Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about the cost of home heating oil, diesel for vehicles, and gasoline in the Northwest Territories. In the last government we had a fairly keen focus on the cost of living. When we talk about the cost of living, certainly heating our homes and our businesses, driving our vehicles, snow machines, quads, mobile equipment, fishing, going on the land, all of these things are very much affected by the cost of diesel or gasoline. I don’t think anyone could argue that these are very essential commodities everywhere, especially here in the North.
The Competition Bureau of Canada has commissioned studies on the relationship of crude oil prices to retail and wholesale gasoline prices. These studies have found that gasoline prices generally do track crude prices, but there can be a delay of up to two months before it decreases or increases and crude oil prices are passed along to the consumer. At the same time, some of those studies found that variations in crude oil prices are only one of the factors that influence retail prices.
I would like to suggest to you that when the price of crude goes up, there is no two-month delay in the price going up at the pump or with the truck that delivers your home heating fuel. I think that there are variables that do affect the prices from region to region. Jurisdictionally there are taxes that affect the price of fuel. There are transportation distances to get the product to market. There is the time of the purchase and the storage factor that needs to be taken into consideration; also the volume of sales. Certainly people who are retailing outlets that sell less product with overhead will be passing on those overhead costs on a per-unit basis for what they sell.
This issue has been raised to me by my constituents who are curious. What their perception is, is that when the price of crude goes up, the price at the pump goes up; when the price of crude goes down, the price at the pump stays up. This is the perception.
I’d like to know if this government thinks that they have any role in the consumer protection function and that this government can play a part in analyzing this, studying this. We are a very captive market here. We don’t have a lot of options when it comes to buying these products.
I’ll have questions later today for the relevant Minister.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
