Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess with age you just become galvanized. I don’t know how to put it any simpler than that. Mr. Speaker, the question really comes down to resourcing properly. No one is criticizing the programs developed and supported through this Minister, through Public Works, through MACA. No one is criticizing that.

Mr. Speaker, the problem out there that exists, which is pretty obvious, which is about transferring those ideas about programs which exist. I mean, you can go to Arctic Energy Alliance and they’ll give you a booklet and say here, now go put in a solar hot water panel or they’ll give you another piece of paper that says here, wood pellet boiler, but it’s the problem of transferring that knowledge, reaching into the great program and turning it into practicality. So, Mr. Speaker, that’s the focus I’m after. So, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of ENR look at addressing that problem that’s even recognized by the Arctic Energy Alliance? It would make a big, significant difference in implementing those programs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the ink is just recently dry on the budget for 2009-10, a budget that the Member stood up and supported and could not say enough good things about and now he’s saying somehow that there are gaps. May I once again remind the Member…I’ll give you another one that I didn’t mention, $100,000 for solar power for community swimming pools, just another small idea of the money that we’re putting in to work with communities and individuals, businesses. We’ve got $9 million put aside for a commercial power subsidy. So, Mr. Speaker, we are there in spades for the people of the Northwest Territories when it comes to alternative energy initiatives. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I also would like to ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources some questions, particularly about forestry. Residents, we’re sort of on a biomass track, which I think has an incredible amount of potential, as I have said before. I think a number of people are excited about it. It has the potential for local economic development and so on. Great potential. However, residents do appreciate that the forests play many roles and they’re concerned, knowing that we have slow growing forests, that we don’t overdo it and we do have forests that have turnarounds. Well, we don’t know what their turnaround is; possibly a couple hundred years or something.

I’d like to ask the Minister, what do we know about the sustainable yield of our forests and their capacity to sustain harvest for biomass heat and power? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we know that of all the forests to be inventoried, we’ve done about a sixth of what needs to be done. Most of it focused in the Slave River Lowlands and through the Deh Cho with some small areas up the valley. We know that if we’re going to focus on regional and community-based biomass strategies and wood pellets and chips, then we’re going to have to confirm that and update it. We know that the Member and the MLA for Mackenzie Delta are doing a report based on their trip to Scandinavia to give us their best advice on how they manage forests and how they do things in a way that looks at sustainability within their context. So we’re committed to this process. There’s some basic information there, but clearly as we move forward at the value-added secondary, there’s going to have to be more work done. Thank you.

I appreciate those comments. I’d like to ask the Minister, do we have the expertise within the department and the capacity to actually get this done and provide the assurance that our public will need before we go out and start harvesting our forests? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have some capacity, some resources. We have people that do this. They have other parts of their job as well, but clearly as we lay out our Biomass Strategy, we’re going to have to work to make sure that we have the resources to get the baseline information so that we can do our best planning and we’re going to have to look at the department and how we can readjust to meet those demands to get that information. Thank you.

Again, I’d like to impress on the Members that we have some real opportunities that are right here now. We’re receiving proposals, there’s expertise in the North to get some of these biomass programs on the ground. These things take time, studies of course and their sustainability of harvest. So can I be assured that some of the resources that the Minister has spoken briefly about with my colleague explaining what I hope we all know about the Arctic Energy Alliance doubling its budget this year, that those dollars are available to start work, an aggressive level of work, on proving up the sustainability of harvest for our forests? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have $1 million earmarked this year in addition to the other programs that are there to encourage people to switch over to more energy-efficient or wood pellet technology, $1 million to advance the work with the Biomass Strategy we’re hoping to pilot in one community. We have millions put aside

into retrofits for government buildings to get them onto biomass as well. So the commitment is there and we look forward to working with the Climate Change Committee and the other appropriate committees, the Minister of the Energy Coordinating Committee, to advance all these initiatives on the very many fronts that are on the move here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m aware that there have been a number of inventories done on community forests, at least a few, but to my knowledge it has not been taken to the point where we can actually rest assured that the harvest will be done in a sustainable basis. Our residents are demanding this. Can the Minister assure us that this work has started or will start very quickly and aggressively? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the work has been undertaken and is ongoing. As I indicated, it’s about a sixth of the total mass of the Boreal Forest that has been inventoried, most of it up into the Slave River Lowlands through the Dehcho and up the valley a bit. We recognize that around the communities if we’re going to do the Biomass Strategy in conjunction with the Fire Smart Program to help protect communities from wildfire, that we have an opportunity here to set up belts, protection belts that would also be belts where the wood could be harvested on a sustainable basis. So there’s going to be a different focus.

