PRIVATE
MEMBERS’ MOTIONS
Motion No. 2 Rebates for Utility Rate Increases
Mr.
Wall:
— Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand
in the legislature, stand in my place today and speak to this
issue, speak to this motion that’s before the Assembly. And I
would encourage all the members of the Assembly to give it careful
consideration in light of what we know has happened already with
respect to utility rate hikes in our province and also in light of
what we know to be coming. We heard earlier this day that
SaskPower is contemplating a 10 per cent rate hike in addition to
the 6 per cent they just received, effective the first of this
month I believe. And in addition to that, we also understand that
SaskEnergy will be coming forward with a request to the rate
review panel in the order of 40 to 60 per cent, Mr. Speaker. And
so we would, I would hope that all members would give this
particular motion careful consideration. It doesn’t put a lot of
limits in terms of each member’s consideration of the general
concept of relief from these rate hikes. In other words, it
doesn’t peg rebates as the only way to provide that relief, nor
does it peg tax relief or any other use of the considerable amount
of money that the government is sitting on to aid in this cause.
It leaves it open. It simply asks the Assembly to consider this to
support the providing of relief for Saskatchewan people who are
suffering under the weight of these increases.
Mr.
Speaker, it’s also timely not only because rate hikes are going
up, Mr. Speaker, but it’s timely because it’s very, very clear
that this government can afford to help Saskatchewan families,
Saskatchewan small-business men and women, and the Saskatchewan
institutions, school boards and health boards and other non-profit
organizations that are really being crushed under the weight of
these energy bills. The government can truly afford to help. It
wasn’t long ago, Mr. Speaker, that this government and others
across the province could simply say to people asking them for
assistance, could say to them, we can’t afford it. And arguably
they were telling the truth. They were in the process of trying to
fight deficits and debt, and they simply couldn’t afford these
sorts of one-time requests. But the truth of the matter today, Mr.
Speaker, the truth of the matter in the province of Saskatchewan
is that we can afford to help Saskatchewan families. This
government can afford to assist people, to provide them some sort
of relief be it through tax cuts or additional rebate help or some
other means. The fact is the government can afford it today. And
consider this, Mr. Speaker. There are only a few provinces in this
country that actually benefit when the price of energy goes
through the roof as it has. Certainly we’re all paying now
higher utility bills, but we encourage the people of this province
and this Assembly to remember that when we are paying higher
utility bills because energy rates have gone up, so too are the
coffers of the government filling up with the royalty revenues
that they collect from oil and gas. That is a matter of fact. That
is a matter of record as well, as we saw with the last budget. And
despite the Department of Finance’s own underestimating of what
those revenues will be in this particular budget year, that will
be the fact this year as well for the province of Saskatchewan. So
it’s unfair to simply tell Saskatchewan people, well you’ll
have to suck it up and you’ll have to pay these higher energy
costs while the government coffers are growing, while the
government coffers are filling up from the very same fact — the
fact that oil and gas now around the world is much higher than it
was only months or a couple of years previously. The fact of the
matter is this, Mr. Speaker, the government will be making more
money off of the price of gas. If the president of SaskEnergy is
right and SaskEnergy needs to increase its rates by 50 per cent to
simply flow through his own cost for gas, then so too must it be
right that the provincial government should be forecasting a 50
per cent increase in its royalty revenue from natural gas. I think
the member for Regina South would agree. If the price is going up
that we pay for gas, the royalty revenue is also coming up. And if
it’s not coming up by 50 per cent, fair enough. It might be
coming up by something less than that but it certainly is going
up, the government’s revenue from this area. And so it’s very
interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that on one hand the people at
SaskEnergy are forecasting the price of gas to go up 50 per cent
but the Government of Saskatchewan, when it’s seemingly trying
to lowball the revenue it’s going to get this year, said what
about the price of natural gas in the budget? That it will
decrease by over 40 per cent. Why would they say that, Mr.
Speaker? Maybe someone in the Department of Finance should pick up
the phone and call someone over at SaskEnergy so that they can get
their story straight because someone’s not telling the truth.
