Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion speaks to a number of issues and the biggest one I guess we have, as people of the Northwest Territories, is our dependency on fossil fuels. We have created a dependency over a number of years, ever since the Norman Wells oilfield started up in the 1920s. We have created the dependency. Before, many of my people lived off the land on the natural ability of what the land has given to them. Since the oil has come into the Northwest Territories and since we started to introduce the furnaces and all the other things that we need to heat our homes and power our communities, we have created a real dependency on fossil fuels.
Just recently we started to create a new way of thinking, a new attitude in the Northwest Territories more so because of the southern news that we get and the amount of pollution and the way that things are looking in the southern parts of the United States and even in Canada in terms of global economics, global change, and the attitudes of people now are starting to differ in terms of the fuel that’s being produced from the ground here. It’s noted that even in the Alberta tar sands, for one barrel, 45 gallons of fuel, it takes about three to six barrels of water to produce that one barrel.
The breaking of the fossil fuel will take some time here, so I think this motion speaks to having our government seriously look at this type of dependency. The burning of fossil fuels in our communities certainly is used for our own power, for our own vehicles, even our power plants to generate electricity and heat our homes.
Again, I point to the issue of climate change. We’re seeing more and more of how prevalent this issue is and how different regions, countries, nations are forming conferences and forums to talk about climate change. You see it every so often on the news in terms of the global warming.
I believe this government here has initiated frontier money in terms of hydro, clean energy, wind energy, other energy that is going to be cleaner,
cheaper for our communities. I see that as an initiative that I fully support.
The Alberta tar sands is a real threat for the people of the Northwest Territories. This year, the Alberta tar sands is a live-and-die issue for us in the Northwest Territories. I think now that National Geographic, the Minister of ENR has met with the Alberta counterparts, the people in the Northwest Territories are starting to see if even the federal government is jumping on board. The Alberta tar sands, as much as it’s producing the economics and the dollars, in the future I think it’s going to be live and die for us in the Northwest Territories. That water somehow gets contaminated to a point where we have to start maybe even importing bottled water for ourselves. I’m thinking about 20, 30, 50 years in the future. I’m thinking about this threat here and how it’s going to affect us all along the Mackenzie River.
In 50 years, God willing I’ll still be standing, maybe sitting, but I know this issue here is a real threat, because my elders have talked about this threat. I didn’t know what they meant about the Mackenzie River being poisoned or drying up. In 1979, ’78, I didn’t know what Chief Paul Wright and Chief George Kodakin were speaking about in our communities, until I started reading about the tar sands, the leakage and what they’re putting in the rivers and how it’s coming down. Maybe we won’t see it today, maybe not in 10 years, but we’re going to see it. This threat is real and it’s alive and if I don’t speak up for it and other Members speak up for it, mark my words, in 30 to 40 years you might see something. I hope they can read the Hansard and say that’s what they’re talking about.
I think we, as a government, have to really look at this here and really protect our people. Every spring we go in the bush and fall time we go in the bush and we live on water. Animals live on water. People down the Great Slave Lake live on water. That’s our life. That’s our land. I think this government here has to stand up and say this is more important than economics.
The government purchased over 18 million litres of fuel for our communities. That’s not counting the government. We depend on the fuel from the government because we have that dependency. This is what they brought into our communities. We have gone green. There is a new initiative on green. I believe that we are going through a transition phase right now.
My question will be to the government. How are we going to implement these new low carbon fuel standards? How is it going to be implemented? There’s a cost for implementing these new low carbon fuel standards to our people. There’s going to be a cost to us. I believe that. I believe in our
communities we pay high enough on our fuel for our vehicles and our energy. My question is, until I see real clean, reliable energy in my communities in the Sahtu for hydro, wind, solar panels, geothermal or whatever, we are depending on fossil fuel. We are depending on it because we haven’t seen any initiatives yet to really see results. We have talked about some programs. We talked about some initiatives. It’s going to cost us additional dollars to raise the cost of fossil fuel in my communities with the prices all too high right now.
I think there are bigger issues that need to be looked at. Until I see that there’s energy initiatives like wood boiler furnaces in the communities in my region, like hydro initiatives that can start up construction next year or this year, until I see that in my region, I have to say that because the price of fuel is costing lots…Elders have talked to me about the global changes. They know. They say even today it’s hard for them to read the weather. It’s so difficult in terms of that.
This year I’m going to not support this motion until I really see some initiatives on what the real cost of the carbon fuel is. I know what Mr. Bromley’s talking about; the greenhouse. I know that’s an issue for me. Right now this motion, I think it’s going to be somewhat detrimental to my communities so I’m not going to support the motion. But I’m going to have other issues that I’d like to embark on further in terms of some of the points here. There are some real good points in this motion, but I think we need to really look seriously at this before we go ahead with it.