Mr. Speaker, I want to support the intention of this motion. I do not think the intention is anything we want to argue with, or does anything but complement the efforts that we have been making as a government on this one.
I do want to point out several things, though. Last year, we had tremendous price increases and we did implement, along with the federal government, the one-time fuel rebate that was put in place. I want to emphasis "one-time".
At the direction of this House, we are undertaking a number of initiatives that the House has asked us to do. I am just a little concerned that we may be beginning to trip over ourselves here by having one set of directions, and before we get through with those ones, having another set of recommendations following up right behind it.
Last spring, we were asked to monitor the price of fuel and report back. We have been doing that. We were asked to come up with a program to look at ways we could help businesses, and we have been doing that. There are a number of initiatives that are ongoing right now through Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development to determine to what extent we need new programs and what those new programs would look like.
We are already doing some things that are not 100 percent consistent with what is being asked in this motion, but I think are aiming in the same direction. That includes some of the major initiatives in terms of assisting Inuvik with the gas pipeline, the work we are doing on the Hydro Strategy, on the new Environmental Technology Program we have initiated this year. There are a number of things that are ongoing.
I think we have to be careful we do not get so many directions and recommendations out there that we get confused about which way we are going before we put together the basis of the strategy.
One piece of the motion that caused me a bit of concern is the statement that the benefits of the program be received by Northerners by October 31, 2001. That is a pretty quick turnaround, to have programs all in place, a strategy in place, a program in place, and the cheques going out to people by the end of October. Realistically, can we be expected to achieve that kind of deadline? I doubt that we can have a whole energy strategy put together and benefits paid out to everyone in any orderly fashion by the end of October. I hope there is some flexibility on that one.
As well, I think any kind of energy subsidy has to be looked at as something that is responsive to the price of fuel. It cannot be just an ongoing subsidy that is paid out regardless of what happens to prices. As a government, we need to have that flexibility to be able to adjust any sort of subsidy program according to prices.
I am optimistic that the price of fuel is going to continue to go down. Some may not share my optimism. It is going to be hard to tell who is going to be right in the end. I doubt prices will go as low as they have been in the past, but I expect that they will be lower in the short term, at least in the next few years, than what we have experienced last year.
We do not want to get into a situation where we are getting into permanent subsidies because permanent subsidies do not work. I have seen various kinds of those over the years and they lose their meaning after a while.
Mr. Speaker, while I support the intention of the motion, there are some things in it that I believe are overlapping with the direction, the recommendations and the advice that has been provided by the House already. We want to be careful that we do not trip over some initiatives before they even get completed. Second, it is just a heads-up that I really do not believe that we will be able to deliver the benefits of this energy strategy, energy program as early as next October. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.