Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is there something special under material and supplies that would account for $639,000?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

I believe the bulk of that will be under the waste recovery reduction initiative, the one-time of bailers, forklifts, warehouses, things that are one-time costs we are incurring to get this program up and running.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. I wasn't going to be this long, but one answer leads to another question. Mr. Chairman, I was under the understanding that with this program, we would be using local or community groups to engage in collection of waste and recycling. Is it the government's intention to buy these things and to deliver the programs yourself?

Thank you. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is our intention to work with community groups, but there are one-time start-up costs that we have to incur and we have to make an investment in this. That's what we have been talking about. Under some of the equipment that's going into the community depots, there will be pallet jacks, bags, bins, cash registers, phones, fax machines. There is a requirement for some cold storage. At the regional processing centres, there's money being spent on vertical bailers, glass crushers, forklifts, fibre bags, plastic bins, et cetera. The Member is right, we are partnering with local organizations. The total start-up cost of the program is $1.143 million.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. My final comment is I would really suggest that maybe the committee and the Minister revisit this. I really don't think it was ever envisioned that the government would actually deliver these programs, but that the contractor will go out to local community groups. I think this needs to be looked at because if you take $639,000 out of $1.07 million start-up costs, there really isn't going to be a lot of money for local recycling groups like one in Inuvik or Yellowknife to do the work that they are better at. I think there are local groups available who can do the job better and I just would not want to see a department and government getting into a whole new industry such as this. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These community groups are going to be delivering the programming. This is our upfront capital investment to get this program off the ground. So I agree community groups are probably be suited to do this in a very efficient and cost-effective manner, but there really was getting this funding, in my opinion, off the ground without this capital

investment. This plan or approach was discussed as we went through the legislative initiative in the last government to lay this out.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Braden.

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

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Bell.

I thank the Member for those comments. I think the Member is right; it's primarily a conservation organization that does advise not only outside stakeholders, but certainly our government. I know they have been enlisted in the past to help organizations like the Housing Corporation reduce their reliance on energy and other things. Certainly, I think we've had a good kick-off to a discussion that we're going to have at committee here about the mandate of these various organizations. There certainly is a need to have these things clear and you're right, no organization should be without or beyond scrutiny. I think we have to look at the mandate of all our delivery mechanisms, and this certainly is a good place to start because we've had a lot of discussion about this in the past. I look forward to that very fruitful exercise. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Braden. Thank you. Before I go on to Mr. Ramsay, I'll go to Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On page 11-14 on the environmental protection services. Just a small comment here to the small communities where we're looking at initiatives where we can do as much as we can for the protection of our environment and keep it in its natural state as much as possible. The contribution of Pampers and plastic bags are wildly spread across our dump areas. In springtime you'll see the plastic bags all over the...Oh, good, is the Premier here? I guess I wanted to ask the Minister, in the small communities there are some really good initiatives that could happen to support local agencies and local groups to think about the environment. Really serious about it is to start being more responsible in terms of allowing these small groups, such as youth groups, women's groups or any kind of fundraising groups. People are concerned about the damages that plastic bags and Pampers and other stuff can do to our land. They're all over the land and I think that's something that we could teach our children or younger generation about taking care of the land.

The biggest contributors are Northern Stores and Co-op. In a small community it's a big impact. It may seem small in larger centres like Yellowknife, but in small communities the whole community buys into that project. It starts to change your attitude in how you think about the environment. In springtime it doesn't look very good when you go to the local waste sites and you see plastic bags all over the land. We say, boy, it's a sad state, but someone should do something about it.

I guess I'm looking toward this government here and particularly the Minister in terms of his views on the protection of the environment and the land that some of these small initiatives could be looked at in the communities in terms of supporting them also.

Thank you. I think the Member is espousing the philosophy that really was behind the genesis of this Waste Recovery and Reduction Act. We had a lot of good discussion about this in the past government. Clearly, there's a need for RWED to work very closely with MACA as we implement this legislation.

The beverage container recycling initiative program is the first program of many, we hope. We're now in the process of creating an advisory group that will help us develop this program and develop the regulations for this program first and then others, hopefully. We want to make sure that we have a program that has every chance of being successful

and makes the most sense, which is why we've gone out to community members to help advise us on this.

I think many of the points that you've raised are good ones and I'm sure that discussion will go on at the advisory group and they can provide us the advice, after speaking with community stakeholders and community members, about what is most likely to make these programs successful. I look forward to not only this beverage container recycling program, but future conservation initiatives and programs that will come under this Waste Recovery and Reduction Act. Waste management is very important to all of us and no less important to people in small communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The last comment I want to make is on the Arctic Energy Alliance. I guess it's the same thing as the waste management is having the Arctic Energy Alliance come into our community and initiating some of the programs in our small communities. I hear a lot of comments from our communities that they know how to save energy. I guess we want to see some impacts in our communities on the Arctic Energy Alliance. It seems like we only get the phone call or the odd visit once a year or so. I like the idea; just come into our communities, come into our region and work with us for a week or so. That's the only comment I have for now. I'm getting tired, Mr. Chair, so that's it.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I think one of the benefits of the Arctic Energy Alliance as a not-for-profit society is it has access to federal funding that this government really doesn't. I know we don't have the 2003-04 final numbers in and don't have that accounting yet and I can't provide that to Members as far as all of the programs that have happened, but over the past few years I know that the Arctic Energy Alliance has been successful in working in Tulita, for instance. There it was involved in assisting the staff at the LHO in completing a proposal for energy conservation.

So there have been a lot of small community initiatives. The federal program that allowed cost-shared funding for energy audits, one of the challenges we had was really in order to meet the criteria of the federal funding, only Yellowknife was able to qualify for this funding in the way that it was rolled out. That wasn't acceptable, obviously, to this government. So we worked to add additional money that would allow this program to be expanded into other communities besides Yellowknife. We did that and used the Arctic Energy Alliance as the vehicle and the mechanism for delivering that program. I think many of the federal programs that are out there don't recognize the challenges and the needs of some of the smaller and more remote communities, and the money obviously doesn't go as far when you have to travel to access some of these communities. So that's something this government has recognized, and the Arctic Energy Alliance has helped us sort of expand some of these federal programs that in fact were asking us to put sort of a square peg into a round hole. We've been able to adjust some of the programs to the benefit, I think, of many of the smaller communities.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.