Low publicity left public in the dark about N.W.T. power rate hike hearings, resident says

Yellowknife resident Jennifer Pagonis showed up to the hearing on Tuesday. She shared her concerns over the costs of power with some of the territory's most influential power executives.

"It's unfortunate. The only person here was me," Pagonis told CBC News.

Like the two women who spoke at Monday's hearing, Pagonis said she only heard of the public hearings at the start of the week, after CBC News published an article about it.

• Public frustration over 'ridiculous' power rate hikes at day 1 of public hearing

"I found out because there was a post on Facebook," she said. "The moment I saw that was the moment I put the petition forward."

Pagonis started an online petitionMonday evening calling for the territory's government to put a stop on what she calls ever-rising power rates.

"God forbid you turn a fan on. Or at Christmas time, you put up some Christmas lights," said Pagonis who says she pays an average of $350 on her monthly power bill.

Pagonislives in a trailer.

"If you use too much power, you get dinged. You conserve power, you get dinged," she said.

High costs for power are driving people out of the territory, says Pagonis.

"People who love our community are having to leave town because they can't afford to be here," she said."People are being gouged."

The petition gained 163 signatures overnight from residents in Ulukhaktok to Fort Providence.

'Very hard' to learn of meeting

The Public Utilities Board published three advertisements about the hearings that ran in three different Northern News Services-affiliated papers on June 22, 26, and 28.

But the board said they didn't send out a recent press release and the last press release about the hearings was in August of 2016. CBC News reached out directly to both the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and the Public Utilities board to gather information about the hearings last week.

"These are publicly advertised meetings. Everything that we receive is on our website," responded Gordon Van Tighem, the chairman utilities board overseeing the hearings.

When trying to access the territory's utility watchdog's web-page with details of the hearings, the page "could not be found."

"It was very hard to get the information," said Katherine Harris, one Yellowknife resident who attended the meetings Monday.

"Things weren't posted in a way that's accessible. That's also frustrating."

Meeting times a 'roadblock' for public

The hearings are from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.

Pagonis says the board didn't consider people's working hours when organizing the meeting.

"The unfortunate thing is that you've got this public hearing set up when people are at work trying to make money to pay the power bills," said Pagonis, who was on vacation this week and able to attend.

She said better advertising, and evening hours, might allow more people to share their two cents.

"So you put another roadblock in for these people," said Pagonis.

Reach priscilla.hwang@cbc.ca.