It does have potential for

further expansion, but we’re proposing to consider the provision of electricity or power to the diamond mines. That’s what has been put forward for environmental assessment.

Mr. Chairman, that’ll be all for now,

but I just want to say for the record that I do recognize that this eventually does become legacy infrastructure.

I hope the Minister and his staff and everyone else who’s listening recognizes that there still seems to be a lot of unknowns behind this project. The fact is that the day that these diamond mine companies close, which will come, that power will be available then.

The only fear I see here at this stage, and I’d like to think I recognized this early on.... When you see the power route go by, it goes by every sort of real populated community without building synergy. I would certainly hope that there’d at least be some investment into the thinking of linking it to other communities.

If it’s going to run by or close to places like Yellowknife, I’d certainly like to see that as part of the thinking over the long haul. When we start doing that, we can continue to expand to all our small communities on a grid. I think that will be the precipice of creating a one-rate zone throughout the Northwest Territories. As I seem to recall, they often shot down the one-rate theory because of uncommon rates based on the fact that you pay for what it costs in your region. I think this could be the avenue to look at sort of a smarter power grid throughout the North. I’d hate to think that opportunity would be lost, Mr. Chair, in that people aren’t thinking far enough down the road.

If I remember correctly, there was an amount in the range of $30 million to connect Yellowknife to the larger grid. I think the synergy, just in that alone, would start powering 60 or 70 per cent of our population. I think it would help everyone at large.

Mr. Chair, my time’s up, and I’ll leave it at that last comment. Thank you.

Next on the list I have

Mrs.

Groenewegen, Mr.

Robert McLeod and

Ms. Bisaro. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay. So you have an environmental assessment underway currently to take power from a proposed Taltson expansion to the diamond mines via the east arm, basically around the eastern way. Was a proposal considered to bring power the other way, as laid out by Mr. Abernethy? The Minister has said that there’s a 690-kilometre transmission line to go the route that is proposed, but there’s not much between Taltson and the diamond mines to pick up in terms of any additional communities or anything.

Mr. Hawkins talked about a legacy project. Well, there’s an experience they had in the Yukon where they built a power transmission line to a mine in Faro, and it shut down. Then you have what you call stranded assets. A big cost in this whole idea is the construction of the transmission lines. It’s fine to talk about linking up a whole bunch of small

communities, but at some point it becomes cost prohibitive to run a power transmission line into Colville Lake. Okay; I’m using an extreme example, but this thing has to make economic sense. Was a different route of the transmission line contemplated that could have come to the west, up through Yellowknife and then up to the diamond mines along an actual roadway and seasonal road, as Mr. Abernethy asked?

Minister of ITI.

Mr. Chair, the Minister

responsible for the Power Corporation seems eager to jump in here.

The Minister for the

Power Corp, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I

hope one day we can put a hydro line into Colville Lake. For the Taltson hydro expansion there were a number of routes outlined in 2002 and 2003. Some of the routes were ruled out either for technical reasons or project financial viability. These were being studied.

The Taltson proponents, the Deze Energy Corporation, received the terms of reference for a development assessment report. This report was on the potential impact and what can be done about it. They’ll also be doing some research this summer. This report should be out by this fall for comments. So they are doing some of the work, and they are looking at some of the issues that the Members here are talking about specific to this project.

So there were other routes

contemplated, and it was determined that the 690-kilometre route around the lake from Taltson to the diamond mines was the most feasible route to take. That I can understand, Mr. Chairman. What I can’t understand is Mr. McLeod telling us that even though this proposed route and this project have gone to environmental assessment, we could change the route with little impact. To me, you would be starting off from square one again if you then change the route to some completely different direction.

The environmental issues that you would encounter and that you would deal with and assess would be completely different than the route that’s being proposed. So I’d like to ask Minister McLeod, then, if his offering to Members of the Assembly who have asked to have input at some time wouldn’t have been just a little overly generous to suggest that we could change the routing later.

I don’t recall putting my words

exactly in that order. What I said was that the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee had

committed that we would review the costing of the alternative route and that although the project had gone for environmental assessment, it did not preclude having discussions about a different route. I don’t think a route has been finalized as of yet. I believe that’s the way I explained it, Mr. Chair.

The Minister said that the

route as proposed is not cast in concrete. Now, I don’t have the advantage of Hansard, but he used those exact words. I find that hard to believe.

This time that we’re spending here talking about the route of this transmission line.… If it’s already gone to environmental assessment — that’s already been determined to be the most feasible route to take this — then could we just say that that is the route and other routes, without going back to the drawing board, would be completely unlikely?

The project has been put

forward by the Deze Energy Corporation and is undergoing environment assessment. As the Minister responsible for the Power Corporation has indicated, the review was done in previous years, and we committed to go back and look at those numbers.

The contribution to the NWT

Energy Corporation to complete a feasibility study and environmental base line work: does the feasibility study include looking at options for a route to transmit hydro from the Taltson to the diamond mines?

The figure of $3 million does

not include a feasibility study to look at alternative routes.

I’ll allow the Premier to

elaborate on this.

Mr. Chairman, the process

we’re under, as Minister Yakeleya touched base on, was initially started a number of years back with this partnership coming up to look at expansion of Taltson Hydro.

This is a combination of actual expansion of the facility itself as well as the transmission line. There were a number of avenues looked at. But the business case they’ve presented through this new partnership is the most cost-effective way. The process is to see them establish this and finance it through sale of power to the mines. As a government, as we talk about our hydro strategy, if we want to become directly involved in this…. There was discussion. Yes, there could be an alternative route established, but we would have to enter the fray and come up with dollars to help make that happen.

