Nova Scotia Power leaves customers in the dark  

During the snowstorm that hit the province Jan. 19, schools and business were closed and Spryfield resident Stephanie Martin, like many other Halifax residents, lost power.

According to the Nova Scotia Power website, the power outage was supposed to leave Martin and her family in the dark for about six hours. 

In reality, they lost power for 20 hours.  

“It really impacted my day,” she said to The Signal in a video interview. “It was getting really cold. We just stayed in bed all day with blankets because there’s nothing else we could do.” 

Martin said the service she’s receiving is unacceptable. Other ratepayers told The Signal that the issues with Nova Scotia Power are bigger than just one family. Some residents across the province say the service they are receiving is flawed.  

Evan McNamara, who lives in Halifax’s West End, said he has experienced many outages.  

“There’s been a lot of little outages here and there in the past few months,” he said to The Signal. “It’s very annoying having these outages even when there’s no weather event going on.”  

“It seems like Nova Scotia Power is not doing a good job of maintaining their infrastructure.”  

On Jan. 7 Nova Scotia Power proposed two increases to residential rates. In total the increase would be more than eight per cent. That means if a family of four pays an average of $400 a month, they would now have to pay around $32 more every month.  

“If they want raises, they should prove that they are able to give us the services that we need,” said Martin. 

The Nova Scotia Department of Energy said in a statement on Jan. 30 that it is “urging (the Nova Scotia Energy Board) to reject Nova Scotia Power’s proposed 2026–2027 residential rate increase.” 

Martin isn’t the only one facing issues with Nova Scotia Power. For the past two years Danielle Fraser said she has been overbilled by the company.  

“It’s frustrating,” she says. “It’s frustrating because (power is) an essential service. It’s a service that should be provided to all of us.”  

Fraser created a Facebook group where Nova Scotians can air their grievances with the company.  

“A quick search on Facebook led me to hundreds of other people that were experiencing the same thing,” she said.  

The issues with Nova Scotia Power only got worse after a cyber attack, causing a data breach, was discovered on April 25, 2025, resulting in many more customers being overbilled.  

“Nova Scotia Power’s billing practices have been suspect and I think the cyber attack drew attention to it,” says Fraser.  

In December, MacGillivray Injury and Insurance Law filed a class-action lawsuit against Nova Scotia Power, with Fraser as the representative plaintiff.  

According to John MacGillis, the law firm’s marketing director, around 13,000 people reached out to them regarding the class-action lawsuit.  

“They believe Nova Scotia Power should be held to some legal account for the overbilling and cyber security breach,” says MacGillis. “Nova Scotia Power is a public utility and it has a virtual monopoly because consumers don’t functionally have a choice to work with Nova Scotia Power or not.” 

In a statement to The Signal, Nova Scotia Power wrote they are investing to “provide reliable service to customers.” 

Nova Scotia Power didn’t give The Signal a comment about the overbilling allegations. However, in a statement on an incident report to the Nova Scotia Energy Board on Dec. 22, 2025, the utility said Nova Scotia Power “has never intentionally overbilled its customers.”