Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our policy from within government is not to compete with the private sector. If there’s a private sector in the community that delivers fuel, right now we have the process of standing back to see if they’re successful before we would pull out, but there is not privatization initiatives on the books. Of course, the product in the community, it’s for sale. Those that would come and pay the price that we have established, it’s there for them because we would be the only supplier. That’s the way we would continue to operate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In line with our consensus style of government and being an open and transparent government, gladly I would seek the Members' input on any reduction scenarios that may come up in the future. Hopefully as we're building our position and our case before the new federal government, we will be able to instead be talking about where we invest more dollars, not how we reduce the expenditures we're in. Thank you.

Yes, as well we’ll be reporting to this House as well as to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad the Member has raised the issue of consultation again, specifically in highlighting in his Member's statement the fact that I've, in the past, presented our fiscal situation and the strategies we'd have to work with, and how I guess he would put it, has selective memory of what I've stated. For the record, Mr. Speaker, when we've put the case before Members about where our situation was, I've also informed them why our arrangements were the way they were. So just for the record, Mr. Speaker, it wasn't the fact that we would say that we did not care if large...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there is a potential risk here. For example, if the trend was starting to go up and we decided to buy in future markets a year or two years down the road, thinking that this trend is going up and will stay that way, and we purchased at that time and as it got time to deliver that fuel the price actually went below, we would end up paying the higher price. That’s the risk in this. If the trend suddenly drops off, then we would take the hit on that. If we had this in place…We’ll just use the example of this past summer’s experience. We had a very large and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if you look at the process we’re involved with on an annual basis, we’ve now worked with the Power Corporation and are pulling them into this solution where there’s bulk buying with savings for both sides. Initially, just with PPD, the communities we served, it’s in the area of -- and I believe it’s in the budget documents -- $12 million annual sales. As I stated in my comments, a one cent change in price per litre can affect us by $250,000. So on one hand, if we can get this through and be able to buy on a future market and save ourselves two or three...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this bill will not give us the flexibility of lowering the price if the product isn’t moving. The policy we have in place is that the department has to recover its full cost of fuel delivered. So unless there’s a private sector company that steps into a community and starts delivering fuel, we have to recover the cost of the actual fuel delivered.

What this bill will do for us is give us somewhat more certainty than we have right now in our ability to purchase the fuel. Instead of paying the right rack price, which can jump significantly in short periods...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, joining me today are the acting deputy minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Mike Aumond; the deputy minister of Finance, Ms. Margaret Melhorn; and, as well, we have from Justice, Ms. Patricia Gall.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess a simple example would be if we have this in place and know that a one cent per litre increase in the cost of a product would have an overall impact of $250,000 for us, we would have to transfer that increased cost on to the customer in the community. So if we were able to buy in the future, and if there was a savings of five cents or even 10 cents, that would save us passing that kind of increase on to the customers in the communities. Usually the adjustments would be in the few cent range. But as we found out this last cycle we went through re...

I am pleased to introduce Bill 13, An Act to Amend the Financial Administration Act. This bill was introduced to allow the government and, more specifically, the petroleum products revolving fund, to use commercial financial instruments, such as fuel swap transactions, when prudent, to limit the impact of movements in fuel prices.

The petroleum productions division of the Department of Public Works and Services administers the petroleum products revolving fund under the authority of the Revolving Funds Act and the Financial Administration Act. PPD provides fuel sales, dispensing and delivery...