Yellowknife (Apr 04/03) - The leaders of the Beaufort Delta met last week to discuss their strategy on how they will fight a new rate application by the power corporation.

The communities will act as an intervenor group when an application from the Northwest Territories Power Corporation (NTPC) is reviewed by the Public Utilities Board (PUB) beginning next week.

The group has hired the law firm of Lawson and Lundell to help represent them during the intervention.

Attorney Craig Haines said the first application dealt with NTPC's rate of return on equity of Phase One was approved as $66 million, but phase two of the application deals with how that money is earned. That is where the Beaufort Delta group will intervene.

Haines said they will argue that these new rates represent a disproportionate impact on remote communities.

Because of the Northern communities' shorter days and longer and colder winters it simply costs more to live here.

"Higher rates impact people more in the North and they do in the South, because they rely on power more in their daily lives," Haines said.

Last fall, an application from NTPC outlined the same rate for all customers within the NWT.

The GNWT asked the NTPC board of directors to withdraw that application, but they refused and were fired by the government.

A new application was drawn up, based on community rates with different classes for each community. Each community has individual rates, but all are subsidized through a government program.

The Territorial Power Support Program subsidizes residential customers to the Yellowknife rate to a maximum of 600 kWh per month. The government has made no indication that the subsidy would be discontinued.

Clarkson said the intervention will also argue for municipal and aboriginal government power subsidies.

"Saying the subsidy levelizes it for everybody isn't true; it doesn't levelize it for the municipal government or any of the aboriginal governments in the community," Clarkson said, adding that some businesses are also shut out of the subsidy.

"It only applies to businesses that have a gross revenue of less than $2 million."

The business subsidy only applies to the first 1,000 kWh, which Clarkson said is "pretty minimal."

They argue that if community rates will be based on capital costs, they will always pay more than the Yellowknife rate.

"If Holman or Sachs Harbour has to pay for those capital costs just within the community, their rates are always going to be high," Clarkson said.

"They are never going to get outside of high rates based on the community, because the population isn't there. Even in a community the size of Inuvik -- absorbing those capital costs are going to keep our rates high, even though we're on natural gas."

Inuvik is right now paying an additional charge called a "rider" to cover losses incurred by the corporation during the last rate application.

"The rider should come off about August of this year," Watt said.

Joe Handley, minister responsible for the Power Corporation, said because the process has been delayed, the rider will likely be extended for two months.