Before you lose power because it’s raining, and @nspowerinc creates some kind of excuse that really doesn’t make sense, and you wonder why @nsgov let’s this go on … read this 🧵(bare with me, it’s long but important). #nspoli 1/
A long, long time ago (1992!), @nspowerinc struck a deal with the provincial government, that researchers still say is the best deal in the world (🤯) between a government and a private utility company — NSP Privatization Act: 2/ 
What is so great about the deal? Behind the scenes, a lot, but here are some clearly written (terrifying) highlights: 1. @nspowerinc does not pay federal income taxes; rather the province pays it for them. So we pay our rates, and then our taxes help pay their taxes: 3/
2. They’re also exempt from paying municipal taxes, so municipalities with @nspowerinc infrastructure will cover the cost of plowing their roads in winter, you know, etc. etc. Again, we pay our rates, and when we pay our taxes, we pay theirs here too. 4/
3. Where some rules do apply, like the Expropriation Act — the province has given @nspowerinc acting authority over it. So really, when they decide they need the land, it’s pretttty easy to get it: 5/
4. Once they have that land, whatever it had previously been decided that land is for, no longer applies — that’s @nspowerinc’s land now and they can do what they want: 6/
5. But not only can they do whatever they want — they can do it however they want. Because this legislation actually states that they don’t have to follow the Building Code Act: (Keeping in mind how quickly our government pulls the “not-up-to- code” card on the unhoused) 7/
6. Here’s the real kicker — @nsgov doesn’t ever hold @nspowerinc accountable for anything (from unnecessary power outages, to unnecessary deaths on their sites) because they actually wrote it into the legislation that the company doesn’t need to be accountable to anyone: 8/
Much like this isn’t made clear to a ratepayer, it’s not made clear to employees. Nor is it made clear to contractors from other provinces who come to fix their mistakes, that the sites they’re working on may not up to code — & that in this province that’s been given the OK.👍🏼 9/
7. The only opinions that matter are those of shareholders, who by the way, can be non-Canadian residents with up to 1/4 of voting rights. That’s a lot of people making decisions who don’t rely on our power grid, but are certainly happy to profit off this stupid deal: 10/
To wrap this up let’s talk about what’s NOT written into legislation (which somehow gets scarier): @nspowerinc’s transition to renewable energy — where hydro dams are key — and the province’s ongoing refusal to create any legislation around how a dam needs to operate. 11/
Between the Privatization Act & no rules around the operation of infrastructure like dams (despite even @NSUARB recommendations) @nspowerinc had planned to keep this up for the next 30 years too & @nsgov would be really happy if we all didn’t know this. Now you do. /12
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