West Island business owners are not impressed with the service provided by Hydro Quebec.

In May many -- but not all -- tenants of businesses of the Elm Plaza in Beaconsfield were told there would be a power outage as the utility performed maintenance.

"We had about four or five working days notice," said Dr. Enid Stiles of the Sherwood Park Animal Hospital.

"We told them that it was a Friday, that we were already booked with surgeries and dentistries and everything and that wasn't a good day."

Hydro Quebec told the tenants there was nothing that could be done.

"So, we actually decided to close our offices that day and reschedule everything," said Dr. Stiles.

But Hydro Quebec changed its plans the afternoon of the day before the scheduled outage.

"It was too late for us to have anybody come in and our employees weren't being paid that day. I mean it was really unfortunate," she said.

Hydro Quebec says it informed all tenants of the strip mall, but Stiles said she was never informed that maintenance was rescheduled for June 6 or 13.

"Yesterday morning we came in to find out from our neighbours, who are the cleaners, that unfortunately we were going to lose power."

The power went off at 8:30 a.m. Monday, leaving staff to try to work by flashlight.

The computers went down and the medical equipment was useless.

"Frankly, had we had any anesthesia patients under at the time it would have been life threatening," said Dr. Stiles.

Some businesses called Hydro Quebec and were told about the outage. Others got a call.

But Stiles says the utility left her clinic figuratively and literally in the dark.

The owner of Revolution Hair Salon got the same story from Hydro Quebec

"They called us around 4 o'clock in the afternoon to tell us that they weren't coming and that they were maybe going to come in June and that they weren't sure of which date they were going to come yet," said Tamara Rifai.

By then, Rifai had already cancelled her appointments for the following day, Friday, the salon's busiest day.

"We had no clients. I came in anyway just to answer the phones and stuff but there was, we had like nobody," she said.

Rifai said had there been sufficient warning she might have rescheduled clients.

And even though the salon is closed on Mondays, Hydro Quebec's rescheduled work was another surprise.

"They had never confirmed that they were going to come back on June 6th," said Rifai.