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By Brodie Thomas
Northern News Services
Published Friday, January 9, 2009

BEHCHOKO/RAE-EDZO - Residents of Behchoko who were expected back to work on Monday after the New Year’s holiday had a few extra hours to sleep in.

The power was out in Behchoko for about four hours while residents waited for someone to travel from Yellowknife to start the community’s backup diesel generator.

Behchoko spokseperson Craig Yeo said power was out for four hours - NNSL file photo

Vaughn Slade, Northwest Territories Power Corporation spokesperson, said the back up generator was remotely started from the control center in Yellowknife, as is normally the case.

“Power was restored at 6:35 but at 6:39 there was a fault in the system so they had to dispatch a crew to manually restore services,” he said.

Slade said the power was restored to Behchoko at 9:50 am.

Craig Yeo , Community Government of Behchoko spokesperson, said the outage did not cause too many disruptions. He said if it had been much colder, they would have taken steps to move seniors from the elder’s residence into heated buildings. He said it was about –25 C when the outage took place.

A series of power outages during the holidays in Yellowknife and Inuvik have Northerners again asking questions about the service the power corporation is providing.

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay said the territorial government needs to address this issue soon. His constituents lost power five times on Christmas Day. He said it made for a lot of ruined Christmas dinners. Ramsay said people realize the level of service might not be the same as in the south, but Northerners are still paying exorbitant amounts for their power.

“If you’re a business owner this can cause you thousands of dollars in lost revenue,” said Ramsay.

A former restaurant owner, Ramsay said losing power before lunch could cost him $1,500 in sales.

He said he would like to see a fund to compensate businesses for lost revenues in a case of extended outages.

“Instead of paying $600,000 in bonuses to the senior management every year, maybe they should look at establishing some sort of insurance for businesses,” said Ramsay.

More than just a financial issue, he said a reliable power supply is a safety issue during the winter.

“When the power goes out for an extended period of time in a climate such as this it is dangerous and there is a public safety issue.”

Ramsay thinks the government should be looking at privatization of the crown corporation.

“If we can deliver lower rates and better service, I don’t care who is doing it,” he said.