Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The budget does mention the reorganization of the NTPC and reducing our electrical rates for household and commercial. Mr. Speaker, I’m really pleased to see that. Minister Bob McLeod and I went to Nahanni Butte, and it was kind of confusing because the store there actually raised the prices of the food and here in our committee system when we were talking with the Energy Coordinating Committee, we were supposed to put a process in place, Mr. Speaker, to kind of watch businesses, because it was supposed to lower the cost of living in our communities, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of the Energy Coordinating Committee what processes are in place to help monitor the private businesses so that they can apply their cost savings to the public. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister responsible for the Energy Coordinating Committee, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We had a very informative trip to Nahanni Butte. Coming back to Yellowknife I had an opportunity to check further into it and upon looking at the electrical bills, we realized that the store had just received their electrical bills and it was quite gratifying to see that after all this work that the bills have finally been reduced significantly. So I expect that we’ll be seeing the impacts of that soon. As well, we will be working very closely with the Stats Bureau to monitor all of the costs.
Of course, when we did meet with the retailers or the people that run the stores, they were all very open. They said they wanted to have a transparent process, when we talked about how we could provide for lower commercial rates so that could be passed on to the consumers. We will be working very closely as a top priority to make sure those reductions are passed on. Thank you.
I think we were supposed to set up some sort of mechanism to monitor it, but on a larger question, as well, Mr. Speaker, in all our communities I think one of the largest retailers is Northern Stores. Have they been engaged in the cost reduction of electricity? Will they pass the savings on to the consumers? Has the government been working with Northern Stores in that regard? Thank you.
Northern Stores was probably one of the first retailers that we met with to talk about what we could do to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. Northern Stores has indicated that their preference was to find ways to reduce their utilization of energy and also reduce energy costs, and, of course, they said their preference was to have a transparent process so that people could see what they were doing. Northern Stores has spent a lot of time in changing their cooling systems, their freezers, also changing their utilization of lights. We had identified $3 million a year for developing some sort of commercial subsidy to reduce the costs to people that buy from food stores and so on, so we used that and so we were able to reduce the rates significantly and that’s being passed on to the consumers. We are following up with Northern Stores to make sure that happens. Thank you.
Yes, constituents have approached me with regard to the pricing at the Northern Stores. They feel it’s quite high, but here we’ve got opportunities because their O and M will be going down. Just once again, has the Minister dealt recently with the management of Northern Stores? I saw them, in fact, in a coordinated ad with NCPC that they will pass the savings on to the consumers. At what point, and how can we gauge that, and how can we support that, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
We are in direct communications with Northern Stores and I’ve directed my staff to follow up with Northern Stores, so I hope to be able to share this information with all the Members in the very near future. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. If Northern Stores is that engaged, is there a way to make that public? Because I was actually in Wrigley and just with the power rates alone, I visited a couple, I showed them where the savings were, and they were quite pleased that it was visible, that there certainly is saving in their own power bill. But just in terms of Northern Stores, is there something we do just to show the public that the cost-savings can be applied to the retailers and to our public as well, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
As the Minister of Finance has indicated in his budget speech, we will also be tracking it through the Statistics Bureau and I expect we’ll be reporting on a basket of goods on a regular basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
