Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that very brief answer, Mr. Minister. I wonder if you could tell me what those policies are.

Yes, I can, but the rules of the House preclude me giving them in any great detail. I will commit to the Member that we will forward to the Member the luminous policies that are there in regard to print advertising.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement on the net metering issue. It involves, I believe, the Minister of ENR for renewable energy, the Minister of NTPC, Mr. Roland, and the Minister of PUB, Mr. McLeod.

So I don’t have a druthers on who this is directed at, but I’d like to begin by finding out exactly what regulatory process is required to set up net metering for Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of net metering is one that has been looked at. In fact, a recommendation was made by the PUB through, I believe, the 2006–2008 General Rate Application. At that point there was direction given to look at what opportunities there were and come back with a proposal on that. It affects a number of areas. For example, when an individual or a company is generating power for themselves and they want to hook up to the system, there’s the interconnection guidelines that have to fall into place. They’ve been working on those.

The Power Corporation itself is open to having discussions with individuals who would like to hook up to the system. There are a number of factors that do fall into this, though. It is, for example, building into the rates if they’re going to buy power from a company or an individual. Standby rates the Power Corporation would have to take into consideration. As well, there are some hook up fees.

One of the other areas that they’re trying to deal with is the metering system. Right now it’s to have a meter be able to record the existing pattern going in one direction and then flowing back the other if the individual or company needs to draw down power from our existing grid.

Thanks for those comments. I think that if the Minister were to look into this, the process actually began a number of years before that. I wonder if I could find out exactly where we’re at right now and when we can expect the capability for this operationally to be in place.

We are working on coming forward with all the information, and I will get the additional information on exactly where, for example, the metering system is. I know from the Power Corporation side they’re open to having discussions. There are a number of factors, for example, to buying back the power, standby rates and some of the safety issues there. I will commit to the Member to get back the detail on just where we’re sitting today with that.

I appreciate that offer. That sounds wonderful. The experience in other jurisdictions — and I want to stress that this has been done for millions of households, so this is off the shelf technology. But where it has been done for the first time, typically the utility or some powers that be end up putting barriers in place through, for example, requiring unrealistically expensive meters and so

on. I wonder if we can expedite this process by just getting all the players together at the table. I think this is a modus operandi of this government.

Would the Minister be able to facilitate getting people together on a very practical basis to come up with an efficient way of getting this done and then having it approved through the regulatory process but very much expediting this process?

I think there are a number of factors that are occurring as we have this discussion. In fact, I think Northland NWT is in the final phases of coming up with some of these arrangements that would see an agreement in place between a customer and their own company. That, I believe, has gone forward to the PUB for review. So these things are coming in place, and if there are areas with problems, I’ll gladly look at ways we can bring the appropriate parties together to try to make things happen.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks again to the Minister for those comments. Again, I just want to stress that the experience in other jurisdictions is that when they tried to do this sort of thing, they’ve had to go through a long process because of the unreasonable requirements that initially come out of the utilities. It’s just sort of a heads up and an opportunity for us to expedite the system in an efficient way by dealing with that.

Maybe I’ll just ask if the Minister would be willing to at least be aware of that and be keen should the opportunity come up to deal with that issue before the years go by again.

We are looking at a number of ways to try to reduce the cost of living in the Northwest Territories. The Member is right; this is not a new area. It is fairly new for the Northwest Territories or at least for the Power Corporation. Yes, we know that we need to step up to the plate in this area to look at what we can do. There has to be recognition from all parties, though, that there’s a fixed infrastructure in place for the Northwest Territories and our communities. Although we’re trying to transition away, for example, from diesel generation, there’s still that fixed cost, the backup that we have to take into the equation when we talk about setting up these agreements and standby rates and so on.

So those are things that come into the mix, and as I’ve informed the Member, we’ll be looking at ways we can try to step up to the plate here and make it happen. I’ll be glad to sit down with the Member and go through more detail as well.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of MACA, who is also the Minister responsible for consumer protection in the Northwest Territories.

I’ve been receiving a number of calls and complaints from residents about fuel pricing here in Yellowknife. I’m having trouble helping them or explaining to them how pricing is arrived at here in Yellowknife. I can’t explain it. World oil prices go down; prices in southern Canada go down corresponding to those world oil prices — in some cases just recently 12 to 15 cents a litre. But here in Yellowknife it takes a week or ten days before an adjustment is made to the prices at the pump or the fuel truck. Then when oil prices rise, it’s almost an immediate hit at the pump and at the fuel truck for residents here in Yellowknife.

I’m wondering if the Minister can help me and help residents in this market in Yellowknife explain why that is.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The consumer protection branch section of MACA is responsible for responding to complaints from consumers about business practices that are unscrupulous or unethical. So far we have not had a direct complaint about gas prices and the possibility being raised by the Member.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I am appreciative of the concerns out there. The rising gas prices are a concern. As far as I know, and having done research in this area in my other capacities, the gas price at the pump is fixed. About 85 per cent of that price is fixed by the crude oil price and some taxation by various levels of the government — federal, provincial and territorial. Incidentally, territorial taxes on the fuel have not gone up since 1992.

There is room there where the prices are determined by not just the cost of bringing the fuel up to destinations but by what’s called rack price, where they look at what other retailers are charging. So there is room where the operators seem to decide what the price is that they think they can sell it for.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that. I’m familiar with the Yellowknife market. If you look at the retailers here in Yellowknife, everybody seems to have the same price, which would lead me to believe that there’s some type of price fixing going on.

Like I said, there is no corresponding decrease at the pump or at the fuel truck when world oil prices

come down, like there is in southern Canada. I do believe that there should be an investigation. I do believe that the consumer protection division at MACA should work with the federal Competition Bureau

and look at this, have an investigation. I

think the residents here in Yellowknife and maybe in the other market communities.... I’m not familiar with those outside Yellowknife. Maybe we should have a look at that.

I’d like to ask the Minister how her department can work with the federal Competition Bureau to have an investigation on fuel pricing here.

The Consumer Protection Act

that my department of MACA works under does not have a legislative mechanism to control price changes and frequency and how much. Also, the NWT is not one of the jurisdictions that regulates fuel prices. There are four in Canada who do that.

I’m also aware of situations where there are occasions where price fixing or coercion charges were looked into, and those have not been found to be the case. The only example we know of is an isolated case in Quebec.

Now, having said that, all are options we could consider — it’s not a MACA responsibility — as a government, and we could work with the federal government on how to address this very pressing issue. I’m willing to work with our Members of the Cabinet and the Members of this House to see what options are available for us to address these issues.

With winter coming I think it’s very important. I want to get a commitment today from the Minister that the government will engage the Competition Bureau of Canada to have a look at the price fixing that’s obviously going on here in Yellowknife and perhaps in other market communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Charges of price fixing or gouging or coercion are very serious. I don’t have any evidence to prove that right now, but I am willing to see what mechanisms we have in place to look into that and what options are available to the government and work with whatever agencies are out there to see if we could address that question.

In Yellowknife, though, we have a free market. I understand that the Direct Charge Co-op chose not to increase their prices. The other retailers did. Eventually everybody started buying gas at Co-op and the other parties lowered their prices — another situation of free market answering that question in an immediate way.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve lived in Yellowknife for almost 29 years, and I don’t really

recall there being any difference in prices at the pump for any extended period of time whatsoever in that 29 years, and I’ve been driving since I was 18.

Again, I want to ask the Minister: will the Government of the Northwest Territories engage the federal Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into fuel pricing in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.