Natural Resources and Economic Development Committee: Opening remarks

Opening remarks by Peter Gregg, President & CEO

Thank you for inviting us to today’s committee meeting. I’m joined today by our Director of Customer Care, Chris Lanteigne.

At Nova Scotia Power, our commitment to providing reliable power to Nova Scotians has been unwavering for over 100 years. We recognize that the recent cyber event has affected the trust we have built with our customers, and I want to acknowledge and apologize for the concern and disruption this has caused.

Over the past 215 days, our team has worked around the clock to restore and strengthen our systems and to support our customers. And we recognize that the cyber incident continues to impact our customers, including concerns about estimated bills. To you the committee, and to all Nova Scotians, my promise to you is if we have overestimated your bill, we will fix it. If you have overpaid, we will fix it. And if we make a mistake, we will fix it.

This incident was an unprecedented, sophisticated, and targeted attack. Based on expert assessments and intelligence, there is a high degree of confidence that the activity was closely associated with a Russia-based threat actor group.

While we have made significant investments in cybersecurity, these types of threats are becoming increasingly complex and challenging for organizations worldwide. Thanks to our robust systems, ongoing investments, and the dedication of our people, we ensured that core operations and the electric grid continued uninterrupted—no power was lost to Nova Scotians.

There is still much work ahead, and as our investigation into the incident is almost complete, we continue to learn important lessons from this event. Since the attack, we have implemented a comprehensive recovery plan and made progress in several areas, such as continuously evolving IT security processes and protection systems, upgrading our online customer account portal, launching a new secure cloud-based customer communication system, and upgrading our financial systems to return to paying our suppliers in an appropriate timeframe.

Most importantly... we remain focused on the impact this has had on Nova Scotians. We understand the ongoing challenges related to billing, payments to our suppliers, and longer wait times to speak with our care team, and we are working diligently to resolve them. Restoring all systems will take time, but we are providing flexible options for our customers—such as Equal Billing, pay-what-you-can arrangements, and photo meter reads—until we’re able to reconnect our systems and provide up-to-date bills.

We no longer collect social insurance numbers and are on track to complete their removal from our systems by March 31, 2026. We are also on track to reconnect customer meters with our billing systems by the end of March. Our team has worked to address outstanding payments to suppliers, and we expect to be caught up on these payments before the end of the year.

I want to recognize the remarkable efforts of Nova Scotia Power employees, who are also our customers. Their resilience and innovation have been critical in supporting our customers during this challenging time.

While responding to this incident has required significant resources, our core mission remains: to provide reliable and affordable power. Over the past year, we have invested more than 200 million dollars in reliability, including replacing 3,000 power poles across the province and clearing trees from 1,500 kilometers of power lines. We continue to make essential investments to meet our customers’ energy needs and strengthen future resilience.

In September, we submitted a General Rate Application to our regulator. There is never a good time to request an increase to power rates. At the same time, the reliability investments we’ve applied for cannot wait. This rate application was developed in collaboration with customer advocates who have agreed that the request strikes the right balance between affordability and reliability. We appreciate the vital role of Nova Scotia’s independent regulator and welcome the transparent and public process with the Energy Board in January. We continue to fully cooperate with ongoing cyber investigations by both the Nova Scotia Energy Board and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

In closing, I want to reiterate our commitment to supporting Nova Scotians, minimizing the impact of this incident, and rebuilding trust. We do not take this responsibility lightly. Again, my promise to you is if we have overestimated your bill, we will fix it. If you have overpaid, we will fix it. And if we make a mistake, we will fix it.

We thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we work through this difficult and evolving situation.

Thank you for the opportunity for this important discussion today.

Peter Gregg, President & CEO, Nova Scotia Power