The company itself is putting forward a plan based on their business case to their customer, that being the mines right now. As we heard, they’re still to negotiate those deals. It’s a business case they’re putting forward. There are still decisions — key decisions — to be made as to the involvement of the Government of the Northwest Territories beyond some contribution funding to help them put their full package together.

If we want to enter in to the idea — and I know some Members have discussed this — of looking at another route to hook up communities, then we would, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, have to look at our involvement. How we would finance our piece of it, I guess, is what it would come down to. As the Minister’s stated earlier, I believe they’re ready, hopefully this fall, to be able to come back to Members with a better plan, a report, to look at those options, and we could get into more detail.

Right now this is to help get to the next stage, to look at it. My understanding — and we’d have to get this corrected if I’m off base here ― is that this money would be recouped if the project were to actually proceed and would be put into the capital cost of the facility. I’d have to confirm if that’s the case. Maybe the Minister of ITI can confirm that.

Thank you,

Mr. Premier. Before we go to the Minister, we’ll go back to Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. I’ll just have a few

seconds here. It’s interesting that we could recoup these costs. If we’re putting in $3 million as the GNWT, then it begs the question: what’s in it for us? And if this is just about hydro expansion to create enough of a business case to transmit hydro to the diamond mines, I suppose there’d be a reduction, a serious reduction, in greenhouse gas emissions, which would be a positive thing. But apart from that, if we are creating a capacity that is going to be totally consumed by the diamond mines, then I would have to see what the benefits are. I’ve used up all my time now, Mr. Chairman, but that’s the question: what’s in it for us?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just

like to confirm that if the Taltson project proceeds, previous investments will be capitalized, and the GNWT could see these investments returned.

We’re still in early days with the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project. The environmental assessment process would effectively take 12 to 18 months. What we’re talking about is a power legacy that would last for up to a hundred years. It would be

developed in partnership with the Métis and the Akaitcho. The diamond mines would have a limited life, so the expectation would be that there would have to be a further extension of the lines at some point after the life of the diamond mines has expired.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My colleague

Mrs.

Groenewegen said something that I was

thinking about while I was listening to all the discussions on the power — what’s in it for us?

Being from the northern part of the Northwest Territories, I heard lots of comments about the southern part of the Northwest Territories and what benefit it might have to them. My question, again, is: what’s in it for the northern part of the Northwest Territories other than a Taltson Hydro rider that’s probably going to show up on our power bills? We have every other rider that’s there. We’ve got 20 to 25 per cent of the population from the Sahtu. I see the figure $3 million here. There are obviously a lot of people up there paying taxes that are going toward expansion of Taltson Hydro to serve the mines. It just doesn’t make sense.

We need to know that there’s an opportunity here for this grid to go farther north. We talk about cost all the time — how much it’s going to cost to do this, how much it’s going to cost for that. At the end of the day you’ve got all the northern communities paying top penny for their power — $0.56 alone in Inuvik, compared to…. I’m not quite sure what they pay down here. Nothing close to that. Colville Lake’s got the highest, I think, in the Northwest Territories.

We start talking legacy projects here and supplying power to the mines and actually going around the route I’ve heard a couple of my colleagues talking about, where it’s going to miss some of the other communities if they choose to go a route along the other side of the lake. I sit here and I listen to this. If I had the stomach, I’d make a motion to delete $3 million.

It’s just so frustrating to sit here and listen to all this discussion. I think there was some talk a few years ago of Bear Rivers hydro serving the northern part of the Northwest Territories. I’d like to know where that’s at. I just can’t express my frustration from listening to all this talk down here about spending $3 million of taxpayers’ money. We’ve got businesses, individuals up in Inuvik, the northern part of the Territories, paying through the teeth for their power. Yet we can drop 3 million bucks just like that to supply power to the mines — and going the opposite direction while we’re doing it.

Mr. Chair, I didn’t have any questions there. I just needed to vent a bit. It’s 7:20; I’ve been sitting here all day and listening to all the discussion going on about this. When are we going to stop making decisions like this? I can see a Taltson rider on the bills up in Inuvik and the Beaufort-Delta. I can see it. We have riders for everything else, and this is just something that I really have an issue with. If there’s anything we can do….

We talk cost again in supplying or running grids up to the northern part of the Northwest Territories. It’s possible. I just wanted to express my frustration, Mr. Chairman, at dropping $3 million to supply power to the mines, which don’t even take a lot of people from the northern part of the Northwest Territories anyway. I can maybe try and justify this if we had a couple of people working up at the mines. There might be a couple. I think I know two of them. I think that’s the only two. They bring more people in from the east coast than they do from a couple hundred kilometres away, even though people do want to work.

I’m really starting to go off on a rabbit trail here. I better stop.

I just want to reassure the

Member that the way the Taltson Hydro Expansion has been structured, it’s outside the regulated system. There would be no riders for the expansion included in any bills for power.

Our expectation is that it will not affect the power rates. Once the studies are concluded and the project proceeds, the expectation is that it will generate revenues for the corporations involved and the Government of the Northwest Territories as well.

Certainly we agree with the need to review power rates. We have started planning for a review. There will be other projects that will be identified as we develop the hydro strategy and continue with our electricity review.

Maybe I did have one question. I’ll

just ask it. I’d like to ask the Minister what the immediate benefits are for the northern part of the Northwest Territories. What’s the immediate benefit to them?