Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of MACA, who is also the Minister responsible for consumer protection in the Northwest Territories.
I’ve been receiving a number of calls and complaints from residents about fuel pricing here in Yellowknife. I’m having trouble helping them or explaining to them how pricing is arrived at here in Yellowknife. I can’t explain it. World oil prices go down; prices in southern Canada go down corresponding to those world oil prices — in some cases just recently 12 to 15 cents a litre. But here in Yellowknife it takes a week or ten days before an adjustment is made to the prices at the pump or the fuel truck. Then when oil prices rise, it’s almost an immediate hit at the pump and at the fuel truck for residents here in Yellowknife.
I’m wondering if the Minister can help me and help residents in this market in Yellowknife explain why that is.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The consumer protection branch section of MACA is responsible for responding to complaints from consumers about business practices that are unscrupulous or unethical. So far we have not had a direct complaint about gas prices and the possibility being raised by the Member.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I am appreciative of the concerns out there. The rising gas prices are a concern. As far as I know, and having done research in this area in my other capacities, the gas price at the pump is fixed. About 85 per cent of that price is fixed by the crude oil price and some taxation by various levels of the government — federal, provincial and territorial. Incidentally, territorial taxes on the fuel have not gone up since 1992.
There is room there where the prices are determined by not just the cost of bringing the fuel up to destinations but by what’s called rack price, where they look at what other retailers are charging. So there is room where the operators seem to decide what the price is that they think they can sell it for.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that. I’m familiar with the Yellowknife market. If you look at the retailers here in Yellowknife, everybody seems to have the same price, which would lead me to believe that there’s some type of price fixing going on.
Like I said, there is no corresponding decrease at the pump or at the fuel truck when world oil prices come down, like there is in southern Canada. I do believe that there should be an investigation. I do believe that the consumer protection division at MACA should work with the federal Competition Bureau and look at this, have an investigation. I think the residents here in Yellowknife and maybe in the other market communities.... I’m not familiar with those outside Yellowknife. Maybe we should have a look at that.
I’d like to ask the Minister how her department can work with the federal Competition Bureau to have an investigation on fuel pricing here.
The Consumer Protection Act that my department of MACA works under does not have a legislative mechanism to control price changes and frequency and how much. Also, the NWT is not one of the jurisdictions that regulates fuel prices. There are four in Canada who do that.
I’m also aware of situations where there are occasions where price fixing or coercion charges were looked into, and those have not been found to be the case. The only example we know of is an isolated case in Quebec.
Now, having said that, all are options we could consider — it’s not a MACA responsibility — as a government, and we could work with the federal government on how to address this very pressing issue. I’m willing to work with our Members of the Cabinet and the Members of this House to see what options are available for us to address these issues.
With winter coming I think it’s very important. I want to get a commitment today from the Minister that the government will engage the Competition Bureau of Canada to have a look at the price fixing that’s obviously going on here in Yellowknife and perhaps in other market communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Charges of price fixing or gouging or coercion are very serious. I don’t have any evidence to prove that right now, but I am willing to see what mechanisms we have in place to look into that and what options are available to the government and work with whatever agencies are out there to see if we could address that question.
In Yellowknife, though, we have a free market. I understand that the Direct Charge Co-op chose not to increase their prices. The other retailers did. Eventually everybody started buying gas at Co-op and the other parties lowered their prices — another situation of free market answering that question in an immediate way.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve lived in Yellowknife for almost 29 years, and I don’t really recall there being any difference in prices at the pump for any extended period of time whatsoever in that 29 years, and I’ve been driving since I was 18.
Again, I want to ask the Minister: will the Government of the Northwest Territories engage the federal Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into fuel pricing in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
I will undertake to look to see what they can do and what the process is, and I will provide that information to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
