Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a government, we’ve taken action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of all of our departments. We’ve been able to realize our targets that we had set 10 years ago to reduce greenhouse gases. We do have a new Greenhouse Gas Strategy that will allow us to continue.

We all know the effects of climate change are here. We are taking mitigating steps and adaptation to deal with it. We’ve talked to business. This came up again in questionnaires in the forums here in Yellowknife with regard to climate change. The question is how will this impact on the economy, and people talk about issues like carbon taxes and other cap and trade and so on. The big issue comes down to how does it impact on the cost of operating and how will this impact on industry.

We live in a high cost environment and a large part of the reasons for industry setting up their value- added outside the Northwest Territories is that it’s cheaper to operate in places like Alberta and Saskatchewan. But I think there are things we can do through the $60 million that government invested over the past three years. We’ve looked at all forms of alternative fuels and renewable fuels to find ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The Mackenzie Pipeline will provide natural gas,

which, compared to coal, reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

We also have to find out what the Government of Canada is doing. The Government of Canada has indicated they are not prepared to make significant changes unless they know what the United States government is doing. Those are all things we have to take into consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chair.