Either way . . . either way, Mr. Speaker, even using these
underestimated numbers that the government had in its budget, it
is sitting on between a half a billion and 750 to $800 million
right now in its current account. It has it there in the Fiscal
Stabilization Fund. And why is it there, Mr. Speaker? Well it’s
there because of the high price of oil and gas primarily. They
made more money in royalties. It’s windfall revenue from the
energy sector sitting in the bank account of the province of
Saskatchewan. In addition to that we found out — although the
government won’t confirm it and I’d argue that it’s their
responsibility to do so — but we find out from very good sources
that the Crown corporations of our province, the family of Crowns,
is sitting on a family bank account of about $185 million. In
addition to that, they didn’t have to pay their dividend to the
government as was planned in the ’99 budget. And all of this
means one thing, Mr. Speaker. It means that the Government of
Saskatchewan can afford to help Saskatchewan people if it chooses
to, if it has the courage to, if it has the fortitude to help
Saskatchewan families and small business through a time of very
high utility rates. And hopefully and arguably a temporary time of
utility rates at these levels anyway. If it has the courage to do
that, it has the resources to. So we’ve already settled the
question as to whether the government can afford it. It can.
Clearly it can. It could afford to provide some more meaningful
help and still leave some in a Stabilization Fund and still leave
room for some other catastrophic event that it might want to plan
for. It could do those things. That matter is settled. What is not
settled, Mr. Speaker, and why we present a motion like this is
because this government does not seem to be prepared to help. It
has the resources but it lacks the will. It has the money in the
bank but it lacks the courage, or the compassion maybe, to at
least consider . . . and that’s how we framed our argument in
past weeks. That’s how we’ve really framed this motion.
We’ve left it wide open. Will the government at least consider
helping Saskatchewan families to a greater extent than they have
already — the $25 so-called pizza rebate? I think that’s what
the people in my riding are calling it. Basically the pizza rebate
except by and large, $25 doesn’t buy enough pizza to feed your
family anymore. But apparently it’s enough. The minister has
said several times, that’s enough for Saskatchewan families.
Well Saskatchewan families, even without the 50 per cent rate hike
coming from SaskEnergy and the 10 per cent hike coming from
SaskPower, Saskatchewan families have had to live through — have
had to live through 23 per cent increases over the
winter months. And in my home and in many other homes in Swift
Current — and by the way it’s a very small 30-year-old
bungalow — my bill didn’t go up 23 per cent. That was the rate
of increase. My bill doubled. I’m sure many members opposite saw
their bill double. I know many constituents phoned and were
confused because the government announced the rate increase of
20-some per cent but their bills doubled because they weren’t
equalized or for any other number of reasons. So for four or five
months they were paying excruciatingly high bills that had
doubled, Mr. Speaker.
And so now we are talking about a potential 50 per cent increase
in the price of natural gas. What will people’s bills do then,
next winter, if the situation around the world hasn’t eased
itself and we’re still looking at these rates? What will they do
then? Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope what they’ll do is continue to
call their MLAs (Member of the Legislative Assembly). They’re
calling us. I know they’re calling the government members
opposite. Call their MLAs and ask them why it is that they are
happy to sit on a huge bank account — a huge bank account in the
Crowns, a huge windfall fund from oil and gas revenues. Why are
they prepared to sit on that and leave Saskatchewan people out in
the cold? That’s what we’re trying to answer today. That’s
what we’re trying to answer today. And the member from Regina
Qu’Appelle is chirping. But his constituents, his
constituents’ bills doubled as well, and he doesn’t seem to
care. He cares more about shouting some rhetorical comment across
the way, some smart aleck remark than he does about the fact that
the budgets of Saskatchewan families are breaking under the
weights of utility bills while he and his government sits on a
half a billion to $700 million worth of cash.
Some
Hon. Members:
Hear, hear!
Mr.
Wall:
— That is sad, Mr. Speaker, it’s sad. So, Mr. Speaker, I would
just encourage members of the Assembly to take a close look at the
wording in the motion that we’re using. Again we’re not tying
the government’s hands in terms of talking about rebate. We’re
talking about a general concept of relief — financial relief to
people. I have tried to establish, I’ve tried to demonstrate to
the House that the government has the resources to help people who
are facing these increases and the rate increases to come. They
only need the will. That’s all they need. And so we’re asking
them to support our motion, to have that will to make that
decision on behalf of Saskatchewan people. And so it is a pleasure
for me to move, Mr. Speaker, seconded by the member for Arm River:
That this Assembly urges the government to consider providing
greater financial relief to Saskatchewan residents facing massive
increases in energy costs, especially in light of growing profits
to Crowns, rising levels of retained earnings in the Crowns, and
the windfall for the provincial treasury gained through rising
natural gas and oil royalties. |
