Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On February 28th this House passed a motion regarding fuel price regulation, to investigate and evaluate the possibilities of gas price regulation here in the Northwest Territories.
My question to the Premier of our Assembly here is: What has this government done to date in preparing for the 120-day response over gas price regulation for the people of the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very sensitive area. We are working to find solutions, and we’re trying to find out why a carbon tax is embedded in the high prices for gasoline.
I’m not sure what carbon tax has to do with anything on this. My question for the Premier, once again, is: What work has been done to date preparing for the official response to the House on gas price regulation, which the request was to investigate and evaluate that possibility?
As usual, we’re doing our due diligence. We’re going out to look at best practices. We’re going out to all of the provinces to see how successful or how well they’re doing with regulating the prices. I think that we always feel that, let the private sector do it; the private sector can do a better job. We don’t want to get in a situation where we regulate industry and then government is going to have to operate all of the service stations. We’re checking to see how well other provinces are doing or if there is something there that we can emulate.
When I hear the Premier how he feels about this issue, I mean, to be quite frank, I don’t care how he personally feels. But it sounds as if the decision has already been made on that biasness, and there are five provinces who already regulate as very good and simple models.
What type of public input has the Premier gone to beyond his personal feelings, or the government’s feelings, of price regulation? What type of public input on what the people would like on this issue? That’s ultimately the question here is: Is price regulation needed in the Northwest Territories, and is it wanted by citizens?
We haven’t gone out with a survey or… I would imagine that everybody wants lower prices, so I think it’s a given that the people of the Northwest Territories want lower prices. The MLA from Tsiigehtchic indicated they’re paying $1.99 for gas, so obviously, that’s something. We want to find a way to reduce the cost of living in all of the communities in the Territories.
When you look at some of the prices that are regulated – I think PEI is one of the places – and the last time I checked, it was something in the neighbourhood of $1.31 a litre for gasoline, and that’s a regulated price in Prince Edward Island. We are looking at different approaches, and as part of our business planning, we will see what we can propose to try to find a way to reduce gasoline prices.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think even our own economic opportunities group that was doing a study on creating a robust environment for business cited concerns about the difficulty in prices around fuel in every region.
Would the Premier provide an opportunity for the public to provide some public input on their feelings on this particular issue? Will he reach out to the public as they build a government position? As the Premier knows, I have an on-line petition. Will the Premier be willing to help promote that to ensure we get public input on this issue that’s so important?
I thought the Member didn’t care how I felt. Definitely, we will find a way to get public input.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
