Bob Bromley

Thanks to the Minister for that. I also heard the department’s official saying that they have to balance protection from environmental liabilities with a supportive economic development as some sort of justification, I suppose, for accepting a lesser form of security. I think the Minister is well aware that that approach by the federal government has resulted in $8 billion in liabilities that the taxpayers of Canada will be paying, mostly from northern mining companies that have failed to clean up their messes. These are real things that we are talking about.

Is it the purpose of the Department...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is good to hear. Cabinet’s recent subsidy of $20 million to cover diesel generation due to climate change-induced drought brings a total over the past few years, as we’ve heard, to $58 million if we ignore the indirect subsidy effects or costs. This perpetuates our reliance on diesel, obviously, by taking resources that could have been used to develop renewable energy systems and pouring them into a seemingly bottomless tank of diesel.

Has the Premier, or if not will he, include the question about where we should subsidize to get the best return for our citizenry...

The Premier didn’t catch that. I said it was from this side of the House. The one-size-fits-all power system has been disastrous for our communities. In fact, community generation opportunities are diverse, from geothermal in Fort Liard and Yellowknife, to small scale hydro in Wekweeti, to solar in Colville. NTPC has considerable experience in some areas, but solutions may or may not overlap with their experience.

How has the Premier ensured that NTPC plays a supportive role rather than an influential role on the direction the charrette takes, given their record of short stopping community...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to acknowledge Mary Rose Sundberg and Rose Mackenzie. At a fall community feast at the Chief Drygeese Centre in Detah, in celebration of the Literacy Council’s Peter Gzowski Literacy Invitational, two Weledeh constituents and Yellowknives Dene members were recognized for their achievements.

Rose Mackenzie, who is a second-year Aurora College Ndilo Community Learning Centre student, was honoured with the Literacy Learner Award for her determined and successful efforts towards self-improvement as an adult learner. Particularly, Rose has excelled in mathematics...

Finally, we need to be prepared for solutions that move away from a single provider like NTPC or Imperial or whomever. We must address the issue of stranded infrastructure, efficient fossil fuel backup systems, locally derived forms of energy that provide local jobs, and the energy education and training to help us move into the 21st century.

As we hear from every quarter, scientists and our dwindling population, time is running out. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a comment. I don’t have any questions on this. I think we’ve come a long way and it’s been an interesting discussion. I think we’ve come to the right conclusions on this. Of course, we could change legislation at the federal and territorial level to extend our mandate up to a year, but I think we’ve listened to the public who expressed some concern about that.

This is an extension, but it’s a modest extension and, I think, theoretically at this time, depending on when the federal election is actually finally decided to be, I think this is a very reasonable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to present a petition dealing with the matter of Occupational Health and Safety Regulations.

The petition contains 123 signatures of Northwest Territories residents, and the petitioners request that the Government of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut adopt the proposed Occupational Health and Safety Regulations as drafted in 2011 by the Safety Advisory Committee of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 5 on the Order Paper.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thanks to the Premier. If new clean and renewable energy systems are to have a maximum economic benefit for our communities, they must be locally owned and operated. Buy-in, efficiency, community self-sufficiency and economic stability are all positive impacts of locally based power systems.

What steps has the Premier taken to ensure discussions are open to, or directed to, consider a community-based approach to energy solutions moving forward? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier today as the head of our energy issues. The recent comment in the House about renewable energy was that from an economic or commercial objective, you would be lucky to recover your capital costs within 15 to 20 years and by then you are almost at the point of replacement, so the vicious cycle repeats itself. Such uninformed and misleading statements undermine the very opportunity that citizens have to help themselves to cut energy costs and they derail effective government action yielding the unaffordable energy costs of today.

That didn...