This is page numbers 6699 – 6756 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.

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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Some Hon. Members

Agreed.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Agreed. We’ll commence with that after a brief break. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. When we adjourned yesterday, we were dealing with Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2015-2016. At this time, before we resume with page 6, I would like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Yes, I would, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses to the table.

I would like to welcome back Deputy Minister Mike Aumond and Deputy Secretary to Cabinet Sandy Kalgutkar with the Minister here today. As I said, we left off on page 6. I will read it out. Finance, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $22.129 million. Yesterday I still had on my list Mr. Bouchard and I had Mr. Bromley. On the matter of the $22 million, if Mr. Bouchard is ready. No? I will go to Mr. Bromley, thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

October 6th, 2015

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up a little bit on Ms. Bisaro’s comments. This is primarily motivated by low water which is causing the need for diesel power generation in lieu of not having any other green energy generation capability at this moment in time. I guess I’ll start by saying this is shameful to me, given that the same thing happened last year.

I spoke very clearly on this, both in the media and in the House and to the Minister, and yet, exactly the same thing happened again this year.

I am happy that committee is now committed to beginning work on this, albeit belatedly and modestly. But, again, just to follow up with Ms. Bisaro’s comments about the need to bring this into our fiscal planning and so on. Just with a couple of minutes of thinking, looking at the costs of climate change, and these are impacts that are consistent with climate change, extreme events that we have not seen before. Last year we had $60 million for fire suppression costs, through the roof. We had the Inuvik Airport, Hay River Airport, we had Highway No. 3, the Dempster. We had power generating costs of $20 million, or $15 million actually. Five million dollars went into this fiscal year and now we’re proposing another $22 million for this fiscal year, so that would $27 million.

Really, we’re talking now about hundreds of millions of dollars, and I know it’s affecting our fiscal planning. We can’t have those sorts of unplanned for costs without that. It’s exacerbated, of course, because of our low net fiscal benefit compared to our predictions during the devolution negotiations.

I’m wondering: has the Minister sat down to try and summarize and collect and do a financial accounting of impacts that are pretty directly related to climate change in the last few years.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

We had those discussions with Finance. The costs are all there, separating out what we want to attribute directly to weather and climate change versus the more normal occurrence. We’re looking at that. But clearly, as I said yesterday, there is a need for us to capture that more accurately so that it doesn’t overpower or blur into other areas of normal government operations, and it is, as the Member has pointed out, getting to be a fairly high number.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

I’m disappointed that we, as a government, are not on top of that equation, and we should have been for the last several years. We heard just a month or so ago about the storm surges and whatnot in Tuktoyaktuk that left some government buildings hanging over the water, oil tanks suspended or lost into the sea and so on. We’re losing, in some areas, 10 metres of coastline per year there. I’d say the writing is on the wall for that community.

We’re looking at $22 million here on top of the $32 million for the fire suppression this year. Have we estimated the cost? Are we planning on what to do or what it’s going to take to move the community of Tuktoyaktuk? The writing is clearly on the wall there. I would think the Minister would recognize that.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

That work is underway. Senior officials have been up to the community, along with the regional staff, to look at what’s necessary. All the efforts to hold back the rising waters and the storm surges have proven fruitless, the amount of money spent on gravel and big rocks and it just gets washed away.

The issue of relocation is one that is clearly the most viable option that is being looked at and that work is underway.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Just for perspective here, would the Minister agree we’d be talking probably in the tens of millions of dollars for that exercise?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

It’s early days, but absolutely we’re going to be spending in the many millions of dollars as we get started, and if it’s the whole community, all the low-lying areas, the relocation, the lock, stock, and barrel relocation of the community would be very expensive.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

We’re spending now $50 million over the last 12 months and planning for the next eight or ten months so that people that could experience high power rates would be protected from those. The latest information shows that we’re talking billions of dollars for public infrastructure and damages over the next 15 years. Then we have private, commercial and institutional infrastructure. Are we planning on bailing out all of those to protect our public from the costs of climate change in this manner?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

We place a high priority on the cost of living. We will do the things we can, like what’s before the House right now in terms of mitigating those high costs. If these extreme weather events continue to drive our costs then there are going to be some significant hard decisions that are going to have to be made on how we manage our way through that.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

I agree with the Minister there. Would the Minister agree that comprehensive planning can help mitigate what the costs will be without planning?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

As we have discussed over the years, we have to do both. The mitigation initiatives that we have to reduce our carbon footprint to get off fossil fuels will help do our part in terms of lessening the pressure on the climate change and warming temperatures, but we also know that those types of activities don’t bear fruit for 30 to 40 years. We’re also going to be spending more immediately and more greatly on the adaptation that’s going to be required with things like erosion, permafrost, the money we’ve spent in our lifetime here just on replacing failed piles and all those other related costs. We have to do both.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

We have to do both and to do it effectively, it takes planning. I think the Minister would agree with that. How, in what modest way, are we planning to use some of this $22 million to do both?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

As I laid out in my comments, after a good discussion with committee, initiated by Member Bouchard, we are going to look at taking 10 percent of that money and putting it in towards efforts that are going to, hopefully, or help, diminish some of the demand through things like speeding up whatever streetlights need to get done to LEDs, and we’re going to put some more money into Arctic Energy Alliance and work with them to beef up their rebate programs, their incentive programs for people to switch to more energy efficient equipment or solar and those types of things. But I’d ask the deputy minister if he could walk us through the details.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Aumond

As the Minister stated, it would be about $2.2 million provided to enhance alternative energy uptake. About $400,000 of that right now is charted for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation of which about $300,000 is looking toward switching out streetlights to more efficient LED lights, particularly in Behchoko and Detah.

