Surprise, surprise - residents say power too expensive
Yellowknifers want cheaper electricity, according to Northland survey; premier refuses to meet with company
Kirsten Fenn
Northern News Services
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The results are in and they don't look so bright. Many Yellowknifers feel they are paying too much money to turn on the lights.
Doug Tenney: vice-president of Northern development for Northland Utilities. - John McFadden/NNSL photo |
A Northland Utilities customer survey of 504 residents representing individual households shows the majority believe more could be done to reduce electricity costs in the city and make rates more equitable across the territory.
"We wanted to just go out and see, gauge the customer satisfaction of Northland Utilities Yellowknife," said Doug Tenney, vice-president of Northern development for Northland Utilities.
The company services approximately 7,500 Yellowknife residents, Tenney estimated.
Eighty-four per cent of Yellowknife residents interviewed agreed they pay too much money for electricity, while 86 per cent said rates should be "similar and fair" in all NWT communities, according to the survey's findings.
The survey also puts the territorial government in the hot seat.
Northland Utilities alleges in the survey that Northwest Territories Power Corporation, which generates the city's electricity and is solely owned by the GNWT, charges its customers $500 more a year than residents who live elsewhere in the territory. Eighty-nine per cent answered that is "unfair."
Ninety-three per cent agreed with the survey's statement that the government should make reducing electricity costs a priority. When asked whether the GNWT should consider partnering with Northland Utilities to achieve that result, the answer for 88 per cent of residents surveyed was 'yes.'
"Although the Northwest Territories is a huge geographic space, it's not very big in terms of electrical customers," Tenney said. "So we've been stating to the government we should look for partnership opportunities for at least a decade."
Doing so could eliminate redundancies and cut costs for customers, he said.
Tenney said Northland has reached out to the government several times to have a conversation but "we never seem to get a telephone call back."
He and Denendeh Investments president and CEO Darrell Beaulieu wrote a letter to the premier's office on Jan. 13 that wasn't answered, Tenney said.
"I know that ATCO group had reached out to Premier McLeod's office around March 3 or 4," he added, explaining that the phone call came from the office of Siegfried Kiefer, chief strategy officer for ATCO, which owns Northland Utilities. Tenney said that phone call has not been returned.
Andrew Livingstone, senior communications adviser to premier and cabinet, said he isn't aware of any recent phone calls or official meeting requests from Northland Utilities and ATCO to the premier.
"They did put in a request about 10 months ago," Livingstone said, adding a meeting was not granted.
"Given that we're currently in arbitration over the Hay River franchise, we felt it would be inappropriate for us to be having discussions like that until that situation has been dealt with," Livingstone said.
Power corp. is in the process of taking over the distribution of power in Hay River, which used to be provided by Northland Utilities.
Tenney said the recent customer survey confirms what the company already knows - that residents want lower costs. It was a chance for them to voice their opinions about whether they want to see changes made, he said.
"If he (Premier Bob McLeod) won't sit with us, we want to at least encourage our customers . . . to see what we're talking about and hopefully contact either their city councillors or their MLAs to hopefully sit down with us," Tenney said.
