GN back-tracks on decision to cut homeowner fuel rebate

Homeowners in Nunavut may yet receive a $400 to $500 fuel rebate cheque, Nunavut’s finance minister Keith Peterson said March 3 in the legislative assembly.

His announcement that the GN would revisit its decision to cut the $700,000 annual program came after Alan Rumbolt, MLA for Hudson Bay, questioned Peterson March 2 about the future of the program and learned it was to be shelved.

“My question for the minister is this: when my constituents ask me if the homeowner fuel rebate program is still available, what can I tell them?” Rumbolt said.

On Dec. 1, 2009, Peterson had announced in the legislature that the government’s homeowner fuel rebate program would be extended to the end of 2010 and increased to $500 per homeowner, Rumbolt said.

But the March 1 budget address did not mention whether the program will continue for the year 2011, Rumbolt said, although the GN website continued to show information about it.

Peterson told Nunatsiaq News March 3 that, while nothing was guaranteed, feedback from MLAs like Rumbolt might see the program restored.

The cost of the program could be covered when supplementary appropriations are approved later this fiscal year, he said.

“There are so many demands,” Peterson said. “Money’s tight, but we can take a look at it.”

Peterson praised the program, because he said that money from the rebate generally goes directly back in the community.

During question period March 2, Peterson had said the program would be “unavailable this year because we determined that this is not necessary this year.”

“It’s one of those programs that in certain years if we have funding available, and the weather is unseasonably cold, it could be available, but this year it’s unavailable,” he said.

But March 3 Peterson told Nunatsiaq News that while it had been warmer than average in Iqaluit, in his home community of Cambridge Bay, temperatures had been frigid for a great part of the winter.

As for fuel prices, Nunavut may escape the full brunt of rising fuel prices, he said, because of the territory’s pre-purchase of fuel at various points throughout the year.