Bob Bromley

My comment on that is Canada ships about 90 percent of our pellets by overseas, so I don’t see an issue there. Obviously, the economics are there and so on and the pellet supply is available. In fact, there’s a glut right now in BC because of some of the other environmental impacts they are experiencing in the way of the pine beetle and so on. So I don’t see that as a big one to overcome if there’s a will to get it done.

I just wanted to ask the Minister does he agree that the department plays an important role in helping support some of these renewable energies becoming economic by being the...

Thank you very much to the Minister for that comment. I’m glad to hear we’re thinking that way. I just want to note that all jurisdictions, we have faith in our communities, as the Minister has repeatedly said and used as an excuse for not having a building standards act, but I do think all other jurisdictions do have communities. Would the Minister agree that it is consistent to play this role and have some standards in legislation and that’s still consistent with having faith in our communities, which I think we all do?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There’s a big overlap between my colleague from the Sahtu and myself. So I’ll try not to go into too much detail here until we get to detail.

I guess in general terms I appreciated the Minister’s opening remarks and I thought he gave a good update on the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund, and the benefits of work done on that, and the future outlook for that program and the environmental benefits in terms of reduction and greenhouse gas emissions. Again, I see a very responsible department towing the line fiscally and I appreciate the effort there. I know that it takes a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We need to improve the quality, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability of our NWT housing and building stocks through an NWT buildings act.

Right now, mandatory standards in all provinces and Yukon require new buildings to meet the EGH 80 energy efficiency standard and 25 percent better than the National Model Energy Building Code.

While the standards of the National Modern Energy Building Code are required, there are no assurances these standards are being met due to the lack of small community inspections and enforcement systems.

Project management capacity...

Maybe could I just get what the amount was in fines for ‘11-12? We had been fined under two categories. So if it’s possible to break that out, that would be great.

Would the Minister maybe commit to keeping us updated when we know what’s happening this fiscal year in terms of that and maybe even an update on how things are going at some point with trying to seal this issue once and for all and get all of the departments responding appropriately? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have some brief comments. I wanted to follow up on the response of the Minister to my and other general comments yesterday. Specifically, the Minister estimated the impact of the recommendations from committees, the financial impact of our recommendations at about $4.1 million and acted as if that was impossible to deal with. I did a quick calculation dividing $4.1 million by $1.5 billion and multiplying by 100 to get the percentage of what we’re talking about here, and it turns out that the 11 Members on this side of the House were recommending 0.25 percent of...

Thanks for the Minister’s remarks there. Nunavut has obviously been very successful in developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy thanks to their approach of community participation. One big lesson was that community events such as the community-based review of a draft plan must be carried out with the support of locally hired conveners.

As plans are put in place to create the draft strategy and take it out for community review and NGO review, will the Minister assure us that wherever possible community members will be hired to help carry out the community participation?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the lead Minister on the Anti-Poverty Strategy, Mr. Abernethy, and I want to note that there are good things happening on the Anti-Poverty Strategy development. I’m told by my people, constituents and acquaintances, that good collaborative basis has been established in carrying the work forward. I’m also encouraged that there’s at least one roundtable, maybe a couple established to get together and discuss this as it develops.

The one thing that I am concerned about is that there is an inexplicable attachment to a December 2012 deadline. A...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few brief comments here. First of all, I’m very happy to see this department has been very fiscally responsible and I know that they’re making decisions when they do that and I appreciate that. I acknowledge that there’s a lot of work coming up with respect to devolution and challenges to work within budgets. I think our budgets are going to be pretty slight for when that comes up. That’s going to take some planning to be effective and so on.

A new four-year plan underway, under development, I’m wondering if there’s been a report on the success or failures and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. I’m assuming that that will include hiring local people to help with those local meetings.

The other aspect of this, of course, is that this is a very cross-departmental approach, and the Minister is leading this cross-departmental approach. Ultimately, the delivery of the program will depend on our public service across departments, again, delivering it. This is stepping out from the normal course of events. It will require an unusual degree of cooperation. What is the Minister doing to ensure that those mechanisms are in place and that our...