Yes, Mr. Chair. I know these are the things the department looks at. I am trying to find out what are you actually doing in terms of adapting or incorporating any or which of these new technologies or priorities are you actually looking at, Mr. Chair? I haven't got my copy with me. Maybe I do. Maybe it is buried here, but looking at the pre-budget consultations that committee undertook in several communities this fall, and the government's response, I recall that there was a lot of attention focussed on the cost of living and running and maintaining a household. One idea that came forward that I thought had fantastic potential environmentally, not only from a cost point of view, is changing some appliances in some of our houses, get it to modern. The new make and models of clothes washing machines, Mr. Chair, use less than half the amount of water. Think of the millions of litres of water that we would save, that we could save on the cost of trucking, process, cleaning and disposing of dirty water, heating it, and all these other things. These are the kinds of innovations that I am wondering if the Housing Corporation is looking at in our approach. That is what I was wondering. What specifically is the Housing Corporation adapting these days to become more energy efficient in our hundreds of units we have across the NWT, Mr. Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are not only looking at these, we are doing them. First of all, let me say that all of the houses we have now are 2000 or EnerGuide 80, that meet those standards. That is a standard we expect. Of course, homeownership, we advise people. The final decision has to be made by the homeowner themselves, unless we are paying part of the cost. On appliance replacement, yes, we have a continual program of replacing appliances in public housing units to get more energy-efficient newer appliances.

On design and a lot of the other measures we're taking on energy efficiency, we work closely with the Energy Alliance. They work closely with us. They review our designs. We sit on the board of the Energy Alliance. We contribute I think $50,000 a year to support that group. We are building multi-family units which are more efficient. We are also, as I have said yesterday, doing the education modules now to help people to live more energy efficiently. There are many things that we are doing. I don't want to give the impression we are just looking at them; we are doing them.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is more the kind of thing that I was looking for. I appreciate the information and the attention that is being paid to this area. I am wondering, Mr. Chair, if this is the appropriate area or maybe the Minister could advise. I wanted to do a bit of follow-up on where we are with the Novel housing opportunity, Mr. Chair. Is this the activity area in which the Housing Corporation is playing this opportunity, Mr. Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, there is no budget line for Novel housing in this budget. We are continuing to negotiate with both Imperial and the federal government on the convertible housing. I had a meeting last week with Minister Solberg on it. But without a federal contribution, then this project is not going to go ahead. It doesn't make economic sense to pursue it further. So there is no budget line in here for Novel housing. I must say that Minister Solberg was very interested, in fact, in the notion, because knowing our housing core needs and the fact that you can get houses that are 30, 40, 50 percent less than a conventional stick-built house might be very attractive to a lot of homeowners that are all over the North, but there is no commitment at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Is there anything further, Mr. Braden?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. The opportunity that this concept offers the NWT is an intriguing one and one that I support in relation to our need and what makes sense for us. This is very much where the negotiation, the review and the assessment has to continue. Mr. Chair, I hope it does continue. I know that we are, from what the Minister has told us, kind of in limbo on this one hearing that there is not yet a decision to go ahead with the pipeline or, in fact, award a housing contract to ATCO or from the federal people of just where they are ready to go. It is on that energy side, Mr. Chair, that I had a fairly specific question. With what we know so far of the design and our plans for refurbishing these units, to what standard or standards are we applying for energy efficiency and making sure that we are getting units that have the lowest possible lifecycle cost? Not just the lowest possible, let's get everything installed and open cost, but over the long term, are we really building in the very best technologies that we can to make sure that these are going to be the lowest possible operating cost units, Mr. Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The convertible housing units that we are still considering but without commitment are being built to an R-2000 EnerGuide 80 level to be efficient. So it would be no different in terms of energy efficiency than ones that are built in the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Before I go to our next speaker, I just want to take a second to also recognize the Member for Monfwi's parents who are with us here this afternoon, Mr. Morris and Marie Lafferty. Welcome.

