Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The past previous winter, I think, was on record as the coldest winter we’ve experienced, and likely as the trends towards global warming continue, likely we’re going to see more cold winters up here in the NWT. Of course, colder winters have an effect on people’s homes in terms of their heating costs. My question is to the Minister of Public Works and Services.
How does this government help NWT consumers control the fuel pricing?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do this in a couple of ways. For communities that are under the petroleum products division where we are providing fuel, we only charge to the individuals the cost of the fuel plus a commission plus the transportation of the fuel. In situations where we have, in the middle of winter, a sharp increase like we had seen last February, we use the Stabilization Fund that we use to run the PPD as a division to make sure that we keep the prices stable until after the winter season, and we use up some of that Stabilization Fund in order to do that.
I’d like to thank the Minister for highlighting at least one measure that the government is undertaking. It’s stabilizing the fuel prices.
What kinds of current measures are in place to help consumers meet the high price of fuel, and also, in the future, what measures would the government contemplate if indeed we have a higher than average cold winter up here and it, of course, affects the consumers and maintaining their fuel costs to heat their homes?
Another method that the department is using, the Department of Public Works, we are trying to become anchor tenants in a lot of the communities where it’s not feasible for individual companies to have a biomass presence. What we’re trying to do as we make our units more energy efficient, we’re introducing biomass in some of our buildings so that there is some volume there for an individual to be able to… A business can be created in the small community where biomass becomes feasible for them as the distributor into a community because they would have a good anchor tenant as in the Government of the Northwest Territories. This would allow to bring in, for example, the wood pellets at a reasonable cost so that they can resell those back to individuals that can convert their units from just fuel to a combination of fuel and biomass or just biomass.
I think it’s an acknowledged fact and reality that the biggest factor, in terms of determining the vibrancy of the economy, is just the cost of infrastructure, and one of them is in terms of the fuel prices. At some point government has to step in on behalf of, of course, its citizens, and so I wanted to ask the question: What steps is the government taking to standardize fuel pricing? The Minister has outlined some complementing initiatives such as biomass as one example.
At some point will the government look at standardizing fuel prices for the NWT?
The Department of Public Works is responsible for providing fuel, heating fuel to communities where there are no other individuals that find it feasible to provide that product to the people. So in communities where our department is providing fuel, we do that and it’s just at a cost basis. There is no actual increase to the charge of fuel other than just to get it into the community and provide it to the individuals. We do have some charge that’s in the Stabilization Fund. That is something that I had indicated earlier that that type of stabilization fund is then used to support the communities or provide funding to the communities where the prices go up sharply, and we try to stabilize the costs with that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is in terms of fuel and its pricing in terms of the oil and gas industry. Surely the Minister of Public Works and Services, in terms of the department monitoring the fuel prices and its fluctuations, what future trends can northern consumers expect in terms of fuel pricing as we go into the summer, the fall and the winter?
The department does buy all fuel at wholesale. We do try to look for the best wholesale price. Having said that, I am not able to answer the Member’s question. I don’t have the information of what our anticipated fuel costs would be going into the future.
What we do is we have the trends that we recognize that fuel goes up and down on a daily basis and then slowly inching upward, but we recognize that the wholesale purchase this year compared to the wholesale purchase last year was substantially higher this year. Therefore, there were increases of up to 19 cents, 20 cents on a litre of gasoline, fuel products and so on this year over last year.
Unfortunately, going into the future, I don’t have that information with me, but I would be willing to provide that to the Member if I can get that from the organization that works on that for us.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Colleagues, before we go on today, I’d like to welcome my daughter Chelsey into the House. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
