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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on the Premier’s statement on his approach to energy and reducing the cost of living. As he noted, enhanced efforts in energy conservation and efficiency to fundamentally change our energy supply and reducing our dependence on imported diesel is a priority for this government.

In the review of the NWT Power Corporation I’m wondering if the review will include the performance of the Power Corporation in the area of innovation and bringing in renewable and cheaper energy from the renewable energy alternative energy standpoint.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ll be looking at all aspects of the operation of the Power Corporation and its review from existing delivery points and methods to what could be looked at. Yes, we would be looking at those types of avenues.

Will the Premier be tabling the terms of reference and will Members on this side of the House have input to the terms of reference for the review?

Before we table them I’d be prepared to sit down with the Members to go over them and discuss if they would be good enough and we could move forward on that basis.

Thank you to the Premier for those comments and that offer. It’s much appreciated. I’m wondering if the panel will include a representative from the alternative energy corporate world, if a representative of somebody with experience at providing small communities with renewable energy systems might be considered for a position on that review panel.

The first step is the review of the existing structures, how they operate, what they’ve tried to do. As well, the Power Corporation has tried to look at some enhancements in a number of communities, so we’re looking for the expertise in the area of how we operate and in comparison to other jurisdictions. We could take that into consideration as well.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again for those comments. The last question is the Premier noted that the review will provide data on the opportunities and implications of reducing the number of utility players to one, whether it be private or public. I’m wondering if he could just provide some more details on his thinking there.

That would come out of the fact that as a small jurisdiction, although spread out across a large area, 43,000 people having the number of structures existing in place in the North, that’s one of the questions we should be asking ourselves is, is that a good system Should we be looking at other alternatives? That’s where that comes from.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the energy initiatives that are happening in the Northwest Territories or are going to happen in the Northwest Territories. My question to the lead Minister for the energy coordinating ministerial committee is how are these funds divided up in terms of which communities will receive these strategy dollars to reduce the cost of energy in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The lead Minister for the Energy Coordinating Committee, the honourable Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In determining the budget that we put forward in this year’s business plan we worked very closely with the standing committees, and I think we all realized that we wanted to see some substantial projects that could be completed in the term of this government. Some of the larger projects take some time to get through the regulatory process and doing the tendering and construction. One of the things that we tried to do as best we could was put in funding for those projects that likely had the most opportunity for success. Then we tried to put something in for every region.

Certainly the key here is in terms of the opportunities for success for businesses. I understand what the Minister is saying. The Sahtu is certainly appreciative of the monies that will be going into the Sahtu region for their initiatives to bring down the cost of energy. However, it’s over a period of a number of years and I want to ask the Minister in terms of looking at the communities and the isolated communities versus the business initiatives that could be generated through these initiatives under the strategy here. Sometimes the communities seem to be the last in line in terms of helping them. I want to ask the Minister when he goes back to the Energy Coordinating Committee if some of these small communities with high power and energy costs can bring forward some type of initiatives that would see the cost of energy reduced in their communities.

There are a number of categories that are seen as territorial-wide funds which communities could apply for. Certainly in the areas of energy conservation, retrofits, and so on.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, certainly with the construction on the books for Fort Good Hope’s new school, certainly I would have liked to see that the school in Fort Good Hope could have got a

biomass initiative going in there with the same school that’s coming up, probably in different sizes, in Yellowknife here where we have a wood pellet initiative happening here. In the smaller communities we don’t have initiatives like that going in there. Why is this?

I’m not totally familiar with the details of the Fort Good Hope school but I would surmise that it probably has something to do with the fact that there’s no locally produced wood pellets and it would have to be transported from up river, probably Hay River or perhaps even as far as Edmonton. Until such time as we have developed our pilot projects to indicate that we can use locally produced biomass to heat some of the large facilities like schools, I would suspect that’s what happened in this case, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, this is one initiative that needs to be investigated the same as with the school here in Yellowknife. You’re looking at a wood pellet boiler here. There is no facility here in the Northwest Territories that can produce it. I understand La Crete is probably the closest in terms of the transportation. I’m looking at this school in Fort Good Hope. Why hasn’t that system been included in the Fort Good Hope school as similar to Yellowknife? I think this is where the government needs to look at the smaller communities because of the unique challenges there that need to be included in their discussions for energy initiatives. Again, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of ITI when he goes forward with this, can he look at the unique challenges of these issues in the Sahtu that we would receive a fair shake in terms of these initiatives going forward on the energy framework?

In the near future we would hope that every community that has biomass material in the vicinity would be able to stand alone and be self-sufficient. In the meantime, we’re developing pilot projects to show that it can work in every community. Also, you need a sufficient mass of customers or people who will use wood biomass for heating their homes. When you look at Yellowknife there’s quite a large group who are using wood pellets so it’s feasible here. I think that would be part of the issue. With pilot projects we foresee a day when every community will be utilizing biomass. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.