N.S. legislature opens: Opposition vows to pressure government on power bills

CITYnews halifax / By The Canadian Press

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s official Opposition says it will pressure the government to address affordability during the fall legislature sitting, starting by introducing legislation to lower power bills.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender told reporters Tuesday morning her party’s bill would issue a rebate to residents that would lower Nova Scotia Power bills by 10 per cent.

“Since Tim Houston became premier, families are paying an average of $400 more (annually) on their power bills. Everything is getting more expensive, and people need some relief,” Chender said.

The rebate proposed by the NDP would cost about $140 million, Chender said.

Nova Scotia’s House of Assembly reopened Tuesday, one day after the government’s fiscal update projected a record deficit of $1.2 billion — a more than 70 per cent jump compared to the estimate in February’s budget.

Government has “spent a billion dollars over budget for the last five years, and yet the costs of everything, particularly the things that are most essential to Nova Scotians’ lives, have gone up,” Chender said.

The NDP leader said her party will also table a bill to protect consumer information, after data including social insurance numbers were stolen in a cyberattack on Nova Scotia Power earlier this year.

Nova Scotia Power said in May that about half of its customers — 277,000 ratepayers — may have had personal information stolen by hackers. But earlier this month, the privately owned utility said all of its customers may be affected in some way.

The stolen data includes names, birth dates, email addresses, home addresses, customer account information, driver’s licence numbers and, in some cases, bank account numbers and social insurance numbers.

A report by Nova Scotia Power says the utility has no way of telling individual customers what specific information has been stolen from them.

The third-placed Liberals also say lowering power bills is one of their priorities, as is pressing the government on the cost of living and on reining in spending.

The Progressive Conservative government, meanwhile, has been largely silent on the specifics of its legislative agenda.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2025.

The Canadian Press