Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve heard some really good questions from Members on this side of the House today in terms of how we’re trying to address the cost of living in the small communities and all communities across the NWT. We’ve also heard subsidies. Just in terms of heating fuel, this government over the last five years, including this fiscal year, has subsidized public housing units and affordable housing units to the tune of $39 million in heating fuel alone. We have residents out there who pay market rent or who also own their own homes.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance, seeing as he does write off on these subsidies, if he’s willing to look at subsidizing specifically homeowners on the high cost of fuel, heating fuel, as well as small business operators. Is he looking at creating some type of subsidy for these individuals who, as one other Minister stated last week, are the backbone of our economy? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last three years with Inuvik’s troubles with their gas wells taking on water and the issue of using propane, between the Power Corp and the government, we’ve put in about $8 million to make sure we’ve tried to cushion the blow of the loss of the gas. We’ve switched the Power Corp initially to diesel; we switched our buildings back to diesel to make sure we freed up much cheaper gas to the people of Inuvik. On top of that we have a lot of programs for conservation, energy efficiencies, appliances, insulation, windows, which reduce your energy requirements. But as the Premier indicated, we’re talking about it through the Energy Charrette and the focus on generation looking at spending tens upon tens of millions of dollars to assist communities to deal with generation issues. For example, in Inuvik we’ve been monitoring the wind at Storm Hills between Inuvik and Tuk, and we know that there’s a capacity there that we could put in eight or nine megawatt wind generators that would cut reliance on diesel in Inuvik and probably Tuk by half. That’s about a 30 to 40 million dollar price tag. Those are the kind of investments, rather than subsidies, that we think would be of much bigger benefit, would minimize our reliance on diesel, cut all those greenhouse gases and lower the cost to communities.
One of the challenges on the power side is that the residential rates are pegged to the Yellowknife rate. Unfortunately, the business rates are not. They pay the fully burdened cost. So that, as well, is an issue we have to look at as we look at rate structures across the Northwest Territories, especially when it comes to essential services like food. Thank you.
Thank you. We’ve had this discussion throughout the elected Assembly with the issue going on in Inuvik with the LNG fuel shortage, all those concerns brought up before. My question was specific to the homeowner and small business operator and that they can actually get subsidized, so at the end of the day they have a few dollars in their pocket so they can get the essential services, such as food, that the Minister mentioned in his response.
Once again I’d like to ask the Minister, is he looking at some type of subsidy for the homeowner so that at the end of the day they’re not paying the full costs, as well as the small business operator who is paying the full cost? Is there a subsidy to them so that at the end of the day they have a few dollars in their pocket so they can get the essential services? The homeowner and the small business operator. Thank you.
As I indicated, we are looking at trying to minimize the reliance on diesel. We’re looking at a whole host of ways to do that. So no, there is no subsidy for heating fuel being considered. If we did it we’d have to do it for every thermal community, we’d have to do it across the Northwest Territories. It would be tremendously expensive and at the end of the day I don’t think it would do much over the long term to minimize reliance and encourage people to look at other alternatives other than diesel. Thank you.
I understand that if you do it for all thermal communities that it would get to a high cost burden on government. However, this year alone, ’14-15, we’re subsidizing heating fuel for public housing, affordable housing units in the Northwest Territories to the tune of $9 million. You add to that electrical power, water and sanitation, this year we’re subsidizing all communities to the amount of $25 million, almost $26 million, and that’s not even including any supplementary appropriations that we might see come before committee at some point. So, we’re doing it right now for public housing units.
Why can’t we do it for some communities to our homeowners who are paying high costs and having a hard time making it by? Why can’t we do that? Thank you.
Thank you. That’s part of the $200 million that the Premier referenced that we’re paying in subsidies, and if we’re going to do that for every homeowner and every business in the Northwest Territories, then I would suggest that even the hydro community folks would be there demanding that they have to pay heating fuel as well. I think it would truly beggar this government and would be very counterproductive if we just subsidized the cost of fuel. There would be no incentive for business to drop the prices.
As the world price goes down, they know that whatever they charge we will pay. We’re far better off, the people are far better off if you get off diesel, you put in pellets, you cut your energy costs, you do the things you need to do to get off this substance that’s driving you bankrupt. So that’s the issue that we’re looking at as a government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is correct in looking at alternative energy sources. A lot of those in past budgets, committee on this side had to do a lot of fighting to get some of those into the operating budgets.
We’ve got about 80 homes for sale in Inuvik. That means people are leaving and wanting to leave. They can’t pay their heating bills or their power bills because it’s too high. That’s 80 homes. That’s a lot of people leaving the community.
I’m not asking for a subsidy throughout the whole Northwest Territories. My Member’s statement and my questions today are specific to Inuvik because of the high cost of living.
Would he look at the community of Inuvik and look at the homeowner and look at the small business operator, which is getting fewer and fewer every year, every month? Would he look just specifically at the community of Inuvik and see what he could do to help the homeowner and to help the small business operator? Thank you.
We, as a government, have mapped out our next steps, now that we know the transmission project is prohibitively expensive to look at generation in all the communities. That is the plan where we believe there is the ability to seriously affect the cost of living.
The Member would know, as a Member of this Legislative Assembly, while from Inuvik, to look at all the needs of people in the Northwest Territories, that it would not be possible just to look at Inuvik as a stand-alone community for some special subsidy when you listen to the cost of living in McPherson and Tsiigehtchic and Sachs and Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok and Aklavik that we could not in good conscience just look at Inuvik. We are back to the issue of what is the long-term benefit. Are we just enabling and are we better off to do the planning to get people off diesel rather than just keep subsidizing and putting more money in the pockets of the oil companies and the big energy companies? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.
