Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT supplies fuel to 44 of our communities. In most of those communities, the GNWT owns the bulk fuel storage facilities. However, in at least one community, Cambridge Bay, a private company owns the bulk fuel storage facility. This company charges the GNWT a storage fee for POL products in order to receive a return on their capital investment. These storage charges are added by the Department of Public Works and Services to the POL prices paid by consumers. In all other communities, where the government has spent millions of dollars in capital investments to establish and maintain their tank farms, no charges for the capital cost are factored into the POL prices paid by consumers. Mr. Speaker, this is an unacceptable and unfair situation. The GNWT, by passing on their storage fees, has created an inequity by passing on the responsibility to provide bulk fuel storage facilities in Cambridge Bay. Based on the GNWT's POL retail price list of November 1, 1992, Cambridge Bay and Bathurst Inlet consumers pay 95 cents a litre for gasoline. We share this distinction with residents of Snare Lake, as having the highest price in the NWT and possibly North America.

Mr. Speaker, the Kitikmeot region pays the highest cost of fuel oil products in the entire Northwest Territories. The average litre price for gasoline and heating oil in the NWT,-- again based on those GNWT retail price lists of November 1, 1992,-- per region is as follows: for gasoline, the Baffin averages 66.8 cents per litre, the Keewatin is 72.4 cents, the Inuvik region is 73.1 cents, in Fort Smith it's 76 cents and in the Kitikmeot it is 86 cents a litre; for heating oil, the Baffin is 59 cents, the Keewatin and Inuvik and at 63 cents, Fort Smith 65 cents and the Kitikmeot is 73.8 cents.

Four to five communities paying over 90 cents per litre for gasoline in the NWT are from Kitikmeot. Six out of the nine communities paying over 70 cents a litre for heating oil are from the Kitikmeot.