This Biomass Strategy is going to be new. Forest inventory in the past was for occasional firewood gathering, it was for larger-term lumbering and sustainability in that area. So clearly the Biomass Strategy is going to help change that focus, and that strategy will help us plan out the steps necessary to do it the appropriate way. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member from the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, upon reviewing the 16th Legislative

Assembly’s goals and strategic initiative, I wanted to ask the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation, in terms of supporting our goals here in the Legislative Assembly, if there’s any type of plans in the Housing Corporation to look at a pilot program for log homes that I understand could be an avenue that could be considered by his department for communities?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve, in the last while, worked very closely with the Members of this House to look at the issues in the area of housing and delivery of housing to our residents across the Northwest Territories. We’ve made a number of changes and we’re still working on many of the changes that need to be brought forward; more affordable housing in the communities is one area and designing houses that could be utilized by people that are out on a trapline that would require leaving their unit for some time. A house that could be heated with a woodstove and have very basic facilities in it was something that was brought forward. We have moved forward with that design. We plan to have some pilot units put in the communities this year. Log housing was also raised. We’ve been looking at a number of the units that were built over the years. I’m still not convinced that we can build these units cost effectively and also meet the EnerGuide 80 rating that we have in place. So we’re not in a position to move forward for this coming construction year with any log units. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister if he could go back to his Cabinet and, as the Premier said, have a “can do” attitude and look at possibilities in the future years, not this year, next year, have that “can do” attitude. Can we build several log homes for communities like Colville Lake or Nahanni Butte that could prove to the Minister that this could get done? I think this type of initiative in our communities would be very productive. I think we can do it. I think we need to strengthen our ability to have belief in our people. We have some really good log builders in the Northwest Territories. Would the Minister be willing to make a commitment to the people in the North that he will take this type of initiative back to Cabinet and see how they can do it? Build log homes in some of the communities that make sense, who are traditionally in that type of environment where they do trapping the majority of their life.

I do have the “can do” attitude. Just on this initiative, no can do.

---Laughter

As I indicated, this is not something we’re ready to move forward on. We’ve looked at many of the initiatives that have been worked on for log units. Almost every one of them has come in over budget; in some cases, three to four times higher than what the budget was actually set. We still haven’t seen a design that meets the EnerGuide 80 rating. In order for this to be successful and meet the principles of a basic unit program, it has to do both. We can’t move forward with a basic unit if it falls, exceeds

the threshold set for forgivable mortgages. That’s going to be very difficult. If the house is not energy efficient, then it really defeats the purpose.

We have designs ready to go for stick built. We’ll continue to look at this. If the Member has any suggestions or any proposals that he would like to bring forward, we will consider it. There are other Members who have indicated and are bringing proposals and designs for us to consider. For this construction season, we don’t have a design. We don’t have a program that will fit the bill and we can’t move forward with any log units for this year.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member a supplementary question. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I’m hearing is that it’s a “no-can-do” attitude on this initiative. There’s no way. So what I’m asking the Minister and this Cabinet is: Are they ready to really dig deep, look into an issue in terms of building a log home in one of the small communities? Can they dig deep?

For me, it seems that they’re not digging deep enough in terms of how can we build. Our grandfathers did it. Our fathers did it. They’ve done it in the bush. There’s a way there. I’m asking the Minister to look further in terms of how can we build a simple log house in our small communities for our people. Very simple, yet we seem to be stopped by certain codes and regulations. I understand that. I think there’s a way around that if we put our focus on it. Will the Minister be able to do that; roll up his sleeves with my people to sit down and say can we build a log house?

My sleeves have been rolled up for some time. Anytime the Member wants to sit down and talk about programs that he uses with success, we have the history on all the projects in his riding and other ridings. We can give him the cost breakdown. The reality is we can’t do any units in log building this year. We don’t have a design. We don’t have all the business case to bring forward to the federal government where we are obtaining our funding or the bulk of our funding. We would need to be convinced that it’s efficient, it’s cost efficient also, and energy efficient. I’m not saying that we can’t do it in the future. It’s just this construction year, along with everything else that we have on the go, we are probably not going to be in a position to do any log units. But I’ll be glad to continue to visit. We haven’t moved away from it. We just need to dig a little deeper, as the Member has indicated, to see what can work and how we can do it. But that would be for the next fiscal year.