Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think last week, or the week before, I was raising questions with the Premier, but I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation about the cost of delivering fuel.
There is a global oil glut in the world and it’s reducing gas prices across Canada. Why aren’t those gas prices being reduced in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay. Oh sorry, Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, under the Department of Public Works and Services we have a petroleum products division. That division is created with a Petroleum Products Revolving Fund. We have a certain amount of money that we use to buy fuel in communities where it is not feasible for anybody else to go into the community to sell fuel. We take communities in this Member’s riding, like Jean Marie, Nahanni, Wrigley and Trout, and in those communities no other supplier wishes to go in there and supply fuel because it’s not feasible. We are bringing it in at cost and the cost to distribute and that is it. We can charge anywhere from 95 percent of what it costs us to 105 percent, but we try to be at 100 percent as much as possible. Thank you.
When it comes to the cost of living, the purchase of fuel is very important for the small communities. The fuel is delivered once a year. They use it for hunting and trapping, they have to use it to heat their homes, especially in the wintertime, and these are fixed costs.
I’m asking the Minister: Will this government consider some kind of special subsidy, because the local prices are falling, they are almost down to $1.04 in Alberta and I know that eventually it will hit Yellowknife and our smaller communities that they will be reducing the costs. I would like to know, people in the small communities are trapped and once the gas prices and fuel prices start declining, can this government do something to help our people? Thank you.
The revolving fund that I spoke of is a fund that is put out by the government. It is, again, intended to provide fuel to communities that otherwise would not be able to have any fuel delivered into the community. Within that revolving fund there is no ability for this department or the petroleum division to subsidize any of the communities that they deliver the fuel to. Thank you.
The next logical question is, actually, why not? Why can’t we subsidize these people? The people in small communities deserve to be considered for the fuel prices being fixed and there must be a way to change it. Thank you.
The reason is because we have the revolving fund and that if we were to subsidize one community, we would have to actually take if from another community. For the most part, as I indicated, each of the communities we try to come in at 100 percent of the actual costs for us to deliver that product to a home. In some communities, the smaller communities we have tried to go below 100 percent cost, and in fact, where the subsidy is not picked up by anyone else, like some of the larger communities, at 100 percent will allow us to bring some of the higher cost fuel prices down, but not lower than 95 percent of the cost. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Robbing Peter to pay Paul I think is what the Minister said, but I don’t think that that’s the kind of solution that the government should provide to the people in the smaller communities.
I’d like to ask the Minister one more time: We just saw government write off $20 million for electrical power rate. Why can he not write off some of that money for the smaller communities that have fixed and locked-in prices?
If we were to change the Petroleum Products Revolving Fund, we would have to come back to the House. This is a fund that’s approved in the House to be able to subsidize or actually deliver fuel to communities where no other individual or private enterprise wishes to venture into. We, as a government, look forward to any community or any organization or industry that wishes to take over delivering fuel. We do it because communities need to have fuel; communities need to have gas. We do it, and we do it at cost.
Like I said, there’s a little bit of flexibility there, but beyond that there is no flexibility in this fund. If we were to build subsidies into the particular fund, then we would have to return to the House to request that that be something that we put into the fund.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
