Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed to the Minister responsible for the power corp. Does the Minister acknowledge that the three-and-a-half hour power outage at minus 25 poses a serious risk, an impact on families, public safety, and businesses? And if she does recognize this is a serious issue that has serious impacts, can she be specific as to what she's directing the power corp to do to mitigate these risks and impacts? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister responsible for NTPC.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in response to the power outage last night, we will be doing a follow-up to review the outage events. There was a couple of different -- as I already detailed this morning, there's been a couple of different events that led to the extended period of time of the outage, one being that the hydro plant couldn't just have backup diesel relied upon. The backup diesel units didn't start as expected, and then the time that it took to get the hydro back up. So as I said, we'll be doing a follow-up to review that, what took place at all those junctures, whether there are other processes that can be put in place, whether there are other pieces of equipment that could be available. Some things -- you know, like, the time it takes to get to the facility can't be varied. But the things that can be varied and are under our control will be reviewed so that we can ensure that similar things don't happen again. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the system is supposed to be uninterruptible and although we know that that's worth what it's worth, that statement, that said it's not meant to be three and a half hours to four hours.
Mr. Speaker, I proposed in my Member's statement today creating a business mitigation and recovery fund that would help businesses who are stung hardly on these initiatives --it affects fried equipment, lost revenue, and insurance nightmares -- with some solutions. Would the Minister be willing to look at those solutions I've proposed? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are significant costs that can occur when there's an extended power outage. We certainly see that as I -- you know, certainly to businesses, to residents, but also the government sees those impacts as well, and government services and government buildings. So certainly well aware that they can have significant impacts.
Mr. Speaker, across Canada, public utilities often experience outages and, in fact, as I said earlier, our utility typically -- or is under the Canadian average for the amount of time it takes to get back online. Others typically experience far longer outages, some in fact for days if not weeks. And there are provisions within the approach of utilities not to provide any kind of compensation in those types of events. Typically, there may -- I shouldn't say typically. There may be occasions that insurance is available. Obviously not everyone can access it. So this isn't an area where governments would generally set up funds or provide public funds for those purposes. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the corporation is the only game in town. So I'll give two clear -- we have the land titles system that has an assurance program. They're responsible in case there's a mistake in the system that has impacts. Mr. Speaker, the auto industry takes responsibility when something goes wrong and they try to make it right, Mr. Speaker. And lastly, Mr. Speaker, I am suggesting an insurance program of some sort that creates reimbursements for no -- for damaged equipment and operating loss credits of some form, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister be able to look at these types of solutions to be innovative because the impacts of these power outages fry equipment and cause a lot of serious damage. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the long, creative list that was put there just now. I'll certainly -- I will certainly commit to going back and to ensuring that the folks at NTPC have a look at it and ensure there's nothing in there that I am not familiar with that could be made functional. But, again, Mr. Speaker, at this point there is a significant amount of work in this territory that needs to happen to modernize our grid, to modernize our system, to bring our facilities up to modern standards so that we can better integrate renewables, have more resiliency, have more redundancy. That work is urgent. That work needs to get done. And at the moment, that is the focus of both our resource -- human resource efforts and our funds. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
