A growing movement to de-privatize Nova Scotia Power Inc. has been gaining traction, at least at the grassroots level. Over the last few months, anti-capitalist action group Solidarity Halifax has been conducting teach-ins, door-to-door campaigns and general rabble rousing in an attempt to put the issue into the public mindset.
Nova Scotia Power has done nothing to ingratiate themselves to said public; in the span of 10 days in May the company managed to ask the Utility and Energy Review Board for a six percent rate increase over the next two years, announced millions in salary increases for the top brass and held a lavish waterfront party for its executives.
So far the hypothetical price tag involved in a buy-back of the power company—several billion dollars, at least—has kept any provincial politicos from championing the cause, but this hasn’t stopped Solidarity Halifax’s Power to the People campaign.
“Nova Scotia Power has made record profits—over $120 million in 2011—while raising rates six times in the past 10 years,” says Brian Crouse, active in the campaign. “[NSPI is] moving incredibly slowly towards green energy and green jobs, and sometimes even shutting off peoples’ power in the middle of winter. Twenty years of a private, for-profit monopoly is enough! Under democratic, public ownership, income from the utility would be used for public priorities in Nova Scotia instead of going towards corporate profits.”
Thursday, June 7, at 2pm, the group is holding a pirate-themed protest at the Halifax Ferry Terminal; the protest coincides with NSPI’s parent-company Emera’s annual shareholders meeting. Similar actions have been confirmed for 12 noon in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2012.
NSP follows a set process before turning off the power. I believe the process was established over 20 years ago and approved by the UARB. A customer will have been sent several letters over a long period before the notification drops in the mail box giving a customer 7 days to pay or make arrangements to pay. If NSP cuts off the power you can draw one simple conclusion : the customer has never replied nor contacted NSP and the bill will be quite large and dating back many months.
Actually Blow, your simple conclusion is overly simplistic (as per usual, really). Let’s look at your UARB for one. Upon it sits a lawyer formerly in the service of NSPI. Conflict of interest? No, not to you Blow. The process itself that is set? Check it out for yourself, my dear Blow, because it is actually completely arbitrary and at the discretion of NSPI whether or not to turn your power off. That is the process. If NSPI decides to turn your power off, they do, and if they don’t, they don’t. But do a little research for yourself and don’t take my word for it.
And if you have a problem with NSPI shutting off your power? The arm’s-length body that investigates your claim is actually headed by Don Farmer, himself a former NSPI employee. So you can bet he’s got the average Joe’s welfare at heart. Also, if you’ve got the money and time to hire a lawyer to plead your case, well, there’s two sets of rules on NSPI’s process. I’m so sorry you seem to think that NSPI’s set process is some kind of tablet from the Mount by which We Must Adhere. I personally think you’ve been worshipping a golden calf for far too long. Pray you don’t fall on hard times, and try not to come to such simplistic conclusions. It makes you look overly simple.
We can never be sure of what is in someones head, or heart, but saying that an ex-employee, or contractor, of NSPI would automatically and always have their ex-paycheck’s profit as motivation is nothing short of crazy.
notyour – my post is based on the experience of helping a neighbour who received a notice of intent to disconnect. She had ignored 3 letters and her bill was 6 months in arrears. I resolved the problem she faced and personally guaranteed to NSP that the bill would be paid overan agreed length of time. The lady had a family and was in receipt of social assistance. I advised her that ignoring several requests from a utility was not the best practice. She didn’t need a lawyer, practical advice and encouragement was enough and she never asked for help again. Nobody needs a lawyer for such an issue; a friend, neighbour, MLA, MP, councillor or social agency will help when asked.
Find me one person who had their power cut off without at least 3 requests for full or partial payment.
When NSP was owned by the govt it was loaded with unnecessary employees, had a hugely bureaucratic mindset, and was run extremely inefficiently. A large part of the provincial debt comes from politicization of the decisions around power rates – when an election was near, the govt would order NSP not to touch rates even if an increase was needed, and so the money needed to keep them solvent came out of taxpayer pockets and went on the debt.
Bringing it back under public control now would eventually result in the same thing, except that we would be starting with several billion dollars in extra debt from buying NSP back. Public ownership is not the solution.
What is needed is a realistic rate of return for what is a very low-risk business, regulation regarding executive salaries, and competition for power generation.
As a tiny little province, with a very limited ability to absorb cost increases, we could safely use coal to produce electricity for some time to come. Currently 2/3 of power in the USA is produced with coal and there is a reason for that – it is cheap. Environmental regulations have matched technological increases to help abate environmental concerns, and Wind power certainly has it’s own environmental concerns.
As long as we are trying to make our futile environmental statement by investing in the most expensive electrical resources, our rates will follow suit.
This is not happening because NSP is a private entity.
It is happening because the NDP mandated all future electrical projects had to be renewable. NSP has no choice but to follow suit – otherwise we’d still be using Coal from Venezuela, which is what the last government mandated. Before that, at least we were using local coal… which has had many technological advancements to make it cleaner since the 50s era equipment we use in this province.
If we really want to stabilize rates we need a basket of energy sources, coal being one of those sources, which we have in abundant supply. Public ownership costs more, much more. The money NSP sends to it’s shareholders wouldn’t even begin to cover the interest payments we’d need to pay on the loan to buy it back in the first place!
I think the real reason Kyle Buott is behind “democratic ownership” of NSP is because he is salivating at the chance to convert NSP’s non-management workforce to union workers… They can’t wait to get their hands on those dues…
How is “democratic” ownership of our Health Care system treating us? An F on a national report card for service, 7% raises during the worst economic crisis in 80 years, and the highest adverse medical events (rates of medical errors) in the developed world.
Communism isn’t going to save Nova Scotia, these are government created problems, and the solution is not more government…
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/deny-n…