Bob McLeod

I always understood that holding a roundtable was the whole purpose of the motion. The Member is indicating that just conveying it to other provinces and territories was all that was required and I’ll confirm that it has gone forward and I’ll provide the Member with copies. Thank you.

I’ll get our crackerjack team together and we’ll come up with some options. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’d be pleased to explore this further with the Member. I think it would be a question of what form would be the best one to use. We have a number of different avenues where we meet with community leaders in the Sahtu, but I’d be pleased to explore this further with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to recognize some important visitors to the gallery today. I’d like to recognize Celine Proctor, government services officer, Fort Good Hope; also Priscilla Betsaka, government services officer, Nahanni Butte; and Dan O’Neill, regional director. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess we’re not all Rockefellers here in the Northwest Territories, but we are taking action in that regard with the Energy Charrette. We are moving in that direction. We are waiting for the outcomes of the Energy Charrette and we are committed that we will take action when we have those results. Our government is taking a balanced approach to development and we expect that going forward we will be, as we stated in our second Energy Charrette, that those are the kinds of things we are looking at doing to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to recognize visitors in the gallery who are participating in the NWT Campaign School today and tomorrow, so at the end of this year I expect some of them will be sitting down here. Tina Gargan, president of the Status of Women Council; Lisa Dempster, Newfoundland Parliamentarian; participants Pertice Moffat, Darlene Sibbeston, Jan Fullerton, Debbie Dechief, Gail Cyr, Karen Willy, Sarah Pope, Diana Pellissey, Amanda Kanbari, Kathy Paul-Drover, Caroline Cochrane-Johnson, Laura Boileau; and Status of Women Council staff Lorraine Phaneuf, Samantha Thomas...

Certainly, we are headed in that direction. We expect to be spending significant amounts of investment in alternative and renewable forms of energy. Just to show some of the things we are already doing in our government of the 17th Assembly, through alternative energy products, building retrofits, biomass projects, cumulative savings of over $3.3 million have been achieved in the last three fiscal years; the energy conservation projects have helped reduce the Government of the Northwest Territories’ reliance on fossil fuels, heating oil in particular. Since 2007, Public Works and Services...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not familiar with that theory or recent publications in Nature magazine that the Member is referring to, but I do know that greater than 80 percent of our oil and gas reserves are already underground and stranded here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

I think the Member is putting words in my mouth. At the Energy Charrette we were told we have very complex 65 megawatts and we will still need to burn fossil fuels in order to have redundancy. You reference our travel around the world and I think many of the Members here have travelled around the world as well. They should see the value in doing that. We see oil and gas development having a future in the Northwest Territories, but we will be investing millions of dollars in alternative and renewable forms of energy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Glen Abernethy will be absent from the House today due to illness. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.