Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m having a hard time connecting this to the School of Community Government with the community energy plans that were required under the New Deal, but I’m wondering, we did approve community energy plans for all our communities as part of the integrated sustainability plans. I’m wondering where we are in implementing those and are we starting to see fuel costs, at least, energy costs, go down, albeit I recognize the payback isn’t immediate and we may have some capital costs and so on. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Minister could provide me with convincing information that that is, in fact, being done and that we do know what appliances are in our buildings and that we are not, in fact, continuing to pay for very inefficient appliances in many of our public houses. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s remarks there. I’ll look forward to that information. Am I on the right page here? Is that funded? No. Thank you. I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I note the monitoring aspect of the programs and district operations. I note also that much of our public housing programs are delivered in thermal communities where the financial and environmental costs of power are the greatest and perhaps the opportunity is there for reducing those costs. As part of the monitoring responsibility, what surveys are currently taking place that can help us describe the current electricity demand in our public housing? I am thinking particularly of the appliances that are provided in these facilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe this fiscal year we approved a special accelerated or extra special program in capacity building. That still remains a big issue in our communities and I’m wondering if we can get some kind of progress report on that. I’d like to ask the Minister if that program continues into this… Sorry, did I jump the page here?

I’m appreciative of the Minister’s sensitivity to my interests here. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to refer to the National Roundtable on Environment and Economy report recently released, wherein it was pointed out that the resilience of northern infrastructure systems will be essential for sustainable regional development and forsake our national and northern security interest for all Canadians. They note in there that some of the constraints on the whole process is lack of clear standards and lack of guidance, especially for permafrost regions where structural design standards or guidelines are...

Thank you for that information. So this is not a special allocation or anything like that. This is core funding that’s part of the regular core funding. That’s fine. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions, as I mentioned in my statement earlier today, are for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. I want to follow up. Obviously, MACA has continuously refused progressive action on building standards, actions that will demonstrably benefit everyone both in terms of costs and adaptation to climate change. I’m wondering, Mr. Speaker, what has the Minister done to ensure this common sense measure is incorporated as one of the core tools in the new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy. Thank you.

I appreciate those comments. I wonder if the Minister would eventually, I assume after six months or something or a year, have experience. I don’t know how fast experience will accrue on administering this new amendment, but I’d be very interested in what sort of, how smoothly it goes and if there are any kerfuffles along the way. I just think it would be something committee would be interested in. I just float that out there for the Minister to consider, comment on, if he wishes.

I want to mention the water and sewer services that are delivered through the regional operations. I note that the...

Mr. Chairman, again, it is those that are cash strapped, but there is obviously an additional part to it. Is it where there are not management problems perceived, those are the ones that would get the cash? Is that correct?