Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question this morning is for the Honourable Michael McLeod, Minister for Environment and Natural Resources and in that portfolio carries the responsibility for our recycling programs. Mr. Speaker, the problems and the hazards associated with disposing of gadgets and electronic appliances is becoming more and more apparent in our society, especially because of the dangerous substances that some of these appliances cause in the environment.

Mr. Speaker, Alberta, for instance, has a $15 to $45 deposit required when televisions or similar appliances are purchased and these go into funds to assist in the proper recycling of these. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister, is e-garbage something that we can potentially deal with as our recycling program advances and expands?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member raised a lot of good examples of where the successes are in this program when he made his Member's statement and we have certainly been quite happy with the response from the communities around this program and I think it has resulted in saving a lot of material that would have gone into our landfills are either being recycled or transported south for recycling. Now that we've come to this stage in this program, we are looking at a second portion of it or a new phase. We are now in the process of drafting a discussion paper. We would like to see where we go next. There are a number of areas that we have targeted; tires, and e-garbage is an area we certainly want to explore and have more discussion on. Some communities have also come forward and started discussions amongst themselves in the regions and with us regarding regional waste sites, so we could start utilizing shared equipment; for example, shredders or compactors. We also started discussion in some areas with communities and regions about mobile equipment that we could maybe transfer from community to community.

So there are a lot of things on the horizon. We expect to have a public discussion paper ready for this summer and we will have that out so that the communities and the general public can have some input. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the difficulties that we encountered with rolling out this program was in enabling all communities to have a way that recyclable materials could be returned for repayment, reimbursement. It appears, Mr. Speaker, that with 26 licensed operators, of course not all our communities, have a license depot but the reality is when consumers in those communities purchase a recyclable container, they are still required to pay the deposit. So I would like to ask the Minister what systems are in place in those communities that do not have a depot to enable consumers to have their deposits reimbursed?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think there are only six communities that don't have independent depot operators, and those are the smaller communities like Kakisa, Jean Marie, Fort Liard, Wrigley, Tulita and Colville Lake. Mr. Speaker, in most instances, we have operators from other communities that would go in on a biweekly or monthly basis to work with those communities and pick up some of the recycling that's done there.

Mr. Speaker, we still have to have operators in those communities and we are working with them. We would like to have independent operators in each of those communities rather than some communities being served from other areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, one of the concepts, foundations, of this program is that it would be, in effect, self-financing or paid for by the consumer. Information is that there is a fairly substantial fund built up for this and I am wondering as we go further in seeing where we can expand, what levels of new recycling we can introduce, what, if any, would be the requirements for new funding from the Legislative Assembly to get these things going or is it basically on its way and is it self-sustaining, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, the program has been running well. It's been sustaining itself. There is still some requirement for our government to put an injection of dollars in there. Mr. Speaker, we do, however, have a board. We have a recycling board, a number of people who sit on the board, that advise us and as we take our next steps and develop our discussion paper, some of those questions that the Member is raising will be brought to the forefront and we will have some answers when we come back with some of the recommendations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Short supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will return to the e-garbage theme. I will recall that when we were first bringing in the container deposit program, people started hording and collecting and saving containers in anticipation of the day that they could actually turn them into some cash. Cash in your trash, so it really worked. I am wondering, should we advise people to start saving their old computers and gadgets, not only to save the environment but to potentially look for an opportunity to get some cash from this kind of trash in the future, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, the Member is asking me my opinion. I am giving my opinion on an issue that we don't have the final answers on. Mr. Speaker, we are looking at a number of things to address in this discussion paper including plastic bags, electronic waste, e-garbage, as the Member had mentioned, batteries, tires, fuel drums, a number of different things. I don't know if it's possible for people to start storing these things. It would depend on how much room they have. Mr. Speaker, we certainly would advise people that we will enter the next phase of discussion and start to have an opportunity for people to provide input and start looking at incorporating the next part of our recycling program very shortly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Carrying on with the recycling theme, I think one of the best recycled products is the pellets used lately for stoves. My questions are to the Minister of DPW. A thing I learned, that I didn't know about, by watching Northbeat earlier this week is the boiler system at the North Slave Correctional Centre entirely fuelled by pellets, I also learned that it is the only one or the first of its kind in all of North America. Not only does it have enough capacity to heat the water and the heating system for two-thirds of the facility, also it produces a lot less greenhouse gas. In fact, it saves money and the money has already been allocated for something else. I would like to know from the Minister what level of monitoring the department is doing to see other potential applicability of this heating system for other government buildings and the major infrastructure. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are doing this project as a pilot project so we can monitor the project, but, more importantly, work along with the private sector to offer them the ability to deliver this to the Northwest Territories for major facilities. This wood pellet heating system so far has shown results. We are monitoring. We are going to do assessment on it. At the end of the day, we do have an opportunity to take over the pilot program outright with a five-year commitment to the company. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

I am not sure I was asking the government to take over the operation which is running well, but what I am looking for is for the government to look at the possibility of having other huge government infrastructures that uses a lot of fuel to adopt this energy method. I would like to know if the Minister is engaged in a detailed, intense study to see the applicability of this in other communities and other buildings. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are trying different initiatives. This is just one of them. Like I mentioned, we are looking at electric heat for public facilities, looking at using wood pellets to heat facilities. We are coming forward with the energy plan. The plan identifies different initiatives we are doing. Again, this is just one of them. As a government, we have to be open minded to realize we have to change the way we do things and this is definitely one of the better advantages of working with the private sector of achieving that goal. Thank you.