The Yukon government will extend 'subsidies' to electrical consumers for another three months, Energy Minister Archie Lang announced Tuesday afternoon.

Lang said the Rate Stabilization Fund, scheduled to expire Saturday, will now run until the end of June.

It provides residential consumers with a reduction in their bill of up to $37 a month for the first 1,000 kilowatt hours used, or proportionately less for lower consumption.

It also provides a break for commercial businesses and municipal governments.

The extension will provide Yukon Energy with the time necessary to complete its plan on the long-term management of the territory's energy system, he said.

Whether the subsidy will continue under the new plan, in full or in part, Lang said he was not going to second-guess what the energy corporation will come up with in its recommendations to take Yukoners into the future.

'We are having a work plan put together on how we are going to move forward,' Lang said.

Yukon Energy spokeswoman Janet Patterson said this morning Yukon Energy hasn't received any new instructions from the minister.

She said the publicly-owned utility is putting together its 20-year resource plan laying out what capital improvements it expects to undertake, such as the extension of the electrical grid from Carmacks to Stewart Crossing.

And it is working on finalizing the power purchase agreement with the new Minto copper-gold mine, and it's moving forward with a public hearing into the overall Carmacks-Stewart extension proposal, she added.

While neither the 20-year-resource plan nor the work on the line extension makes any mention of the Rate Stabilization Fund, they are main factors in the energy equation, said Yukon Energy president David Morrison.

Morrison said he suspects when the minister referred to the long-term management plan, he was referring to the ongoing initiatives underway that certainly have to be taken into consideration when discussing the Rate Stabilization Fund.

Lang said all the work being conducted by the corporation now will form part of the long-term plan to manage the energy system into the future.

As the rate of subsidization is rising significantly, the minister said, there is a need to review it along with other options such as increased conservation methods.

'We have spent in the last period of time, since 1998 to March of this year, $29 million,' he said. 'So I would imagine the extension would cost another $1.6 million.'

Lang said no matter how you view it, the rate stabilization fund provides a subsidy to consumers.

It is money that would otherwise go to the government, he said.

Lang said whatever happens, Yukoners can be assured his government does not want to do anything that would add a financial burden to ratepayers.

The minister was unavailable late this morning to clarify exactly what he meant the long-term management plan.

In a press release, however, the minister states:

'During this three-month period, the government will introduce a number of initiatives which address energy efficiency and infrastructure development.

'This period will also allow the Yukon Energy Corporation to incorporate these new infrastructure and development initiatives into their upcoming plans.'

Roger Rondeau, president of the Utilities Consumers' Group, maintained this morning that the fund does not provide a 'subsidy'.

Rather, he insisted, as he has in years gone by, it provides a dividend to shareholders, those being Yukoners who own Yukon Energy and its parent corporation, the Yukon Development Corp.

'We own these corporations,' he said. 'The ratepayers, the taxpayers in the Yukon, own Yukon Energy and the Yukon Development Corporation.

'They are public utilities, and I think we should be getting something back as owners of these.'

Rondeau said he's heard nothing of the development of a long-term management plan for the Yukon's energy system.

If the Yukon government was planning to make changes or eliminate the Rate Stabilization Fund, one would have thought there would have been some type of consultation with Yukoners over the last couple of months, he said.

The fund was established by the New Democrats with a $10-million contribution to protect consumers from rate shock following the February 1998 closure of the Faro lead-zinc mine, which was using 40 per cent of the energy on the system at the time.

It was extended for three years in 2002 by the then-Liberal government, and then again for another two years in 2005 by the Yukon Party government. It was scheduled to end this Saturday.

In 1998, the government provided $80,000 to consumers through the fund, as it came into effect only at the end of the year.

According to Yukon Energy records, the government dished out $2.3 million through the fund in 1999; $3 million in 2000; $3.6 million in 2001; and $3.4 million in 2002.

In 2003, $3.2 million went out to Yukoners through the stabilization fund, with the government contributing $2.1 million and the publicly-owned development corporation contributing $1.1 million.

The Yukon Development Corp. has covered the fund since, with contributions of $3.4 million in 2004, $4 million in 2005 and $4.8 million in 2006.

So far this year, the fund has provided $1.3 million to electrical consumers.

Patterson said the noticeable jump in the amount of money going through the fund last year is explained simply by a noticeable increase in electrical consumption in the Yukon.