Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in my Member’s statement, I talked about the cost of living in the Northwest Territories. As we watch the news, we can see the price of crude oil has dropped 25 percent in the very last weeks and months. I would challenge the retailers of these petroleum products in the Northwest Territories, to ask them why the prices for our home heating oil and our fuel at the pump has not gone down accordingly.
They used to say that it was inventory in their tanks and they only got it in every so often, so although the price of crude may change or the price per barrel of oil may change, that it was a long delay before we’d see the change in the price. But, Mr. Speaker, now we have the Deh Cho Bridge. They can bring the fuel in every day if they want to.
I would like to ask questions later on today about what our government is doing. At the beginning of the 17th Assembly, I posed a question to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, as the consumer affairs Minister, and asked him what our government was going to do to protect consumers of the Northwest Territories from unfair prices, price setting, prices that are not reflective of what world prices are. At that time the Minister committed to begin tracking within his department the correlation between the price of crude oil and the price that we were paying as consumers at the pump and at the truck when they deliver home heating oil to our homes. I would like to ask the Minister later today how he’s doing with that correlation and that report. I’d like to see what it looks like.
I also raised, at that time, that in the Atlantic provinces of Canada, they actually have price regulation. I think these are things we have to think about. When we talk about the cost of living, the Government of the Northwest Territories has intervened to shield consumers of the cost of the anticipated increase in the cost of power with a $20 million injection so that consumers wouldn’t have to bear that. Yet we have a seemingly essential commodity like petroleum products which people can put any price they want on it with literally no restraint, no monitoring and no regulation by this government whatsoever.
As I said, later today I’m going to be asking the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, in his role as protector of consumer rights, what this government has thought of doing, because we are not seeing the decrease in the price that we are seeing on the news and this is a big issue. Winter is upon us. We need cheaper fuel. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
