/99) - Power is everything. Especially when it comes to coping with the millennium bug.

"In Canada, when the power fails, everything will eventually fail," said Colonel Pierre LeBlanc.

Col. LeBlanc, the Canadian Forces' top officer in the North, spoke Friday about Y2K at a Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce luncheon held at the Northern area headquarters.

Some economists predict 20 per cent of small businesses will collapse because of Y2K, he said. Y2K is the year 2000 global glitch.

At the centre of the problem -- for technology to accept the year 2000, it must have four-digit capacity. But there's only room for two digits.

"All major corporations are active" when it comes to addressing Y2K, but smaller businesses are only now "realizing the threat," he said.

"You may want to think about your own liabilities," he suggested to the chamber members.

"For smaller businesses, it may be a question of survival."

"Insurance companies are saying it's not an accident," Col. LeBlanc said. That means businesses will not be insured for Y2K losses.

"Generally speaking there is no coverage," said Bill McMullen, an information officer with the Toronto-based Insurance Council of Canada.

The industry feels Y2K is something that should be fixed, not insured, he said.

Yellowknife is perhaps one of the best places to be in Canada when the bug arrives, Col. LeBlanc also said.

The NWT Power Corp. is spending over $1 million to make sure the lights stay on, and most of the money is for software replacement.

Last week, Power Corp. president Leon Courneya said the corporation will be ready.

"Many of the primary buildings (in Yellowknife) have their own power generation systems," LeBlanc said.

From a trade perspective, Canada largely deals with the U.S. Canada and the U.S. are among the leaders in Y2K preparation.

One big role the Armed Forces will play is in communications. An Armed Forces' national communications system is to be tested in September.

The military is also putting together a reserve of people. The Armed Forces currently has about 60,000 members. Only 98 Armed Forces personnel are stationed in the North.

It remains to be seen just what the army will be needed for and just how much a limited number of Armed Forces personnel can do if power goes out in centres across Canada.

"When cities like Toronto send for help after it snows, you may have a problem," Col. LeBlanc said.

Hardship in the North is a bit different than hardship in Toronto though.

Col. LeBlanc predicts no matter what the effects are, Northerners are a resilient bunch who will cope just fine.

Col. LeBlanc says the Armed Forces does not expect the effects of Y2K to all happen at once. If the situation becomes increasingly dramatic, as the ice storm in Ontario and Quebec showed after loss of power, the worst of the problems materialized about four weeks after the event.

The Armed Forces will outfit itself with enough food and fuel for 30 days.

A month of supplies should give enough time to fix the problems, he said. If residents do the same, that could be good news for the grocery store.

And if nothing happens, you won't have to buy too many groceries for a month.