Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would first like to thank Mr. Bromley for bringing it forward. There’s no doubt his passion to energy and renewable resources is very evident in the House. We’ve heard him speak many times. And to the seconder of the motion Mr. Blake.
When one looks at this motion, one sees a very broad-brush approach to energy initiatives and looking at solutions thereof. It’s very difficult sometimes to provide something for everyone when you look at a motion of that magnitude, so I would like to break that motion up into some components before I make my decision here known.
Really, at the end of the day, no one wants to take away from the alternative energy sources that we have out in the North. A lot of them have done very well in small communities, and small circumstances, and created employment, and has had some significance in lowering some of the energy costs. As I mentioned in the House not that many days ago, I mentioned that some of these initiatives are sometimes nothing more than throwing rice at a freight train, especially when we’re talking about the urban problems in the Northwest Territories. Again there were comments that came back from the other side of the House, but really in the essence that was very true. The urban centres cannot afford to go into large-scale alternative energies because the economies of scale do not make sense. We need to look at something bigger. We need something of a higher dividend. That is where this motion does pay tribute to that with respect to transmission lines. I still stand firm on that. That is truly the panacea of our energy problems for the future and our dependency on fossil fuels.
With that in mind, I will be voting in favour of the motion under the pretense that with that the Taltson
expansion transmission lines be the forefront and the hydro initiative become very, very important to this government. I will be voting in favour of this motion with a DOT road sign that says “Proceed with Extreme Caution.”