Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, a few years ago I lobbied the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Butters, and other Members to put a deposit on whiskey, wine and other bottles in the Northwest Territories to encourage recycling; to encourage collection of these items after the contents had been used up, rather than leaving them lying around everywhere in dumps, on the streets and so on.
To my understanding, the program has been quite successful. There is a deposit at purchase that the purchaser can collect once they take the bottles to a recycling depot. They can have 25 or so cents returned to them for each of the containers that they had with them.
Madam Speaker, I think you are well aware that anywhere you travel in the north today, you are going to find tin cans all over. One of the leading items sold in the Northwest Territories is either beer or pop. Although the beer cans are recyclable -- they are made of aluminum -- there is no deposit requirement for pop cans. They are all over the place by the thousands. If there were a deposit on that can, it would be picked up and put into collection areas. People could make a business out of it and have this return. Right now, there is a market for them in southern Canada. People I know pick up these empty pop containers and take them to Edmonton and sell them for 20 cents or 30 cents a piece. Tin cans are the same. They just have to flatten them and they are sold.
I would like to see something like that happen here in the north, Madam Speaker, so it would encourage people who consume beverages from aluminum cans to keep them and return them to a depot where they can be collected and sent out for recycling. At the present time, there is no incentive to do this. If we were to put a deposit on them, it might encourage people to recycle a bit more. Thank you, Madam Speaker.