Mr. Speaker, on the second day of session I brought up the issue of the fuel shortage in Inuvik. This is a couple of weeks later, and after some correspondence back and forth, I find today that we are no better off than we were before. As a matter of fact, we are in worse shape than we were before.
The reason I bring that up is that talking to one of the gas bars up there, I was informed that they were critically low on fuel and that they weren’t getting anymore, and that it had to be trucked in from Edmonton. At the other gas bar up there, it is trucked in from Whitehorse. And all of this while Esso has a tank down there with a certain amount of fuel in it that they figure they have the right to ration to these folks, who then have to bring fuel in up by truck. They don’t want to, but to recover some of their costs, they have to pass it down on to the consumer.
I was informed yesterday that the prices have gone up again for gas in Inuvik. They are expected to go up again.
The reason that I have brought this up again is because I got a call from a senior last night who had some grave concerns about the prices continually going up. It is tough on seniors who are living on fixed incomes and who stay in their own houses and are paying a lot of their own expenses. This is extremely difficult on them. A lot of these folks go out on the land, and this affects them. Everything is going up in Inuvik. Everything is going up.
I feel for the agent and the two gas suppliers up there, who in my opinion are being held hostage by the supplier, being Esso. They have the gas there, but they think they have the right to hold it back, and the prices are going up and it is affecting everything up there. The private industry…. The government has an obligation to protect the consumers.
I will be posing questions to the Premier at the appropriate time to see what this government can do to bridge the gap between the supplier and the consumer.
