I wanted to start by saying I was very pleased to hear in the budget address whenever things were being considered they were being considered from the perspectives of the economy, people, and the environment. This is a three-legged stool that is so essential in our approach to all issues. This is the first budget I have actually heard this in, so I want to compliment the Minister on that.

I’d like to also delve into the details, because that’s where the juice is, or not, on energy initiatives. I’d like to start by mentioning this recession that we’re in and the effect it’s had on the price of energy, particularly oil. Many believe that we hit peak oil and that’s what drove the prices up so high just before the recession hit. It may have contributed to it. We have a window of opportunity now when prices are low to be very effective with our dollars. We can rest assured, and I’ve had people come up

to me at the break and say this window of opportunity may be very brief. We need to be very effective with this time and deliver these programs very effectively and quickly.

First of all, let’s get it done. Let’s have a community systems approach on the ground. Let’s deal with the revenue included and, in particular here, energy efficiency and, of course, dealing with heating. Electricity is more problematic and I’m not saying ignore that. We need to be talking about that too.

One of the first things to me is we have a biomass opportunity. The Minister has identified that. We need community forest inventories, we need sustainable harvest plans, we need the development of wood cooperatives where people in the community can contribute and grow and harvest wood following the sustainable programs and so on. We need to look into wood classification. This is demonstrated to be the most efficient way to go for biomass and district heating in our communities. These are all off-the-shelf technologies available now.

I’m pleased to see the interest in wind and geothermal. Mini-hydro, $800,000 towards planning. Lord, Lord. Let’s get to actually doing something on mini-hydro, please.

Energy efficiency, I’d like to see us go after establishing EGH-80 in our public housing programs, especially with the federal dollars that are available.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I see I’m out of time.