Mr. Chairman, I was glad to hear the Minister mention some barrel recovery. I’ve often said that we should put a bit of a head tax on those types of things such as if someone brings back these empty barrels that have been dumped all over the land. As an example, we give $50 per one that returns, and that’s only an example. I don’t know if that’s feasible or if that’s too low either. I don’t know. I’ve asked for this concept to be thought through, because I think this could provide an excellent opportunity to get some of these things in. You know, when people are coming home off the land, they can throw in one of these derelict barrels and all of a sudden it’s paying for some of their gas on the way home.
As far as waste oil in the communities and perhaps even batteries, does the department have any plans to address some of those? In the past I’ve
suggested, for example, that the government invest a bit of money into a waste oil burner to become the opportunity where people can drop these things off, and we could be heating a government garage of some sort or that type of thing. Because a lot of these waste oil burners can burn normal oil, in other words, clean oil, as well as the waste oil. So, as I understand it, I mean, you don’t have a lot of opportunities, whether you’re living in Tulita or you’re living in Fort Simpson or you’re living wherever, I mean, ultimately, when you change the oil in your vehicles, I mean, where are these things going? And they’re just going into some barrel or in some container and sits somewhere. I mean, it’s very unfeasible to have a program to go collect what would be seen as very few litres, but yet, the opportunity could be that we could pick it up through this process. Does the Minister have any insight on that?
The last point I have, because I suspect he’ll use all the remaining time on the clock, is as far as e-waste and paper and, perhaps, tires, is there any seed money in this particular budget and if there is, how much seed money is available for a contractor to come forward and present these ideas if they have a logistical proposal that could meet the needs such as cleaning these things up? You know, whether they’re batteries in the communities, whether they’re e-waste or tires, paper, et cetera. Thank you.