On September 17 I asked the Minister of Natural Resources and Renewables what the Houston government’s plan is to address energy poverty. Below is our exchange:
SUSAN LEBLANC: My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources and Renewables. Nova Scotia has one of the highest rates of energy poverty in the country, with about 43 per cent of households paying more on energy than they can afford. Earlier this year, this department was involved in the development of a report that called for and designed a program to ensure people can afford the electricity they need. I will table that report. Does the minister support the findings of this report? What is the minister's plan to address energy poverty?
HON. TORY RUSHTON: I'm not sure what report got tabled, so I'll have a look at that because there have been a few reports on this. Some were government reports, some were independent reports. I will have a look at the report. What I can say is the Clean Electricity Solutions Task Force did make a recommendation - Recommendation No. 12 - to look at what Ontario is doing for affordability. We have looked at what Ontario is doing. We started that process - task force Recommendation No. 12. We're comparing what's going on in that jurisdiction to what we're doing in our jurisdiction. We're still looking at that.
What I can say is that $250 million has been invested since we've taken government on energy affordability and different forms of energy. We'll continue that. We'll also look at other alternatives. We have found out from working with other jurisdictions that we're doing a lot that other jurisdictions aren't.
SUSAN LEBLANC: I'll just reiterate the fact that we have one of the highest rates of energy poverty. Whatever we're doing, we're not doing enough: 43 per cent of households are living in energy poverty.
Thank you to the minister for bringing up Recommendation No. 12. This was actually the second report. The report that I just tabled was the second report from last year that called for decisive action on energy affordability. The final report from the Nova Scotia Clean Electricity Solutions Task Force, which I'm sure the minister is familiar with, also directed this government to "determine the best way to deliver a 'Made in Nova Scotia' suite of programs" - Recommendation No. 12 - "to help with residential electricity costs."
Has the government accepted this recommendation? When will Nova Scotians see programs to lower their energy bills in place?
TORY RUSHTON: I just had a look at that report. That’s actually an independent report. That wasn’t a government report. That was an independent body report. What I can say is looking back over the last couple of decades, the highest rates actually increased under the NDP government. What we have done is $250 million investment of this province’s money for affordability. We also looked at the fuel adjustment mechanism that was going to be put into place to add nearly a double-digit increase for all ratepayers. Since October, we’ve been negotiating with the federal government. Yesterday they helped us out: $500 million so the rates in Nova Scotia won’t go up this year.