Being none. Thank you. Page 7-16 and 7-17, Public Works and Services. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a very important division. Asset management looks after all our building infrastructure and so on. It looks after maintenance. We’re currently doing some good work and making some serious gains there. It’s also where Public Works and Services focuses on helping the GNWT achieve their government-wide energy efficiencies and greenhouse gas reductions, reductions of fossil fuel consumption, et cetera. I would just like to get on that topic generally.

I believe there’s a new Model National Energy Code for buildings. Can I just get where we’re at with respect to that new code and how it relates to the most recent old one? Also, how our good building practice for northern facilities relates to that.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There have been a number of questions brought up about this exact topic in the past. Previous to the new regulations coming in, we were meeting and exceeding, and often beating the national code. New codes have come in, and we’re still in that

area, but for specifics on numbers and some of the specific details, I will go to the deputy minister.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Guy.

Thank you, Mr. Guy. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you for that information. I recognize that this division and department are really our hope for energy issues, and it’s very, very important work that they do. If I can drill down on that, so that means that, I believe we say as a government, our residents, any building has to meet the National Energy Building Code, and I believe I’m hearing from the deputy minister that right now there are no new energy standards for those buildings. We choose to go for the highest calibre within GNWT buildings, but in terms of other buildings that businesses or residents build, they don’t have that standard. Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

People building buildings, offices, houses and whatnot would still have to meet National Building Codes when they’re building their buildings. We as a government have made a choice to meet and exceed, and we’re exceeding by about 10 percent as the deputy minister indicated.

I’ll leave that for now, but I believe there is a difference between a National Building Code and a National Energy Code.

I’d like to just ask what role Public Works and Services has played in establishing a new market for wood pellet energy in thermal communities

where they didn’t exist before, through the establishment of territorial infrastructure that demands wood pellet energy. Are there any cases that we can point to where we have achieved that? I know the work we do in switching here has been very important in that respect, but I’d like to know what communities that didn’t have that access now have it because of our work.

If you go back into the history of wood pellets in use by the Government of the Northwest Territories, we’ve tended to respond to where a market is already started. If you look at how we got involved in pellets in the first place, it was with the correctional facilities here in Yellowknife where a vendor came to us and made a suggestion to have them put in the boilers and be the, I guess, administrators of the heating system.

From there, once we’ve seen success and we know we have a supply, we’ve been able to expand to where supply exists. We, I wouldn’t say are leading the drive for pellets in other communities, but we are taking advantage of where a market has started to show.

I would say our most recent push is Norman Wells. A local company has started to provide pellets to the residents of Norman Wells. We see a significant opportunity to get in there and actually make some improvements to some major infrastructure in Norman Wells. We’re looking at the school, we’re looking at the airport and we’re also looking at the new health centre/long-term care facility. We have, to some degree, been encouraging industry to move in front of us slightly on that and then working with them to enhance and support.

That’s good. Obviously, I disagree with waiting for that. There are many, many examples – the Minister is familiar with them – where the GNWT plays a key role in establishing a new practice in a community in all kinds of areas, and that enables that community to enjoy and spread the benefits. I think we should be doing that here as well.

I guess I’m wondering, what has been the trend? In opening comments we heard a lot about the reductions in greenhouse gas, 25,000 tonnes I believe it was, and so on, savings in dollars and fossil fuel. Would the Minister have at hand, or could he provide what has been the annual savings in greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption over the past five years from the work of Public Works and Services so that I can determine what the trend is and our achievements there?

I mean, I completely understand my colleague’s point about spreading the benefits and trying to be a leader. To some degree, I mean, we wait for where we know we can get supplied before we go in, because we’re not a supplier of pellets but we want to support the

industry. We will go in where there is limited use of pellets, but at least some supply, and us being there, having additional demand, demonstrates that this technology works here in the Northwest Territories and that others can certainly build upon it. Example: We are putting biomass in some of the schools and some of the other places in the Northwest Territories like Fort Providence where there may not be as large a distribution, but once we get in there and demonstrate that they have real, positive attributes and that there are savings to be had, and there’s also a greater degree of actual product available for others to take advantage of, we are seeing other businesses and residents taking advantages of these opportunities.

Where we wait for at least an acknowledgement that we will be able to get supplied before we put in them, once that supply is there, we’ll jump on it, and we go in and we do as much as we can where money is available. Some of the money is coming from the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund, which we think is a fantastic program and it’s given us lots of money to roll back into some of these things. We want to hit some of the areas where we know we’re going to get larger returns so we can grow the funds, so we can get more benefits and hit more people. I think we are spreading the benefits and we are working with communities, and we’re working with anybody that’s interested. If somebody from a community were to come to us and say we can get supply into a community where there isn’t, we would love to have that conversation. We think there would be significant opportunity to do that.

Now, with my rant, I completely forget the other question you had.

The second part of the question was around actual usage and savings and bigger-picture numbers rather than just the $25,000. We have some numbers. I’m not sure it’s exactly what the Member is looking for. We can probably dig out those numbers. But I’ll go to the deputy minister right now who has some specifics. I don’t believe it’s exactly what you’re looking for, but we will work to get you some of those bigger numbers as well. For some details on what we’ve seen as success, I’ll go to the deputy.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Guy.

Thank you, Mr. Guy. Mr. Bromley, your time is up. If you have any more questions, let me know here. Moving on with questions I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question here, and I think it was in the Minister’s opening remarks. He talked about settlement maintainers and apprentices that, I think, sort of continuing to use them and employ them. I hear the same thing from the NWT Housing Corporation, so I just wondered, in terms of hiring settlement maintainers and in terms of hiring apprentices, is there any kind of coordination between the Housing Corporation and PWS to make the best use of people within the communities to provide the greatest service to our buildings and to the Housing Corp buildings in a community?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have conversations. We talk about co-located facilities and things that we could do, and we certainly are involved. I’m not sure whether the Member is getting at hiring or having one position shared between. I’m not sure that that’s what she’s getting to. Can I get a little bit more clarity from the Member?

Sure you can. I can try. As I understand it, we have buildings. PWS has assets that need to be maintained and need to be serviced. The Housing Corporation has buildings and has assets that they also need to maintain and service. I know that the Housing Corp hires apprentices and, obviously, PWS does as well, so it would seem to me that there could be a benefit to ensure that we have a settlement maintainer in every community. Maybe we don’t need a full PY settlement maintainer for just PWS, and maybe it’s

a job share or whatever, but I’m just wondering if in hiring a certain apprentice are we going to end up with two apprentices in the same trade in a community, which I don’t imagine we would need, certainly, in a small community. That’s the kind of coordination that I’m talking about. It may not be necessary but it would seem to me that there could be an advantage to talking about what kind of services are required, what kind of trades are required, what kind of maintenance is required, and combine the work to maybe provide better service.

There may be some opportunities for some cooperation here, but there are a couple things that we have to remember. Many of the buildings that Public Works and Services manages tend to be larger; schools, jails, office buildings; larger facilities that would require a different skill set than, say, a home, which the Housing Corp may be administering. I’m certainly willing to have that conversation with the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to see if there are any advantages, but it may not be as cut and dried as that. Thank you.

That’s all I have.

Thank you. I have Mr. Bromley.