Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about the rising costs of petroleum products. Everything we do in the North, it seems like we rely on these products to drive our vehicles, industry depends on it, subsistence harvesting, we heat our homes with heating oil. Even in Hay River where we use propane, that’s tied to the price of oil, that’s how they set the price of propane.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs if his department has been doing any monitoring and research to look at the correlation between the prices on the world market and the prices that we are charged on a retail basis here in the Northwest Territories where we are a very captive market at the end of a long road.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was driving down the road today, I was passing a gas station, and I noticed the price on there was $1.38.9, and I thought, well, geez, I’m sure the rest of the Northwest Territories would love to pay that even if it was reversed, $1.89.3, because that’s what a lot of people are paying in some of the higher Arctic communities or the community I represent.
But in 2013, October 2013, we tabled a report that we had commissioned comparing the prices in the Northwest Territories to the rest of the country. We had a lot of different prices across the country. Here in the capital, actually, the price is lower than some of the southern jurisdictions. That, I was quite surprised to find. The conclusion of the report was that we didn’t feel that there was a need to regulate gasoline prices in the Northwest Territories.
The world price for oil has gone down substantially in the last few months. It is the leading story often on the evening news as markets respond to this declining price.
What’s the lag or delay time between when those prices appear and when we might actually see some relief in the prices that we pay at the truck and at the pump here in the Northwest Territories? How is that regulated?
In a lot of the market communities, a lot of these are driven by what the actual owners of these gas stations pay for the product that they bring in. I’m sure if they bring product in at a lower price, then that price will also be reflected at the pump. I’ve seen it firsthand where our supplier got some gasoline a little cheaper and our prices actually had gone down by a few cents. My understanding is the prices here in the capital have been fairly level for the last 18 months.
---Interjection
Four years. They’ve been fairly level for the last four years.
There’s an opportunity for consumers out there if they feel that there’s price fixing or price maintenance, there’s an opportunity for them to contact Competition Canada, because they enforce the Competition Act and they would be able to do an investigation into the concerns of the consumers that call them.
As the only government department that is involved in the protection of consumers through, I don’t know if it’s an agency or secretariat, consumer affairs in the Northwest Territories, does the Minister see his department having any role with respect to that federal Competition Act? Is that something that he, through his department, could be involved in on behalf of consumers in the Northwest Territories if those complaints were raised to him?
I’m sure the role we can play is if we were to get some complaints, I’m sure we can forward those on to the Competition Bureau of Canada, or we can put the information on the website that we’ve just developed where we’ve provided a bunch of information to people. We can make it known what their numbers are, if people have a concern. But again, we’ve had one complaint, I believe, in the last year.
Obviously, being consumer affairs and people expecting us to assist them when they have concerns is something that we should have a look at to see if we can forward their concerns to the Competition Bureau of Canada.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not here to launch any kind of attack on retailers of petroleum products, but I guess we’re so attentive to these costs and the cost of living in the North that it’s something that catches our attention and we think that we should also realize the benefits when the prices go down.
When the GNWT buys petroleum products and then redistributes them to the small communities where there is no private retailer involved, what’s the lag time? Like, how far ahead do they buy or fix those prices?
That, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I would have to consult with the Minister of Public Works, who is responsible for bringing fuel into the communities. I will have that conversation with the Minister and share the findings with the Member.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
