Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there is a potential risk here. For example, if the trend was starting to go up and we decided to buy in future markets a year or two years down the road, thinking that this trend is going up and will stay that way, and we purchased at that time and as it got time to deliver that fuel the price actually went below, we would end up paying the higher price. That's the risk in this. If the trend suddenly drops off, then we would take the hit on that. If we had this in place...We'll just use the example of this past summer's experience. We had a very large and fluctuating market. The increase climbed steadily over a number of weeks and months. In fact, daily changes were happening and if we ended up two years prior buying on a future market and hit that price on a high end...It has since come down, as we've seen in the private markets. We would be paying that higher price. So that is the danger of that, and we would have to make sure what we put in place, and our estimates used in watching the market would have to be finely tuned. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

So then, if I could offer a bit of advice, it's that you shouldn't do as I do in the stock market. You should not buy...How does it work now? I can't even figure that one out. You don't want to buy high and sell low, for what it's worth. Mr. Chairman, finally, will the department be able to sort of track its performance once we start using this methodology here so that we can get some sense of have we actually achieved some savings, or potentially have we cost ourselves some money? Would that be able to be measured and reported, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we will be able to track how purchases are done and how effective this may be. We do tracking already on the existing operations we have just in cost of product and so on, and the trend has been an upward one over the years. But for this purpose, yes, we will have to make sure we put in a good tracking system.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And reporting? The results? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Yes, as well we'll be reporting to this House as well as to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have Mr. Yakeleya next. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to make a few comments to the Minister. Mr. Chairman, the Minister in his notes and talked during questions with the other MLAs in regards to this bill here. I'm somewhat concerned, I guess, in terms of the...I want to know if this bill was taken by this department, this government, to competitive market price competitors in terms of competing with other private business in the North or the region in terms of having flexibility now in the market and buying bulk sales. You may have some fuel that could be seen or perceived lower than the private market people out there selling fuel and they're going to...Yes, poor granny in Nahanni. I guess I want to ask about that in terms of the intent in that where there could be some places where you're going to squeeze out the market and the government may be going in this direction if it's not careful. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this proposal and the amendment before the Members are not going to change the way we do business in communities on a day-to-day process. What it will give us is, at the time we want to purchase fuel, if we see a trend going up we can use, for example, an 18-month window. That's sort of the extreme it would do for how far out we might go to a market and say we want to purchase this amount of fuel at this price. That's all it would do. It wouldn't give us how we do our dealings in communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have no arguments with the Minister about the way they're looking at living by this new bill here. My question again is that they talked about buying bulk fuel with NCPC and having bulk fuel in the North here and in the regions. This bulk fuel may be used sometimes as a means to sell to other companies that may see that they have lower prices than the private market. I'm scared that this bill may leave some flexibilities here. We are in the business of too bad for the private businessman. Lower the costs. As they call it, sharpen your pencils. As government, we might be heading in this direction. That's all my concern. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our policy from within government is not to compete with the private sector. If there's a private sector in the community that delivers fuel, right now we have the process of standing back to see if they're successful before we would pull out, but there is not privatization initiatives on the books. Of course, the product in the community, it's for sale. Those that would come and pay the price that we have established, it's there for them because we would be the only supplier. That's the way we would continue to operate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I get the intention of this bill and the community that only has the territorial government being the supplier of fuel sales. That's fine. It's where there are communities who have other suppliers in the community or region that we are, you know, this bill allows some flexibility, it allows us to be in the market in terms of the sales. Then they stated they're not in the competition business or competing, but certainly if somebody came to them and said we want to buy some fuel off you guys, I mean, certainly you can say have you checked the other places? You know? That's what I'm getting at. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this bill does not change the way we do operations. All this bill allows us is the purchasing of fuel. Not on the sales and dispensing of fuel. This only deals with how we would purchase fuel from the market. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this bill allows them to purchase fuel. There's something else that allows them to distribute the fuel or deliver the fuel. This allows them to purchase, and I understand this bill, I guess there's something more. Maybe I'm reading into it. I'm going to leave it at that right now, Mr. Chairman. The Minister knows my concerns that I've raised and I know this bill is something the Minister is working for the benefit of the Northwest Territories. So I'm going to leave it at that right now. Thank you.