Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the question. The Member is correct. The initiatives that are identified under the energy appropriation on this page reflect direction from the Minister’s Energy Coordinating Committee but by no means are the full suite of all the MECC’s guidance, those are distributed among a number of different departments. I’ll speak to the particular projects that are reflected in this appropriation proposed, but let me say that all of these contribute overall to our climate change objectives and our reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for the territory.
Emphasis in the initiatives that are identified here and, as you may note, the compensation and benefits is essentially the same, but the grants and contributions have changed and the specific project energy initiatives that are identified as per the Minister’s opening remarks in the House and committee earlier yesterday, one speaks to first of all a study, work with regard to dealing with natural gas conversion in the thermal zone. That is particularly focused on the overall initiative to look at LNG as a possible alternative to diesel fuel consumption in our communities, whether that’s in a community like Inuvik, which is a major consumer of diesel fuel but has been converted to LNG, as well as other communities in the thermal zone. So we have $150,000 proposed there.
There is a proposed investment of $1.4 million to the Whati transmission initiative once we continue the work. With alternatives to the diesel generation in that particular community, we’re looking toward providing hydro generation as the supply of electricity in that community.
We continue to support NT Energy with a $50,000 contribution to water monitoring, all of that leading to the potential for hydroelectric generation across the territory wherever we have that type of supply.
The other major initiative, of course, is one that we’re very pleased on identifying through the MECC Committee, which is another $200,000 towards a Great Bear mini-hydro project, and the Member for the Sahtu is familiar with that initiative, but we continue to work hard to try to identify a hydroelectric source of electricity in that region.
So that’s the example of the projects in that suite of contributions. We continue to support NT Energy, which is the unregulated component of NT Hydro, with a $700,000 contribution for their core resources. But as I said at the beginning, many other projects reflected in other departments – Housing, Public Works, ENR and others – reflect
continued effort towards greenhouse gas reduction in our territory consistent with our strategy and the Greenhouse Gas Strategy. Thank you.