Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are on track to have liquid natural gas in the community of Inuvik by this fall, running the electrical requirements through the Power Corporation, and all the pieces are in place for various contracts. There’s some construction work to do. LNG contracts have been signed. So we’re on track to provide that through NTPC. As well,

we’re working with the town to see if there’s an opportunity to piggyback in terms of supply, should the community itself want to look at changing from synthetic natural gas to liquid natural gas. Thank you.

I think that’s great news for the residents of Inuvik that in the fall time we should have something up and ready.

In terms of storage, I think we had about 20-some days where the road was closed during the wintertime. I’d like to ask the Minister, with this liquid natural gas in terms of storage, what is the plan on putting to storage and how many days can we see this LNG be stored for should we have a road closure? How many days will we have a supply of liquid natural gas to the community of Inuvik? Thank you.

The requirement for storage is going to be minimized partially by the extension of ferry service in Inuvik, which is going to keep the ferries open much longer than what has normally been the practice up until now, because of the improved equipment that’s going to be used there. We also have full redundancy with diesel. So, once again, the requirements for expensive storage of liquid natural gas are somewhat mitigated by those two factors. We’re looking at storage of up to a month, if necessary. Thank you.

A lot of really good answers there and very positive. The situation, as I mentioned, January, February, March were almost disastrous to some of the families that have to deal with the high costs that they experienced. I guess my next question is the timeline. The Minister did mention the fall time, but for any residents, we want to put them at ease. Is there an exact date? Are we looking at August, September, October that we’ll have this type of system in place before it gets cold and we start experiencing the cold of the winter months? Thank you.

The Power Corporation intends to be on-line with liquid natural gas by October, providing everything rolls out smoothly and it looks like all the pieces and planning are proceeding at a pace to hit that date. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On February 28th this House passed a motion

regarding fuel price regulation, to investigate and evaluate the possibilities of gas price regulation here in the Northwest Territories.

My question to the Premier of our Assembly here is: What has this government done to date in preparing for the 120-day response over gas price regulation for the people of the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very sensitive area. We are working to find solutions, and we’re trying to find out why a carbon tax is embedded in the high prices for gasoline.

I’m not sure what carbon tax has to do with anything on this. My question for the Premier, once again, is: What work has been done to date preparing for the official response to the House on gas price regulation, which the request was to investigate and evaluate that possibility?

As usual, we’re doing our due diligence. We’re going out to look at best practices. We’re going out to all of the provinces to see how successful or how well they’re doing with regulating the prices. I think that we always feel that, let the private sector do it; the private sector can do a better job. We don’t want to get in a situation where we regulate industry and then government is going to have to operate all of the service stations. We’re checking to see how well other provinces are doing or if there is something there that we can emulate.

When I hear the Premier how he feels about this issue, I mean, to be quite frank, I don’t care how he personally feels. But it sounds as if the decision has already been made on that biasness, and there are five provinces who already regulate as very good and simple models.

What type of public input has the Premier gone to beyond his personal feelings, or the government’s feelings, of price regulation? What type of public input on what the people would like on this issue? That’s ultimately the question here is: Is price regulation needed in the Northwest Territories, and is it wanted by citizens?

We haven’t gone out with a survey or… I would imagine that everybody wants lower prices, so I think it’s a given that the people of the Northwest Territories want lower prices. The MLA from Tsiigehtchic indicated they’re paying $1.99 for gas, so obviously, that’s something. We want to find a way to reduce the cost of living in all of the communities in the Territories.

When you look at some of the prices that are regulated – I think PEI is one of the places – and the last time I checked, it was something in the neighbourhood of $1.31 a litre for gasoline, and that’s a regulated price in Prince Edward Island. We are looking at different approaches, and as part of our business planning, we will see what we can

propose to try to find a way to reduce gasoline prices.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think even our own economic opportunities group that was doing a study on creating a robust environment for business cited concerns about the difficulty in prices around fuel in every region.

Would the Premier provide an opportunity for the public to provide some public input on their feelings on this particular issue? Will he reach out to the public as they build a government position? As the Premier knows, I have an on-line petition. Will the Premier be willing to help promote that to ensure we get public input on this issue that’s so important?

I thought the Member didn’t care how I felt. Definitely, we will find a way to get public input.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned briefly in my Member’s statement that residents of Tsiigehtchic are now paying $1.92 per litre for gasoline and also $1.87 for diesel and $1.73 for heating oil. I thought our fuel prices are supposed to be subsidized. How is the department subsidizing the fuel prices for Tsiigehtchic? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Abernethy.

The Department of Public Works, through the petroleum products division, does not subsidize fuel. In fact, through the Petroleum Products Revolving Fund Act, we are required to recover full operating costs from the retail sale of our fuel products. So there is no subsidy, but there is also no profit added on.

When fuel prices are calculated and determined, it is based on the actual product cost to the GNWT, transportation costs to the GNWT, a slight sales commission that goes to the local provider, O and M expenses, some evaporation loss, and taxes. But under the act we have an obligation to do a full cost recovery, no profit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, there has to be some profit there. The community of Fort McPherson, which is 57 kilometres away, is paying $1.65. There is a big difference there. How is that price difference of 57 kilometres roughly 30 cents more? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am not currently familiar with the actual price of fuel in the community of Fort McPherson. There are a couple of things to consider. Often, when people come to us and express concerns about the fuel prices, they are referring to the price of regular fuel. We do not purchase regular fuel in PPD. We purchase mid-grain, which is usually three to four cents higher than the regular.

With respect to the prices in Fort McPherson, they are a for-profit organization. We don’t know any of the criteria they use to price their fuel, but ours are based on actual purchase price for the GNWT, the actual transportation costs, sales commission which goes straight to the provider in the community, as well as some evaporation loss and taxes. We don’t have any profit margin on the fuel that we are providing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.