Thank you. I would like to turn the committee’s attention to page 13-7. We will defer that after consideration of the activity summaries. We will move on to page 13-8,

Environment and Natural Resources, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under infrastructure investment summary this would be a great opportunity to ask my question about the tire shredder. I think he missed it and I was quite devastated to hear how easily it was skipped over.

In essence, this issue has been raised repeatedly in this Assembly and certainly in committee, not only by myself but with Member Groenewegen on the same song sheet.

How does the Minister feel the NWT can meet that need by looking into that type of infrastructure investment? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do apologize to the Member. It was raised by at least two or three Members, both the tire shredder and the electronic waste.

What I will tell you is that our next priority on our recycling list is the electronic waste. That arrangement will be with Alberta. We have to sort out the particulars, but basically we are going to make arrangements to collect our electronic waste and hopefully be able to negotiate an agreement to use the fairly large facilities that they have in Alberta to have that waste recycled. That’s the next priority.

There has been some work done on tire shredders. It is not because they are not all equally important, but we have a list and we have capacity issues. Paper waste and tire shredders are probably next on our list, along with the issue with drums now that the oil companies are not taking them back. We know that there are probably tens of thousands of them scattered across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am actually appreciative that the Minister mentioned drums. I think at one time I suggested putting a finder’s fee on that. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has mentioned that over the years about a finder’s fee on those drums, whether they are worth $50 or $100. When people travel out on the land, they can throw them in whatever. They can take a boat, whether it is a truck or a plane, they can throw a few in and certainly they can supplement some of the gas they need to get out there.

That said, the Minister had mentioned next on the list, as always, when do we think that this will be a priority that we’ll be seeing and the investment required in a timing sense. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, we are concluding the front-end work on the electronic waste piece and we are going to be moving to

implementation. I would suggest in 2014-15, we probably would be making reference to that where there would be some initial preliminary work at the planning level, but the focus for the next year or year and a half is going to be to get the work done on the electronic waste off from paper into reality. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I don’t really have any more questions on this page, but I did want to make it clear that it is not that I am against solar energy. It is just that I think it is the least practical of them considering the infrastructure costs. That said, I do also agree with the Minister’s point, which is that technology is getting cheaper all the time, but my view is, and I still maintain let’s do the things we do very well and biomass is certainly a hallmark of quality work with good benefits at a great price. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We will treat that as a comment.

Committee, I will direct your attention back to page 13-8, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Any questions?

Thank you. Page 13-9, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see a drop there of a couple hundred thousand dollars in the Environment Fund net revenue. Perhaps the money has been put into the e-waste program or something. Could I get an explanation why the drop in revenue there?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That number is a projection based on a three-year average. It may potentially change, but it’s just based on a three-year average. Thank you.

I didn’t excel in math, but two years are reported here and both years are about $450,000. So I’m not totally clear on where the Minister is coming from here. Thank you.

That average is based on actuals. On this page, the only actuals we see are 2011-2012. So there are two other years of actuals but the actual number isn’t listed. All we’ve listed here are the mains and revised estimates. Thank you.

I’m still not sure I see the numbers there, but it looks like we’ve got quite a reduction in revenue from the last year that we had an actual, which was the year before the current fiscal year. We are just about at the end of this fiscal year and a revised estimate of $450,000… I

will leave it at that so we can move on. It seems curious. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Page 13-9, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, revenue summary. Any questions?

Thank you, committee. Moving on to 13-10, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, active position summary. Any questions? Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just under the Beaufort-Delta indeterminate part-time positions, over the next couple of months we’re going to have a facility in Tsiigehtchic. I was going to ask the Minister if he could make that a full-time position. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Page 13-10, Environment and Natural Resources, information item, active position summary. Any questions?