Okay we are going to move along to page 12-22 and Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is basically dealing with energy contributions. Especially in my riding, there is a lot of talk about biomass but in order to make biomass work, you have to have some sort of a residual system. Fort McPherson already has a residual heat system which is in partnership with the Power Corporation and the Gwich’in Development Corporation, but in order for the project in Fort McPherson to work they are going to have to expand the existing system in order to bring on biomass. I think that is a good opportunity to join these two initiatives together in which we are looking at other buildings in the community, but more importantly, expanding a system which is already in place. The biggest cost to biomass is going to be for the transmission system, the piping system that has to be encased. The case of the system in Fort McPherson, I think that there has cost about $2 million and it is already in place.

I’d just like to ask what two community groups are working either with the Power Corporation and community organizations and other government departments, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and your department, the Power Corporation can do to assist communities in expanding in the area of residual heat. I think that we have a lot of power plants which are next door to either fire halls or different garages, either it is the NWT Housing Corporation garage or whatnot. I think it is the perfect opportunity to expand that technology in the Northwest Territories when we are talking about reducing the costs, but more importantly, it is a good business opportunity for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation to look at the possibility of bringing in additional revenues using distribution of not only electricity but distribution of heat. I would just like to know if that is something that has been looked at and exactly how do the communities access those dollars.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All government departments work very closely together. We don’t work in stovepipes anymore, so working with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources we will be working very closely with the communities, as the deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources mentioned yesterday, that he would be meeting with the Gwich’in chiefs. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has the lead for biomass and we also are dealing with residual heat, so between the two departments I am sure we can

work out an arrangement with the Gwich’in as to what should be done in Fort McPherson with their existing residual heat project. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Again, you are talking two departments but the key for this to work, you need the third player, which is the NWT Power Corporation because they own the power plants. Basically for them this is a perfect opportunity to use a lot of the heat that is basically simply blowing out the smokestacks of the power plants and take advantage of that heat that is being burnt off by diesel generation. I think that we have to look at that technology, and more importantly, expand it to other communities where we have facilities, like I say, just in a couple of feet, a couple of yards from the power plant, especially like garages. In the case of Tsiigehtchic, they are looking at the fire hall which is right next to the power plant. I think that is the type of stuff I am looking at. Again, in order for this to work, you have to work in conjunction, like I say, with three different parties, which has to include the Power Corporation. They are one of the key players because they own the facilities that the heat is going to come off of. Again, I would just like to throw that out there and maybe I will leave that question with you and maybe you can respond to it. I will have another question after that. Thank you.

We do work closely with the Power Corporation. We have the MECC committee, also we have deputy minister level committees, so I think we have that covered. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a question in regards to the $4.2 million in regards to the energy contribution. There are a couple of projects on there that seem like they are basically going to lapse in regards to the Fort Providence transmission line, and other projects I believe are going to lapse. What happens to the dollars that are allocated here? Can they be moved to the other envelope proposals in regards to higher in-stream hydro you can use those additional dollars to deal with, like I say, expansion of residual heat systems. What is the flexibility in the dollars that are allocated in the 4.2 since it doesn’t look like we’re going to spend all of the 4.2? There are a couple of items there that aren’t going to be implemented anytime soon.

I guess I’ll give you a breakdown of the $4.250 million. Lutselk’e mini-hydro there’s $2.8 million; Whati hydro transmission line, $250,000; Sahtu hydro assessment, $200,000; and expansion of residual heat. The other projects are dependent on funding being made available, but generally the process that we follow is we track our expenditures and we report on a regular basis on our budget for energy priority investments to the coordinating committee and if there are any

adjustments to the energy priority investments, it’s approved at that level. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, I didn’t catch the one in regard to the amount of money that’s been spent on the expansion of residual heat. Could you explain that or elaborate on that funding allocation? I didn’t catch that one.

We’re proposing $1 million for 2011-12.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Krutko.

I’m good.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I have nobody else on my list for 12-22, Industry, Tourism and Investment, activity summary, energy, grants and contributions, contributions, $5.500 million.

