Thank you, Minister. With that, we’ll take a short break and resume shortly.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Prior to the break we were on page 12-17, Industry, Tourism and Investment, minerals and petroleum products, operations expenditure summary, $6.063 million.

Moving on to page 12-18, activity summary, minerals and petroleum resources, grants and contributions, contributions, $895,000. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, the Mackenzie Valley development contributions, I want just a little more information on the Aboriginal capacity building initiatives. I understand from the previous page there is about $360,000. That’s what I wanted to ask this Minister, if he had some details he could pass out to the Members here to see the plans. We have six months left in this government to work closely with our communities that are going to be at ground zero at the pipeline, when the pipeline comes down. I’d like to see what programs are going to be supportive in capacity building. Thank you.

Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That money is used to help Aboriginal governments build capacity, get ready for the pipeline. So we provide contribution funding to the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in, the Sahtu and some communities in the Deh Cho. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Certainly communities and the regions are appreciative. Can I get a breakdown of the amounts for the groups that he listed off?

My recollection is that it was $100,000 for the Gwich’in, $100,000 for the Inuvialuit, $100,000 for the Sahtu and $60,000 for the Dehcho and they draw down as the communities need it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I’ll have to do a little bit more research and digging around in this to how they’ve

been drawn down and what type of capacity building initiatives the Sahtu has been using towards helping them with this project. That’s it, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Page 12-18, petroleum resources, grants and contributions, contributions, $895,000.

Agreed. Moving on to page 12-19, information item, active positions. Agreed?

Page 12-21, again, activity summary, energy, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have really three or four little sets of questions here. The first is on the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee and I’m pretty sure this was a new committee to this Assembly. I just wondered if they’ve produced any reports yet, or if the intent is to produce any reports.

Minister of ITI.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is new to the 16

th

Legislative Assembly and I’ll have

to go back and check our terms of reference as to whether we had identified that we would be fulfilling an annual report or not. I know that we haven’t been to date. It’s been more of a coordinating committee approach that would deal with specific projects and we would report on specific projects. Some of the main things that we’ve been working on that we will be reporting on is we will be developing and releasing an energy report that will be released in 2011. We worked on an electricity review. We’ll also be developing a draft Hydro Strategy that will be released in 2011 and also the EPI, an update of our energy priorities inventory. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Yes, that is given a focus on a departmental level. It is part of our energy priorities framework and that is something that is ongoing and we have invested on things to reduce energy for the GNWT like a wood pellet boiler for the Legislative Assembly, a wood pellet boiler in Fort Simpson, the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund under an energy efficiency for public housing. So those are some of the areas that we’ve been focusing on through the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The other area I wanted to ask about is the Taltson Hydro Project. Obviously we’ve

chatted about that quite a bit over the years here. Is this dead in the water? I know that there was a bit of a response, a rejection of the environmental assessment I believe by the federal Minister and there is a challenge to get, well, let’s call it a hiccup, figured out and that’s the routing. I’d like to see this project go ahead, but with this routing figured out in a way that resolves the issues. Could I just get an update on that? I see we’re not spending any money on it this year, so I’m assuming maybe the partners are. Thank you.

We did have the environmental assessment report sent back by the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and we are doing an assessment of that. My understanding is that the Premier will be briefing SCEDI, I believe, or SCOPP within the next couple days or in March, I think it’s March 2

nd

there will be a briefing on the

Taltson. So I think at that time you’ll get the full details of what is being proposed. The corporation is working on that and the Premier will be updating committee on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the Minister’s remarks. I’ll look forward to that briefing. I’m sure the Minister is aware and I’m sure he’s been part of briefings where we talked about the contracts with the mines. There’s high interest there, but obviously they can’t make the commitments until they have a definite proposal before them. Yet, as time goes by, the feasibility of it perhaps is compromised. Is there anything the Minister can share with us in terms of whether or not the mines are beginning to back off from interest in this proposal?

I can say that Deze Corporation sent letters to all of the diamond mines and my understanding is that they have received responses and they are reviewing the responses from the mines and they are factoring that into their response on how they’re going to deal with the environmental assessment of the proposed transmission line in the Taltson Hydro Expansion. So the Premier will also be reporting on that, as well, to committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.