Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of energy, Minister Bob McLeod. It follows up on a statement from the other day on the conversion of communities to gas energy systems.

Norman Wells and Inuvik are up against the wall with their natural gas energy systems and, of course, we know the high cost of converting communities, yet we appear to be going down the road of committing new communities to the inevitable end of non-renewable energy supplies. Feasibility studies have been prepared on the conversion of Tulita, Fort Simpson, and Fort Good Hope to natural gas as the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on a few points, actually. The first one is people have made reference to the amount of time that the funds will remain in a sealed account gathering value, assuming we get some dollars in there. When this idea was first put forward, I know we had lots of discussions and I think there was general agreement that this would be an intergenerational fund and should be set aside for at least 30 years. Yet when the bill came back to us, Mr. Chair, I was startled to see that funds were put aside for only 10 years. I see committee has bumped that up to 20...

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Miltenberger.

I think it’s good that the public be aware of clause 4 and be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that presents, as well as the policies that committee is recommending.

I just would like to comment on the discussion that has taken place about the various existing heritage funds. There are three that I know have been thrown out in public consultation and that many of us have referred to all of us. The first one, of course, is the Norway Pension Fund. It’s essentially the same thing referred to as a heritage fund. Its purpose is to invest parts of the large surplus generated by the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m in favour of this bill in general. I don’t think it’s the best thing we could have done, but I think it’s a very good start.

Really the issue at hand is our non-renewable resources in particular are being shipped out of the Northwest Territories typically with very little value added despite our best efforts, and at really an incredible rate, and these are some of our most finite resources. We’ve learned from others that if we’re going to ensure intergenerational benefits, it must be done explicitly and with much forethought, and a Heritage Fund seems like a really...

That was exactly what I wanted to know, that there is an opportunity for an economy of scale by joining other jurisdictions. In this case, I’m curious to learn that Alberta is near to that and they’re obviously our neighbour, the one we do the most business with. Is there potential, given the timing of this legislation and their action underway, that we could hook up with Alberta in their possible pending action? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m very happy to see the committee proposing this motion. I think the basic relationship here is that we are proposing to move public funds into an investment fund until such time as we have a sufficient accumulation to draw from it, the interest of it, and basically it is destined to benefit future, largely future residents and to some extent existing residents. So I want to say that I very much support any measures we can take to ensure the clear and frequent opportunity for the public to have some input and some clear opportunities to express their views on how these...

The other aspect of that is while we have really intense users of tobacco products, we are fewer in numbers. Are there implications here to potential actions we can consider? Again, given that we have a very large proportion of our population that is using tobacco products, are there implications of this legislation given that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a series of documents in a package called No Place for Poverty: Everyone has a Right to Housing, Food and Dignity, Anti-Poverty Election 2011 Tool Kit, sponsored by Alternatives North and the YWCA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just some quick questions to the Minister. Does the GNWT currently have any actions underway against manufacturers of tobacco products?