We’re also looking at some solar in Fort Liard and in Wrigley and then about a $1.8 million enhancement to Arctic Energy Alliance to help beef up some of those programs that are currently oversubscribed so that we can get more people to uptake those programs than presently have the ability to do that today.

We’re also looking at some special projects such as community LED swap-outs where we’ll provide energy-efficient lights in communities and looking at some partnerships with community governments and NWTAC around some solar projects and around also looking at what AEA can achieve, in partnership with Public Works and Services, around alternative energy such as solar. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Anyone else? Mr. Yakeleya.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. The initiatives that Mr. Aumond has just spoken about, I’ll get back to them, but I want to ask the Minister in regards to the low water. Are we expecting, in the upcoming years in the next government, that will continue? Is there any type of prediction as to the low water that we’re dealing with in the Bluefish Hydro area that this government is going to be expected or asked to forecast a huge amount of dollars to offset the high cost of having that facility operate? The way I guess I understand it is that the whole Northwest Territories is paying for this expenditure. Is there any type of forecast that this is going to continue on, year after year we’re going to be baling out the hydro energy use used by people in this area? Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya, Minister Miltenberger.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Madam Chair. The hydrological prediction and looking into the future is not an exact science. It’s tied to many variables that you don’t know from year to year. What we do know is that over the years the snowpack has diminished, the glaciers are melting, the rainfall patterns are changing and we’re now into year four of a drought. Around the world what used to be reliable weather patterns have now disappeared, so we are anticipating this is the second year, which is why we’re doing things like putting out the expression on solar and wind and we’re working to invest to get off of fuel. Here, the prediction on the water, I am anticipating we’re still going to be on low water next year unless we get what they say is going to be a warm winter with lots of snow. But at this point that’s a prediction and we don’t know if it’s going to come to pass.

We have a Fuel Stabilization Fund that’s set up to level out the impacts of these types of occurrences across the whole territory so that no one area has to pick up the tab if something goes wrong in their particular region. The Fuel Stabilization Fund doesn’t have the resources, so the options are fairly simple: we either just keep raising rates or we, as a government, step in to try to make sure that we don’t drive up those rates to make it unaffordable to live here. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

The Minister’s quite correct in terms of predictions of the future. Maybe down in this area here the water is low, but I know that up in our area the water is quite high. You know there’s lots of water in the mountains for the fall hunt, lots of water the people say when they go up to the Keele River to do their fall hunt. There’s lots of water up there. So we have to be very specific, not to generalize too much to scare off people here.

Now, the Minister has talked about a very interesting point on the future energy of the Northwest Territories. I sit in a region where there’s lots of natural gas and we have a potential for some hydro initiatives. Our studies show that we’re not in a good place for any type of wind energy, plus we could do some more work in the solar energy, but we’ve got a lot of fuels in the woods, in woodstoves and burning wood. I haven’t seen any type of creative thought to having wood as a source of energy for people in our small communities, not even to look at the possibility of tapping into Norman Wells natural gas to fuel our communities or even to go forward with the Hay River run-of-the-mill hydro. We see lots of initiatives south of Wrigley in spending dollars but we don’t look at the smaller communities, except we’re looking at Colville Lake. Actually, the world’s looking at Colville Lake at the solar panel and the diesel. Other than that, nothing in Good Hope except Good Hope has made some strong initiatives to bring woodstoves in and put them in the housing, or Tulita or Deline.

I think we’re a little frightened to look at the natural gas in Norman Wells. There could be a business case with ITI to look at how we cap in with the natural gas in Norman Wells to link up to our communities. It’s clean energy, it’s cheap and it could bring down the energy use and also there’s an abundance of that. Oil under the ground, the National Energy Board has estimated over 200 billion barrels of oil. Let’s not be afraid of these types of potential in our region.

I wanted to state to the Minister that we have these projects going around the communities but I have not seen much other than to have the solar panels. I’ve seen them. I drove up to Colville Lake and I saw them. They looked quite impressive. Test that out to see if it’s working well and the cost of their energy is going to go down, but other than that I haven’t heard anything from this government as to how they’re going to work with the community of Deline on their run-of-the-mill hydro plant. Nothing concrete, it’s sitting there and there are no dollars going towards that initiative to get it going. Look at the possibilities of a hydro transmission line from Deline to small communities. You can have pretty well one cent a kilowatt if you have that operation going over a long period of time.

So, Madam Chair, our region is sitting on billions and billions of barrels of oil. We’ve got to do something with that, even having a case built with this government to see if we can tap into the natural gas. Things like that. One of the ones that I think could fly, and I’ve heard it before, was to use wood as a source of energy in our communities with woodstoves, and that can benefit a lot of people, benefit our communities. So we’ve got to do something in that area. So, I wanted to remind the Minister, when you look at the additional dollars, to look at the communities that can benefit quite a lot and let’s use what we have.