Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the discussion the committee has been having about the Arctic Energy Alliance, I find that I would like to come in with a couple of alternative views on this organization. It has been pointed out that there is concern about duplication or overlap with what's going on in other areas. This is always something we should be watching out for and I don't think this organization escapes that. There may be some things within departments that a given department is reluctant to give up or maybe mandated to take on. I think there is some allowance that should be given here.

This is an interesting organization. Its history goes back, I think, five or six years. It was an attempt to actually bring together quite a diverse field of energy mandates or projects that were scattered around the GNWT. To some extent I think it's been successful in that avenue. Still, it faces criticism that it's really not all that effective.

I believe it deserves the support of this Assembly. We need to continue along with the idea at least, Mr. Chairman, that if we don't try to collaborate on these kinds of things what we're going to see is there will be a whole bunch of disseminated, disconnected, smaller efforts at energy awareness and energy conservation split up between departments and we will lose the impact of some combined service and collaboration.

The Energy Alliance, if I remember its mandate, was created to do more than just electrical energy. I know whenever we talk about energy in this country there's an automatic tendency to think just about electrical energy because the stuff costs so darn much. The mandate of the Energy Alliance is, I believe, to go beyond that. It is to look at how can we collectively, among government and private sector and industry, reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. How can we do a better job of managing water and waste water resources and issues, Mr. Chairman? I remember, if you look at one of the reports of the Housing Corporation you'll find that the cost of managing water and sewer far exceeded the cost of heating and electrical energy supplies. These are enormous energy pigs and if we don't do something cooperatively to tackle this then we're just going to continue to waste these resources. The Arctic Energy Alliance is, I think, a good effort at trying to do that. It deserves support. Certainly, perhaps it should be making a better effort to communicate its results and perhaps this Assembly could be making an effort to pay more attention to it.

For the record, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to put my oar in the water for the Arctic Energy Alliance. Thank you.

---Applause