Next is 12-23, Industry, Tourism and Investment, information item, energy, active positions.

Page 12-25, tourism and parks. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of quick questions on this section. When Education, Culture and Employment was in front of us I asked some questions about some of the things you’re doing. One of the things you’re doing is supporting arts and culture, obviously through things like the NWT Arts Society and whatnot, and I’m about to say something I know the Minister has heard from me before, but when it comes to tourism supporting the arts is a great advantage. I mean, people are looking for reasons to come to the North, people are looking for activities and, yes, we have aurora and, yes, we have some of the most beautiful land on the planet and, yes, we have a lot of cultural activities going on, but we can’t exclude art and those types of things. Musicians, festivals, arts conferences, arts fairs.

In my opening comments I was happy to see that there is some increase in your SEED program for artists, but not performers and I think in the tourism area by supporting our artists and finding ways to partner with them and have them act as our champions is a good thing. It’s good for the artists, it’s good for the Northwest Territories because it will draw attention and those musicians and painters and authors and whatnot could be brilliant ambassadors for us. We’ve got Make Your Mark right now, which I think is a fairly decent program, but if we had some of our local talent out there making their mark as well and supporting them, I think we’d be getting a real bang for our buck in that area.

So with the new Tourism Strategy that just came out, what are we doing to work with Education, Culture and Employment who has invested a lot of money in our artists to find partnership opportunities to work with them, including Education, Culture and the artists and have these people work as ambassadors or out there pushing their art, but pushing the Northwest Territories as well?

Minister of Tourism.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We work very closely with Education, Culture and Employment to promote all artists, whether it’s visual artists or performing artists and I think we’ve been very successful in doing so. Some of the promotions that we’ve done, we’ve continued to support artists, but also I’ve had many accolades from performing artist who have accessed funding through the SEED program so that they can go out to different festivals. Some of them even go to storytelling festivals in Hawaii and so on.

In addition to that, we also maintain an NWT artists database. We have an NWT Arts Branding Logo Program. We do NWT community consultations. We do arts promotions, art displays. We have an NWT Film Commission. We have a new strategic initiative, Support for NWT Arts Programs and Services, and we have some financial support to the SEED program. We have an NWT artists’ news line/newsletter. We have a toll-free line and we are developing a plan that will identify marketing tactics and strategies to focus on marketing and promotion of NWT artists from across the Northwest Territories in all genres of the arts to maximize potential and exposure of northern talent nationally and internationally. ITI and ECE have contracted Points North and Kellett Communications to prepare a plan for consideration by the departments. We expect a final report by the end of February of this year. Then we will have recommendations made to both the Ministers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the Minister for that. Everything you just said is great and fantastic. I’m really excited by the last point you made about this last project you’re putting together to find ways to market. I think that’s brilliant and I’m really looking forward to seeing that. That’s the type of thing I’ve been talking about since I got here, is these people have a valuable product and partnering with them I think will prove dividends. So I’m very excited about that.

Just in closing, I spend a lot of time looking at the products that we’re putting out there by way of Spectacular and stuff like that, and it’s great product. I’m very happy with Spectacular, but I’d like to open the Tourism NWT with our Spectacular logos on it and I’d like to see some of the pictures and links to where some of these artists are,

pictures of the artists. Let’s highlight them, let’s work with them. Also, links to their websites, links to where we can see their products, links to where these individuals live so that people who are coming up here can find them and get in and see some of their product and hopefully spend some of their money here. I love it when people from outside of Yellowknife spend their money here. I think it’s brilliant and anything we can do to encourage people to come and spend some money, even if it’s flowing money into the pockets of the artists, that money will be circulated here, it’s brilliant.

So that last point, I’m very happy to hear that and I’m really looking forward to seeing that product and I hope you share it with us as quickly as you guys share it with yourselves. Thank you.

We work very closely with NWT Tourism, which is our marketing arm, and we’ll make sure that they have all these links, if they don’t already have them, and we’ll commit to sharing the results of this report as soon as we get it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Next I have Ms. Bisaro.