Gas prices drop after GNWT meets with retailers
Council defeats motion to investigate costs
Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 3, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Consumers saw a slight dip in gas prices Nov. 19, one day after representatives from the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs invited gas retailers to discuss how those prices are established, Yellowknifer has learned.
Esso gas station was the cheapest full service gas station in town Tuesday afternoon after dropping its price of unleaded gas to $1.299. Local gas prices started fluctuating Nov. 19, one day after MACA contacted retailers to talk about how they're established in light of a recent decline in the price of crude oil worldwide. - Randi Beers/NNSL photo |
A Nov. 18 memo to MLAs from Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) Minister Robert C. McLeod stated "in the coming weeks, MACA will contact Yellowknife retailers to examine how retail gasoline prices are established in light of the reduction to world crude prices."
In fact, the department sent an invite to retailers to discuss gas prices that day.
In a Nov. 27 interview to discuss the memo, the minister told Yellowknifer his department reached out to retailers as of Nov. 18. It's not clear who within the department sent the invite or in what form the invite came.
"We had reached out to retailers and my understanding is we had one response," he said, naming the Co-op as the business which responded.
"We've spoken to the retailer and they were pretty well straightforward with us."
The department sat down with the Co-op Nov. 19 and that afternoon, Co-op and Esso lowered their prices within minutes of each other.
Nobody within the department was available to discuss what was said at the meetings.
Representatives from the Co-op have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Meanwhile, city council voted against Coun. Adrian Bell's motion to direct administration to contact retailers during a Nov. 24 meeting.
Coun. Rebecca Alty cited the Nov. 18 MACA memo, which had been forwarded to city council by Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro, in her reasoning about why she was voting against the motion.
"I would have supported it but with this letter from MACA that the minister is committing his staff to contact Yellowknife retailers, I think it would be redundant to have our staff doing the same work," she said.
Bisaro contacted council in early November to invite them to investigate static gas prices after she was unable to get MACA to look into it during the fall session of legislative assembly.
In a later interview with Yellowknifer, she said she was "somewhat surprised" McLeod had changed his mind about contacting retailers.
"But very often ministers will respond to pressure from the House," she said.
Mayor Mark Heyck also expressed surprise about the situation during a city council media debriefing Nov. 25, but his was in response to the fact an MLA had contacted the municipal government in the first place.
"I found it odd we had a request from an MLA to investigate this," he said.
"We have no investigative authority over (gas prices), the MLAs are the body with authority."
