Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on an issue that was brought to my attention by a constituent of mine. The issue I refer to, Mr. Speaker, is the apparent inability of people who reside outside of Yellowknife to qualify for a relatively new program, the federal government program called a home energy efficiency retrofit grant.

Mr. Speaker, this grant is provided by Natural Resources Canada and is designed to encourage homeowners, particularly those who have older homes in need of energy efficiency upgrades, to retrofit their homes in order to make them more energy efficient. Mr. Speaker, in order to qualify, a homeowner must have the EnerGuide for homes evaluation done, and have followed up on the evaluator's recommendations prior to receiving any grant money.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that there is only one organization in the NWT that can perform the EnerGuide evaluations, that being the Arctic Energy Alliance. Therein lies the problem, Mr. Speaker. I believe that there are no EnerGuide evaluators in any northern communities other than Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, there is only a relatively small number of households that can qualify for any government program as it is due to income thresholds, et cetera. I would like to think, Mr. Speaker, that Northerners would not be excluded from a government program simply because of where they are geographically located. In other words, their proximity to Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that Arctic Energy Alliance is funded by this government and will ultimately be funded by taxpayers. Given this, I would think that surely the Arctic Energy Alliance would do everything in their power to provide services to all communities outside of Yellowknife. After all, the organization's name is Arctic Energy Alliance, not Yellowknife Energy Alliance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause