Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a great pleasure to provide a few opening comments to the Minister. I guess I would start off with this, although it’s been mentioned. I will be brief.

The department I think needs, from a forward thinking point of view, to develop a fracking strategy from the Environment and Natural Resources perspective. I know that as a Member on the Economic Development and Infrastructure committee, the environment issues are constantly brought up. We have to find ways to steward ourselves that balance the needs of infrastructure and development in the context of appreciation and respect for the environment. I would hope that this

would be on the agenda of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Quite often we hear from our constituents about caribou and how important they are, the caribou survey and where it needs to be further developed by this department. I would hope the department would have something to say.

Madam Chair, you yourself, as well as I, have talked for a number of years from time to time about the tire shredder and how the department has some good initiatives on waste reduction. I think a tire shredder, we are certainly due for one in our infrastructure. We could send it up and down the Mackenzie into our communities. It doesn’t necessarily need to make the whole trip in one year, but it could make its way up and down the valley every couple of years. I bet we could even send it over to Nunavut and make a bit of money that way. It would help redirect some of the waste that could be sorted out.

I have said over the years, and I’m going to use this occasion to remind the Minister, we need a good strategy for e-waste in the Northwest Territories and I would certainly like some feedback on that. As well, I’ve often brought up the issue on batteries, whether they are car batteries or just general household batteries. It’s something that gets parked in the community dump, whether it’s Yellowknife, Hay River, Tsiigehtchic or wherever it is. What happens to these things? I don’t think we have a philosophy as to how we plan to deal with this. On a small program, we could talk about how we want to do something. I think here is a real initiative we can talk about and do something with.

The Minister has made more than a polemic argument as to why we should continue biomass. It’s very important. I am absolutely a supporter of biomass. I think it makes a lot of sense. Without sounding like a critic, it seems to be one of the things we do fantastic. It’s not to say we don’t do other things well, but it’s one of the things we do very, very well. It helps our energy. It’s a good type of stewardship.

But by the same token, I have concerns about solar energy. Without it being significantly subsidized, it just doesn’t make sense. Our solar energy does not deliver the same type of bang for the buck that we could get from biomass. That said, although I do appreciate the initiatives that have been done, if they had not been heavily subsidized, they would not be economic. So it’s funny when you say you super-subsidize something to make it economic, it kind of makes you wonder where the money is coming from and what it’s actually doing.

I will say the notation here in his opening remarks about baseline study in the Sahtu area, I think with the addition of an environmental protection officer, we need that type of work done. We can certainly see the tsunami of work that’s coming our way in

that region and I have no doubt that everyone in the Sahtu, from an economic point of view, are on the edge of their seats, saying we cannot wait to get to work. I’m sure they need the work. This will help further develop the region, but by the same token, as I said earlier, in the context of fracking, in that message that is, we also have to ensure we are good quality stewards of our resources. At that point, I should also give credit to Minister Ramsay who brought the Economic Development committee to Calgary. His department was very helpful in our study tour. I would say he may be tough in some perspectives, but Minister Ramsay does deserve credit for leading that initiative. Without that type of information, we wouldn’t help appreciate the stewardship we need to take in consideration going forward.

Madam Chair, today I tabled a couple of articles from the Northern Journal. By coincidence they were on the same page, and certainly they were talking about northern water and the quality of it. The present quality is good. Having said that, a relentless and robust program here to develop, monitor and manage our water is very important because once it’s bad, in my view, as a non-expert, it’s almost impossible to fix. It is the lifeblood of everything we need, so it’s got to be primary in our concerns. By the same token, I should remind everyone in this House and not just the public, Minister Miltenberger has led that crusade for many years. He needs to be patted on the back for his accomplishments

I happened to go down to the Alberta Legislature when he presented them with a motion in this House and talked about how important this relationship is. Getting along in the messaging, programming and developing policy with Alberta to ensure NWT waters are clean and safe for generations to come is critically important.

I didn’t necessarily want to spend too much time on the opening comments, but I did want to provide a little bit of feedback from my perspective. I’d say, overall, I am quite pleased with the department in the way they respond to my concerns as an individual MLA. I can’t speak for all MLAs in that regard, but I get a sense that the department does do good work. At times we may disagree with them, but they certainly do a yeoman’s job on perspectives that need to be raised and sometimes, at the end of the day, they’re different. I respect that.

Madam Chair, that’s all my comments at this particular time. I look forward to the detail as we proceed. Thank you.