To the editor,
I write concerning Nova Scotia Power and the reading material that accompanied my last bill. With the list of reasons why our rates were being increased, it stated one was the loss of a couple of major clients, major power-consuming industries. Then the light came on. You are generating less power to meet demand, therefore you would require less fuel to meet demand, I would think would be the response.
Why did the major industries cease to exist? I would say from the high rates they were paying for electrical power. This is like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. In 1992 when the Conservative government of Donald Cameron made what was called one of the largest equity transfers from public to private hands in Canada it was to sell off Crown assets to lower the deficit. Would you say this was effective?
Just prior to the privatization of NSP in 1992 the provincial government had spent a great deal of public money building new thermal generating plants. I bet the taxpayers are still paying for these high-priced assets which I believe went to a private entity for a small fraction of their total costs.
Not only are the taxpayers still paying for this, high power rates are driving industry out of Nova Scotia and increasing the provincial debt from lack of both personal and business taxation. I stand to be corrected on any of this.
A guaranteed rate of return of over 9.5 per cent at a time such as this cannot be supported. Successful businesses, I have read, average 3 to 5 per cent returns. Pension funds are in a deficit position the last few years because of low returns. So this further emphasizes the ludicrous returns NSP has for shareholders.
Where are all the leaders who should be able to see the harm in these high power rates? Stephen McNeil spoke out and Clarrie MacKinnon, MLA for Pictou East, spoke out against McNeil like a schoolyard bully. I would say to Mr. MacKinnon I do not possess his high academic education but I have insights about power rates and economics.
I thought we voted NDP in the last election. Did they not mention families on several occasions on air, or in their pamphlets. I get it now, they did not specify it was very wealthy families they were thinking of. Remember when they raised the HST two per cent to reduce the provincial debt? Guess there is not much difference between the Cameron government of 1992 and the Dexter government of 2013. One question to close, will the real NDP please show yourself?
Arthur Sinclair
Westville
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You tell it like it is Robyn. But don't forget that no matter where you live in the Harper kingdom you can still send a few bucks this way to bolster the corporate welfare pot.