---Applause

I will now go to Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The infrastructure development that I want to speak on is in regards to the energy efficiency and creating self-reliance and healthy life choices in our communities and larger centres. I want to ask the Minister in terms of the concept of helping out with installing in public units and also with homeowners the units, woodstoves that people would go out and get their own wood and put wood into their homes by having that option. Is that something that the department or the Housing Corporation is thinking about in terms of having woodstoves installed in homes or in public units? I know for homeowners, if they ask for it, they probably will get it, but I am talking more because in my region, there are a high number of public units that are used in our communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chair, the Member is correct; we install them regularly in homeownership units. There is no issue there. When it comes to public housing units, we have not been putting woodstoves in for a couple of reasons. One is that a lot of the houses were not designed for woodstoves. We are concerned about safety. That has to be a consideration. Sometimes the houses aren't big enough, given the number of people in the house and the size of the house, to safely have a woodstove in it. So we are reluctant to go there. The other is our own assessment, as well, of whether or not people will be able to manage with a woodstove in the house, safety, whether it is seniors or people who may need help in terms of their lifestyle and so on. It is one we'll consider. We pay for all the fuel and if it makes sense, then we'd certainly look at it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you. I recognize the Minister's question in terms of the safety issue and if people are capable of owning and maintaining a woodstove unit in their home. I would like to ask the Minister, has he considered looking at pellet stoves? A little bit different from the wood. Pellet stoves are the wood burning units that are used somewhat in the southern area of the Northwest Territories. Again, because of the high cost of fuel in my communities of Colville Lake, Deline, Tulita, Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells, we have a lot of people who are in these units that spend a lot of their hard-earned dollars to heat their homes up there because of many of the problems that contribute to the using of a lot of fuel. Would he look at the cost of a pellet stove in the community? Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of course, the one issue with pellet stoves across the Territories is the availability of pellets. Right now they are readily available in the large centres, in the southern part of the Territories anyway, but not so much in the small communities. That would be a consideration. Pellet stoves are definitely safer than our woodstoves, but it does mean handling bags of pellets and the ability to fill the stoves and so on. However, we would look at it if the situation seemed to make sense, particularly in those areas where the pellets are available.

We have also been trying out and replacing, since 2005, some of the old carbureted kind of heating appliances with the Toyo stoves. Those are more efficient. We put them into seniors' units. They supplement the heat, they're very efficient and, again, not terribly high maintenance. We're trying different types of heating units. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister is correct; I've been in a couple of units where they have these nice units, the seniors have them. I would like to see them in all the seniors' homes that they have high costs of diesel in the Northwest Territories. Especially those ones, they need to have them in the seniors' homes, those units you have. They cost so much but I think for the seniors you have to, again I would state that, to look after them and put the units in there.

For people like my age or younger and people who are able to do things in life, I think we need to seriously look at creating self-reliance and creating a lifestyle. That means you can get woodstoves or pellet stoves into the house. Surely, my God, we could get up and cut wood if we have to. It's a crying shame that we allow these people my age to sit there and depend on government to give us fuel. We are creating more dependency than ever in this day and age. In this day and age we need to create responsible, healthy young people in our region, in our communities. Mr. Minister, all the other departments have this type of response...It's part of our overall vision for the North. We have to get the woodstoves into the houses, get them to go out in the bush. There's lots to learn on the land. Right now, I think we're doing them a disservice.

Mr. Minister, I know you have goodness in your heart, you work for the people. The elders, surely we can take care of them, they worked hard all their lives to take care of us. I know that from stories I've heard. It's our turn now to take care of the elders. We have to do that for them, but we also have to learn how to be as independent and self-reliant as they were. I know it's a tough job. We have created a theme of dependency into the houses. It makes a lot of sense to have woodstoves or pellet stoves.

I'm passionate about this because it's going to get really hard for us in the future. I don't think the price of fuel is going to go down. I think the price of fuel is going to go higher and higher when you create that lifestyle. It's for all northern people. There are some really good people in

the North and I think that somehow we have some incentive programs or start the management or design. There should be a cap; there should be a percentage of the Northwest Territories that in all our public units there should be 25 percent or 30 percent that have woodstoves.

The ones that really need the help, we have programs for them. Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the Minister in that sense, I guess the trick question is how do we support our overall goals of government, being self-reliant, having healthy lifestyles and healthy choices, and creating a life of well-being? I think one way is by doing the work. One way is by going out and having some physical activity to clear your mind, work your body, and start thinking about life in the bush, or life in the community. I'm thinking about that, Mr. Chairman, in terms of infrastructure. We have to give that kind of thought to create self-reliance. I know what he's saying. I do support the Minister in this initiative but coming down from a small community, these small communities, we really need help because the cost of living is going quite high and we really need to be strong in our decisions to help our young people. Otherwise, we're going to be here next year again talking about the same issue.

I want to say that in terms of...If the Minister would at least consider and look at ways that we could help this issue in terms of getting woodstoves into homes, or wood pellets, and if he would consider reviewing different programs that would support it, a pilot project. I think that it may work for some communities. Not all communities may agree with us, but I think my region, at least one or two communities would support it. Maybe other communities, the Tlicho or Beaufort-Delta, or even Yellowknife; I'm not too sure. I want to leave it at that, Mr. Chairman. I've taken enough time.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. I didn't hear a question there, so I'm going to go on to our next Member and that's Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Members before me were speaking about the issue of woodstoves and pellet stoves and that was a matter I raised in October in the last session. It was about trying to look at energy efficiencies. What I think we're getting at here is maybe could we search to get a commitment from the ministry, or I should say the corporation. Can they make it feasible and can they make it a policy shift whereas they ask if people want these woodstoves and pellet stoves in these types of housing? Can we make it sort of one of the checklist things that we do? Yes, they're wonderful but not everyone wants to carry the insurance burden, et cetera. Then again, you may have people who want these things. Really, what should be asked is can we make sure that it's on the checks and balances list incorporated upfront when we do some of these projects?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.