Mr. Speaker, the first day of session I spoke to the extremely high power rates residents of Inuvik were facing. And we’re a gas community — supposedly a gas community. Power rates are affecting everything in Inuvik. The recreation facilities are being affected; the goods and services that are sold are being affected. Our power rates have gone up. We have the gas field 20 kilometres

from town. We still pay less than they do in a place like Norman Wells. If we want to levelize, we can levelize the gas communities: Inuvik and Norman Wells. We’ll get good rates for both communities, I’m sure.

But the cost of power, electricity, has been a concern. I had to do some research and ask some questions, because I wasn’t sure how this was going to affect Inuvik. Inuvik is a gas community, so it wouldn’t affect us that much. I would like to see…. You look at the power rates that are paid across the Northwest Territories — and I understand some are hydro communities, and they have a lot lower rates than some; I see some where they pay $2 — the prices are just unreal across the board. I understand that the Power Corp needs to make a return on their investment.

We talk about energy-efficient appliances all the time. We try to educate people as to converting to energy-efficient appliances, and they’ve taken our direction. A lot of them have moved over to more energy-efficient appliances. Then power goes up, in my opinion to compensate for less power being used. I have an issue with that, and I think it’s happened. I look at the documentation we get, and you see the diesel riders, the shortfall riders, and I was just noticing another one: Rider 1. It doesn’t even say what it’s for; it just says Rider 1. We’ve got a whole posse of riders out there.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would support this motion. I had some questions first, and I was okay with the answers I was given. But if this is an opportunity to lower the cost of living in the communities across the Territories, then it’s something that I’m all for and I think we should all be for, because everything that goes on in communities is affected by power. The higher the rate, the more that people have to pay.

You get places like Inuvik, for example, and if one of the big stores were to get off the power grid and pull in their own generator, that would drive everybody else’s prices up. So this is something that we have to look at. Personally, I would like to see one rate zone right across the Northwest Territories. But there will be some resistance to that….

Interjection.