Thanks for that response. One of the issues that have been also bumbling away for years now is the local improvement charges, the provision of the authority, the capability for municipalities to deal with that and offer that. In its absence, we are, to some degree, adding to the cost of living are not taking advantage of the opportunities. We have to help residents with the cost of living. We are also avoiding, really, the
opportunity to help with the cost of renewable energy infrastructure.
As we heard earlier today from my colleague Mr. Moses as he talked about the exceptional front-end costs of installing solar in Inuvik – and this is true of different renewable energy systems – even though the payback time and the internal rate of return is very, very attractive compared to any other investment these days, they are finding it very hard to deal with those front-end costs. This is the sort of thing that municipalities, in concert with this government, could deal with it through the provision of local improvement charges and funds.
So, for example, I am working with some people interested in solar right now and one of them had to drop out of the interest because they’re leaving town in a year and the system won’t be paid back. This would help deal with that. So, the charge would be picked up by the next owner of the home and it’s just a very common sense way to go about dealing with these costs.
What are we doing and when will we provide the legislative, as I understand it, and policy support needed to enable our communities to take advantage of these opportunities to help our residents deal with their cost of living and our larger government goals of energy and greenhouse gas emissions, et cetera? Thank you.