Emera profits while leaving Nova Scotians in the dark

HALIFAX -- The Liberal government is leaving Nova Scotians, literally, in the dark while Nova Scotia Power and its parent company Emera continue to profit. The company that owns NS Power made $273 million in profits in the first quarter of 2021. Another unscheduled power outage knocked out power to over a thousand families in Dartmouth this morning.

“It is unacceptable that people were dealing with another power outage this morning. This is a serious problem that happens far too often,” said Claudia Chender, NDP Energy spokesperson and Dartmouth South MLA. “We have raised this again and again. People are paying the same amount whether the power is on or not. If the company that provides this essential service can’t keep the power on then there should be consequences.”

It was recently reported that every day of the year in 2020 there was a power outage somewhere in Nova Scotia. When asked about this recently, the Premier defended NS Power instead of standing up for Nova Scotians who are paying for unreliable power.

“Iain Rankin and his Liberal government seem to be fine with having a private power utility focused on profits rather than the quality of the service they provide to you and me,” said NDP Leader Gary Burrill. “People deserve a government that believes services should operate in the interests of people, not used as a way for wealthy shareholders and corporate executives to make millions.”

The Liberals promised to break up the Nova Scotia Power monopoly but in eight years have done next to nothing to accomplish this goal.

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