Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see that even in one of my communities when the government is selling non-government customers fuel or heating fuel, or gas, that the GST is, like, over eight percent. So why is that?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chairman, the GST rate is seven percent and that's all we can collect on that side. So if the Member would like to raise a specific issue about that, I'd gladly look into it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know I have here the breakdown from the Public Works and Services and all the GST that's applied, even government's, is over seven percent, and to non-government customers it's seven and 8.39 percent. So, to me, GST is seven percent and that's the end of the story. I can't see why non-government customers, especially private individuals in these remote communities, are paying more than the required GST amount that the federal government needs. So maybe the department has to go back and sort of revisit the whole GST scenario, but I'll leave that up to the Minister to follow up on.

Just with the question of the operation and maintenance costs associated with the pricing of the fuel, I just want to ask the Minister if some of these O and M costs...I know some communities are getting new tank farms, and some communities have old tank farms, and some communities move more fuel than others. I'm just wondering if the O and M is directly related to some of these differences in the various regions, or is it just one flat rate for everybody? Is that equalization? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the O and M side of the equation, the way it breaks out is every community pays the same O and M charge that is levied out there. So it's not specific to a community or the volume of sales for that community. An O and M levy is placed on every customer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To me, if we want to make it fair and equitable to everybody, I think we have to make adjustments to every aspect of the whole pricing system. I think some of the newer tank farms don't require as much O and M as some of the older ones and the more remote communities, and I think that should be reflected in the price that a community is actually paying for. A community that moves a million litres a year should be paying, because the economy as a scale should be paying less overall for a community that moves 200,000 litres a year. I think that should be reflected in the community's costs somewhat, because I know up and down the Mackenzie Valley probably more fuel is moving in and out of those remote communities as opposed to, say, a community like Lutselk'e. But again, maybe that's something that the department has to revisit, and if we want to make this fuel pricing fair to everybody and everybody pay their costs associated with it, I think every part of the whole pricing system has to be adjusted to reflect the real costs. That was basically the main concern I had with the PPD and Public Works and Services. Other than that, I know that during the budget process we've got a lot of other questions related to the energy efficiency measures that the department will be taking on, and we're going to be going through that and bringing up some of those issues a little later on today in the deliberations. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, if we were to have every community pay actually fully burdened costs for supplying fuel in communities, it would be significantly higher than we sell it now. As I stated earlier, the capital portion of the tank farms in communities is not incorporated in any pricing. So if we were to go strictly on a fully burdened full-cost recovery on every community, the price of gas and fuel in the communities would be significantly higher because of the remoteness, the transportation costs of getting that, and the construction of those types of facilities. So the way we've structured it for our O and M costs has been as

fair as we can develop it. If we were going to go the full private sector style where each community would set its own rate based on volume and so on, then we'd also have to incorporate an actual capital cost feature in there to recover those so that there is a fund building up to replace those facilities in those communities, and that would be much higher than we'd want to pass on to those residents in the smaller communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. General comments, Public Works and Services.

Detail, okay. If Members would please turn in their books to page 5-10 under Public Works and Services, this is an information item and it is a revenue summary. That's where we will start. We'll come back to the operations expenditure summary after we've considered the other pages. So page 5-10, information item, revenue summary. Agreed?

Thank you. Page 5-13, directorate, operations expenditures summary, $7.341 million. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The activity description in this area, the Public Works and Services directorate defines a number of areas of responsibility and it's not directly stated here, Madam Chair, but I was wondering if under this area here I could ask about Public Works and Services' involvement with the Arctic Energy Alliance. This alliance, Madam Chair, was created several years ago as a partnership among several different GNWT departments and some of the energy utilities, and I would just like to get a sense of where Public Works and Services stands. Are they currently a member of the alliance? Do they make a contribution to its operation, Madam Chair? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, Public Works and Services was a part of the Arctic Energy Alliance and we contributed to it. The 2005-06 budget, it was one of the areas where we reduced, but the acting deputy will be making a call to the president of Arctic Energy Alliance and we will become a contributing member once again in 2006-07. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden.

Okay. Thank you. I am very pleased to hear that. I made no bones, Madam Chair, about my trust and faith in the Arctic Energy Alliance to be a good and effective player in our long-term energy management, and I am pleased to hear the department is coming back into the fold. Will this be on a full-term and equal basis with the other departments and other partners, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We will be matching the contributions of other departments, yes.