Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of comments. I am appreciative of being able to make some opening comments relative to this department. In general, I am approving of what I hear from the Minister in his opening remarks. In the statement about the development of alternative energy supplies and emerging technologies, I welcome that and I am glad we are spending money in that area. I guess my concern is that I would hope that we don’t spend the money studying things and looking at things, that we are actually going to be -- and not in five years time but hopefully in this next budget year -- able to ensure that the actions that we are undertaking are going to be evident on the ground and in communities, so that we are going to be seeing the results of this work of developing alternative energy strategies and looking at emerging technology, that that is going to be evident in a concrete way in our communities. In particular, our small communities who endure the highest energy costs. I think there is kind of small things, small projects, small changes which we can effect now that will assist in some of this stuff and I know that Mrs. Groenewegen has said quite a number of times, you know, why don’t we put a wood burning stove in every house. That is the sort of thing that I am thinking of.
I am really pleased to see that we are going to have wind turbines installed in Tuktoyaktuk and that that is going to be in this next year. For some reason it was in my head that it was going to be a longer-term thing, and that is great that it is hopefully going to be operational in ’09-10.
The expanding programming and the extra funding that we are giving to Arctic Energy Alliance I think is an investment that is extremely worthwhile. My experience with Arctic Energy Alliance is that they do extremely good work and they are providing a service to our communities that is necessary. They have got an expertise and they have with the addition of some new positions here. It is going to spread their services much further across the Territory than they are right now, so I am totally approving of that expense.
I am a little concerned -- and I don’t know if it is quite referenced in the budget or not, but I know we talked about it in the business plans -- about the federal regulations relative to wastewater effluents and the effect that that is going to have on our communities. I don’t know whether ENR is involved in that. I think it is probably a joint departmental project at this point. But I need to caution the government in general that this is going to have a huge impact on our communities, and we need to make sure that we are out in front on this and ensuring that communities are going to be able to deal with whatever regulations the federal
government puts in place and that it’s not going to cost us an arm and a leg.
I noted in the budget that the funding for fire suppression resources was considerably reduced this year from last year, so I will have some questions when we come to that part of the budget. I am just wondering whether or not it is going to have an impact on communities and on lands within the NWT and around communities in terms of whether or not we are going to be able to keep our fires under control, basically, or whether we are going to be losing more forests to forest fires than we may have been before.
The Caribou Management Study which we recently received, I was really glad to see that that was done and that it has been shared with the public. I guess I do want to know, that when we come to that section of the budget, whether or not it is going to have an impact on quotas for outfitters and, if not this year, when it might be. There certainly are outfitters out there who want to know.
The Beverage Container Program I am fully in support of. I think it has been a very successful program and I am really pleased to see that it is being expanded. The fee for single use bags, I support, and I think this says the fall of 2009. The sooner we get that in place the better. Plastic bags are the bane of our existence and I hate them with a passion.
The suggestion that we are going to expand to electronic and an e-waste recycling program is wonderful. Mr. Jacobson mentioned we have warehouses full of e-waste and I think every house has probably a cupboard full of e-waste as well. It is something that certainly the City of Yellowknife has difficulty with because there is nowhere that it can be recycled, but there is an awful lot of...There are contaminants within all the e-waste that gets taken off to the dump here in Yellowknife.
With regards to adding the milk containers, I agree with that, I think that is a great thing. To Mr. Bromley’s suggestion of returning the whole of the subsidy for the milk containers, I could live with that. I would also consider, or ask the department to consider, that the extra money that comes from the deposits on the milk containers be put aside and used for a milk subsidy. If we can’t get the money from somewhere in the budget, maybe we can get it by adding a deposit on our milk containers. Not an extra one, but if we are retaining any funds, then let’s put it into a milk subsidy instead of putting it someplace else.
I was pleased to note that the department highlights an Interdepartmental Green Team, which is being led by ENR. That is great. That is wonderful. So following up on my statement from last week, I look
forward to seeing a bottled water policy coming very soon from this Interdepartmental Green Team. That would make me very happy and I did get communication from the Minister -- thank you very much -- recently that it is being looked at, so hopefully I will hear about that policy soon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, that is all I have.