SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Deh Cho Bridge tolls and seasonal load limits on Highway 3 are not contributing to rising food prices in the city, according to Yellowknife Co-op.

Jason Hunter, equipment operator with Weatherby Trucking Ltd., pauses next to one of the company's trucks as workers unload a crane driver Bob Ross shipped over the Deh Cho Bridge on a government contract last week. Company owner Blair Weatherby says bridge tolls are affecting Yellowknife food prices, although one grocery store begs to differ. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo Bridge tolls Class A: commercial vehicles with two to four axles $75.00 (monthly remittance with transponder-equipped vehicle) $91.25 (single-use toll permit) Class B: commercial vehicles with five or six axles $150.00 (monthly remittance with transponder-equipped vehicle) $166.25 (single-use toll permit) Class C: commercial vehicles with seven or more axles $275.00 (monthly remittance with transponder-equipped vehicle) $291.25 (single-use toll permit) Source: Department of Transportation

Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny tweeted last month that he plans to question cabinet about the relationship between tolls and rising food prices in Yellowknife, which have increased more than five per cent since the $202-million Deh Cho Bridge opened 11 months ago.

According to data tracked by Statistics Canada, food prices had remained stable in 2011 and 2012, trending upward at the start of 2013.

Northbound commercial vehicles above 4,500 kilograms pay tolls ranging from $91.25 for a single crossing by a vehicle with two-to-four axles to $291.25 for vehicles with seven or more axles.

Blair Weatherby, owner of Weatherby Trucking Ltd. and a former president of the NWT Motor Transport Association, believes the bridge is having an impact on food costs in Yellowknife.

"Absolutely everything is going to be affected by the bridge toll. It could be only about half a cent on a loaf of bread, but the end user is going to pay for it," he said. "Everything has been on a truck in its life somewhere and if you want the trucks going down the road they have to be paid. It compounds because everybody has to get that little bit extra out of it."

Not so, according to Jeff Kincaid, Yellowknife Co-op business development manager.

"If you look at the cost to bring one truck over the bridge it's $300. Well, that carries 40,000 pounds of food. It makes absolutely no difference in our day-to-day life," he said.

In fact, life has not changed much for the grocery store due to shipping for about the past 17 years, said Kincaid. For nearly two decades, the Co-op has budgeted to fly goods from Edmonton during spring break-up. Instead of paying for cargo flights, that money now pays the bridge toll.

"Rather than spending a large sum of money in two weeks, it gets broken up and we get it on every truck," Kincaid said. "There's no difference to us."

He said there has been no appreciable price increases at his store over the past year and does not know where Statistics Canada got its figures.

The Department of Transportation developed the rates following a third-party analysis of shipping costs prior to the bridge opening. Department spokesperson Earl Blacklock said the government stands by that calculation.

"The overall toll was based on the overall cost of shipping and identifying all the things that go into the cost of shipping for goods that come to the North Slave," he said. "It was the intent of the government to ensure that there was no added cost once the toll was factored in and we believe that we met that intent."

Another reason why the bridge could inflate costs, according to Weatherby, is the 75 per cent load limit imposed on Highway 3 for about three weeks in the spring ­ implemented for this year for the first time. The restriction, which affects Highway 3 from the juncture with Highway 1 on the far side of the Mackenzie River to Behchoko, resulted because water saturation beneath the highway made the road susceptible to damage from the continuous weight of fully-loaded trucks.

"You leave Edmonton with two-thirds or half a load, well, the truck still costs the same to get here," Weatherby said. "Anything heavy, fuel, pop, milk ­ any of the stuff that actually has some weight to it gets affected."

While a Highway 3 load restriction is new, Blacklock said the measure is a fact of life for trucking companies everywhere.

"Spring road bans are something that are a reality right across the country," Blacklock said. "The load limits are not just Highway 3, it's Highway 1, so if they travelled from Hay River to Yellownife in the past, they would have experienced load limits, as well."

The Highway 3 load limit imposed last May caught trucking companies and retailers by surprise, and Co-op felt the pinch. Shipping costs spiked by 34 per cent, general manager Ben Walker said at the time.

Kincaid said truckloads of perishable goods destined for Co-op would sometimes get stranded at the ferry crossing in years past when the transportation department pulled the boat out of the water for maintenance with little notice. Last year's Highway 3 load limit resulted in the same situation, he added.

"That was a curve ball, but it's irrelevant. It's just daily life. We'll know next time," he said. "Everybody's got to deal with shipping. You just get used to what it is and to use anything as an excuse is kind of silly. It's a road. It's just a road in the sky."