Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Public Works and Services. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, the high cost of fuel prices in the community of Tsiigehtchic. It’s not bad enough we’re paying $8 per litre of milk, now the price of heating fuel has gone up.
I’d like to ask the Minister: Can the Minister explain the huge increase in the price of fuel for Tsiigehtchic?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Public Works, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The biggest contributor to the increase of heating fuel has been the wholesale cost of fuel. The wholesale cost of fuel over a 12-month period from early 2013 to early 2014 was 20 cents a litre. That is the price increase of the wholesale price when we purchased it Edmonton, and somehow that contributed to, for example, an increase of 17 cents a litre in Yellowknife.
I was actually asking about Tsiigehtchic. I wasn’t too concerned about Yellowknife. The prices here are, I believe, $1.38 per litre. The residents of Tsiigehtchic want to know why they feel the communities are always hit with the highest prices. As well, Tsiigehtchic is on the Mackenzie River system.
Can we reduce the cost by bringing fuel in to the community by barge?
I was just making a comparison to the increase in YK. The Member is right; the increase in Tsiigehtchic, although we purchased the price of wholesale fuel for 20 cents a litre more, we charged 19 cents a litre more in Tsiigehtchic, so we did that by trying to use our Stabilization Fund to hold the price for a few months until the winter season was over so that the individuals in the smaller communities weren’t hit with the high fuel prices that we purchased in January. We held the price using our Stabilization Fund until the end of the winter season so that we would try to somehow keep the cost as low as possible for the homeowners.
One of our priorities for this government is to reduce the cost of living in our communities.
How does the Minister plan to address the impacts of increased fuel prices on the quality of life in our smaller communities?
We do try to buy fuel, heating fuel, motor fuel and gasoline at the lowest possible price. We do make a call on the price of gasoline. We do buy mid-grade gasoline. It’s very important to the communities to have gasoline that doesn’t de-grade. If we buy low-grade gasoline, which is four cents a litre cheaper, the communities also realize that sometimes when we buy a lower grade gasoline there have been issues with snowmobiles and boat motors and so on. When people are out on the land, it’s essential that they have good gas, so we do pay four cents a litre more for that, but we do try to get the lowest possible price. Then we blend the rates and we try not to give people shocking fuel price increases. Even if we are paying those increases, to try to hold the price as much as possible by using our Stabilization Fund.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister explain some of the differences between the Northwest Territories petroleum products supply and Nunavut’s bulk fuel purchases that have allowed them to stabilize fuel costs while prices in the Northwest Territories continue to rise?
I’m not familiar with the policy that Nunavut employs. The policy that we use is to provide fuel, heating fuel and gasoline to communities where there are no individuals that consider it marketable to be able to sell fuel, so the government steps in as a last resource to provide that service to the individuals. The government tries to come in at the exact cost of fuel and we sell it for the cost of operating and purchasing and transporting the fuel to the community.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
