Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to general comments. I want to start off by saying I’m very happy to see the department coming in at a 3 percent including a forced growth raise this year and nothing higher as the previous department did. I think that’s responsible and I appreciate the effort that that takes. I also agree with most if not all of the initiatives that the Minister highlighted here. The $150,000 proposed for the De Beers project, I would ask the Minister to please not use the model he used to develop the socio-economic agreement
for the Mackenzie Gas Project. It was obviously an unmitigated disaster for the people of the Northwest Territories, but to stick with the diamond mine model that’s been developed before. We don’t need another travesty like that.
On the SEED policy, we steadily increased that I would like to see some evaluation of that program. We initially were interested in lots of ways of breaking down and examining that. That proved very challenging for this department, so I’m going to be asking again that we get some evaluation of those investments on a sector basis. As onerous as that might be, I think it’s the responsible way to go and perhaps that’s easily done now.
I also was happy to see the increase for the film industry. I’m awaiting the results of the review that’s ongoing, I believe, and will inform whether that’s a sufficient investment or not. I’m also curious on how it will be invested, of course.
The general approach to increasing food production or general highlighting and identification of that item is one I know the Minister is aware that I’m really supportive of. I think our investments there are somewhat modest, particularly in the area of agricultural development. They have done studies there with experts that have demonstrated the amazing gains that could be achieved with a very modest investment and really superb economic contributions that would be sustainable, I think, simply to provide 25 percent of our produce and meat products in the agricultural industry in the southern part of the NWT. But I appreciate all the other work that’s been done in the communities and I think that’s where society is and that there’s good response happening to the department’s efforts there.
I just want to highlight a couple of other areas. Of course I know we are supporting geoscience research to the tune of millions of dollars per year. A huge subsidy to this industry. I’m not sure whether we’re getting returns back on that. I know the federal government should be playing that role and I know they do in fact spend millions in that source. I’m a bit unclear about what we get from any investment there. I think where I saw productive investments was in the prospectors programs, modest as it was. That’s a role for our government until after devolution, after which I think it would be appropriate to get into that area of investment.
Again we’ve heard how the substantial investment of time and effort -- and I notice the Minister left out money, over $250,000 -- in the electricity system review. Probably pointed to as one of the most significant achievements in addressing the high cost of living. Really, this exercise simply has hidden the cost by shifting them from the ratepayers to the taxpayers. While I’m of course happy for the business community, for all the rest of
us this is a pretty hollow victory. If this is something we’re proud of, I think we’re setting the bar awfully darn low. I hope we’ll correct that and start going after real costs.
One of which I think is highlighted here and that is the decision to get after -- I can’t say go ahead yet, apparently -- the Lutselk’e mini-hydro facility. Apparently this is vulnerable, depending on access to the federal Green Infrastructure Fund. I guess I’d be interested in how vulnerable that is, where we are at with that. We’ve been working on this for a decade. I would have thought we’d have nailed that partnership down by now.
I am concerned with the considerable drop in revenues of this department. If there’s one department you would expect to see some increases, it would be this department.
I’d say good things are happening with tourism, which I’m very happy to see. I think if we can enhance that with real environmentally responsible and innovative approaches to tourism business we would see even more benefits. I think sort of the green tourism potential is high. Not only that, the more we can show that environmental responsibility, the more we’ll have other types of tourism. My colleague Mr. Krutko and I, when we visited the Nordic countries, we were amazed at the number of people visiting those countries simply to see their technologies and how they do things in such an effective manner environmentally and how much it stimulated their economies.
I haven’t heard much about the significant role this department should be playing in the Protected Areas Strategy and supporting our Aboriginal partners, and any role in the land use framework. Again I remain concerned about the ongoing overlap and confusing mandates between Environment and Natural Resources and ITI.
I think one of my colleagues, I believe it was the chairman, mentioned the airport extension as a possibility in Yellowknife during our review of Transportation. I think there’s obviously an important role for ITI here in contributing to the development of a business case or not. I’d be interested if perhaps that’s happening too.
Again, as far as the Mackenzie Gas Project, I don’t think we need to be salesmen for this project. I think we need to be critical managers of it. It’s been approved. Let’s now drop the rose-tinted glasses and make sure it’s managed in a way that actually benefits our people, something that hasn’t been done to date and is not even in the three objectives of this government in real terms. I will be asking questions and contributing to the ongoing efforts on that project that may happen someday, but seems to be a huge priority every year for the last I don’t know how many years. It’s just simply costing us.
I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.