Mr. Speaker, we have before us the challenge of cost of living in the Northwest Territories, one of the costs we all bear. But every country, every other jurisdiction is also facing the rising cost of energy. The market forces are hurricanes in the Gulf. In Yellowknife it’s freeze-up and breakup; those are two of the forces that affect the cost. There are free market factors here. We don’t have government levers that allow us to involve ourselves in that market, nor do I think we would really want to — rack prices and all those types of things.

I will honour the commitment to provide the information to committee, and we can have the discussion — probably best through the business planning process — on this particular issue. There are going to be many other related issues to cost of living that we’re going to have to talk about to tie into this as well, so we have to have the full spectrum of discussion.