My comment on that is Canada ships about 90 percent of our pellets by overseas, so I don’t see an issue there. Obviously, the economics are there and so on and the pellet supply is available. In fact, there’s a glut right now in BC because of some of the other environmental impacts they are experiencing in the way of the pine beetle and so on. So I don’t see that as a big one to overcome if there’s a will to get it done.

I just wanted to ask the Minister does he agree that the department plays an important role in helping support some of these renewable energies becoming economic by being the big customer themselves locally and bringing the price through that move and the opportunity for others to move it to reality. Thank you.

The problem, as I see it, is there is currently nobody in the business of providing pellets in the Sahtu at this point, but I agree with the Member. In his comments, he kind of answered the question for me. As we are a client, we increase demand and, therefore, increase affordability and make it easier for others. But there still has to be a supply source. We’re not a distributor. We would be a client. If it’s there, it certainly increases our options.

I think that was a good, brief discussion. As for your last statement that you’re not a supplier, I will hold my comments until we get to petroleum products division. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Does the Minister wish to respond?

We can wait for the division.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. With that, does committee agree to proceed in detail? Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to follow up on Mr. Bromley’s exchange with the Minister and the reason why he’s stating that possibly there’s no supplier in Norman Wells, for example, or the Sahtu. Because we don’t have the support there. No one’s going to get up and just start putting the wood pellets to the fire and say, come. It’s ludicrous.

We’ve been saying that if you had an initiative to put a wood pellet boiler in one of the communities, like the Fort Good Hope new school, you would have had the suppliers in Good Hope. It would have

been there. I guess I’m moving into an exchange here but you have to get realistic, too, with this type of initiative. That’s what I’m asking this Minister here. If you want to put something in, wood boilers, it takes a couple years, you can get somebody going. They have it in Fort Simpson. Just out at Checkpoint they have a company there putting these wood pellets together. They’re testing it out. They’re testing out what’s the best market they can have. Right now we get them out of Alberta. They used to do this in the Sahtu a long time ago. They used to cut cords of wood for the church and the steamboat. They’re no stranger to it. Even when I was in Old Crow they used to have cords of wood outside the Old Crow school. That’s how they heated the school. If the government said we’re going to do this and we want a supplier in the Sahtu, I think you’re going to have a few people step up and say let’s do it. But it’s got to be a business for them. It’s got to be business viability.

It’s all about money. Interest in their supplier of petroleum but we’re not a supplier of wood pellets. That discussion we’ll have later.

Give us an opportunity to get into this and not just blame the people saying there’s no supplier. Quit blaming us. That’s something that this government needs to know. We will do it if the demand is there, but like I said, all the projects are not around the Sahtu. They’re somewhere else. I want to just tell the Minister that if you give us the opportunity to be a supplier of wood pellets, we would do it. Actually, the people in Good Hope said, we want to get into this business. But they said, why? There’s no wood pellet business. They’re going to go broke. It’s the cart and the horse; which one goes first? You’re putting the cart before the horse here. I think we need to have some more discussion on this here. Put in a little bit of emotion. I take it as being too hard on the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think ultimately we’re agreeing with both Mr. Bromley and Mr. Yakeleya. We would obviously like to see and utilize this technology up there but currently there isn’t a distributor. I’m only purely talking about distributing. We have had conversations just last week with the SSI and they did express an interest in starting to have more conversations about this and creating opportunities for the utilization of things like pellets in the Sahtu. We’re absolutely open to that discussion and we’d like to be part of that discussion and solution, but we have to have those conversations before we can commit to doing anything specific. Ultimately whatever we do has to be cost effective and in the best interest of the pocketbook of the Northwest Territories so that we can continue to provide all the

programs and services that we do provide as a government.

In short, yes, we’re interested in this. This is something that we’d like to work with the Sahtu on. Find a way to utilize this technology in that region. A lot of discussions need to be had and we’re ready to have them.

When we look at these types of programs, like I said I felt before in my statements, that the Sahtu didn’t really have a fair shake at this type of initiative. I felt that we missed out.

I was a little bit forceful in my language on our use of the diesel fuel. That’s a reliable source for us right now. I found that we need the government to be supportive. If you’re looking at the Norman Wells health centre and long-term care facility. Does Public Works and Services see that wood pellet would be a viable heating source of energy for any other large facility? If it is, then tell the people in the Sahtu we need to get a supplier going here.

There are all kinds of excuses not to have this. This is only one source of energy that we’re talking about. We’re not talking about geothermal or hydro. That’s my comment. Make it so that we can have a good discussion. The Minister said he’s having discussion with the Sahtu Secretariat right now. I look forward to the outcome of those discussions with the SSI. I’ll leave the rest for detail.

With respect to the health centre, absolutely it’s something we’ll look at as alternate sources of heating, such as pellets. Absolutely. The bottom line is we need to make sure that the cost savings are there and that there’s definitely payback. Right now without all the detail – and I want everybody to recognize that we don’t have all the detail – it looks like the transportation costs of pellets could be quite high. So we need to work with all the parties to find some solutions to some of the complications that will keep the costs high. Overall we agree with what the Member is saying, and with the health centre we’ll absolutely consider it.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Does committee agree to proceed to detail?

Thank you. I’ll direct committee to page 7-7. Just to note, the department summary will be deferred until after the consideration of the detail is completed. We can move to page 7-8, information item, investment summary.

Page 7-9, information item, revenue summary.

Page 7-10, information item, active positions.

Page 7-13, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $7.958 million. Mr. Bromley.

Yes, was that page 7-17, Mr. Chairman?

Page 7-13, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Yakeleya.

I’m up to…okay. No. It’s okay.

Okay. We’ll repeat that again. Page 7-13, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $7.958 million.