Bob McLeod

With regard to residual heat, most of the thermal communities have NTPC as the operator, so we would have to work in partnership with NTPC and, obviously, if the diesel plants are located in the centre of a community, it’s probably much cheaper to utilize residual heat because you don’t have to pipe it as far and so on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m responding as the chair of the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee to the Member’s questions. We are undertaking a number of reviews to look at finding ways to reduce the high cost of electricity in the Northwest Territories. We have received a report from the review panel that looked into electricity rates. There is a review of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and we are working with the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning to examine and develop the government response.

Thank you and we’re pleased in the Sahtu region. That’s probably where we had the biggest area of growth with the introduction of young trappers into the program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The energy priorities framework that we had established was expressly for that purpose. The alternative energy framework and the $60 million that was identified over three years was to enable us to undertake pilot projects to show or prove that alternative energy worked here in the Northwest Territories. Residual heat has been proven. As we got further into this we would move into establishing ongoing programs so that we could begin to implement it across the Territories because of the fact that there are short payback periods and it would save government money.

We certainly believe that this harvesting of mushrooms is a valuable sector and we will work with the Department of ENR to look at what’s required to develop legislation and how we could make sure that the benefits attribute to the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

So far all our efforts in the Sahtu have been to try to advance the CANOL Trail Park and even to the extent where we’re working with the community of Tulita so that they can get benefit from some of the cleanup, remedial work that the federal government is doing.

As far as other parks in the communities such as Fort Good Hope, I think we would be prepared to look at it and if there were any obvious possibilities, we would put it into our planning process. Thank you.

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Residual heat projects are a very important component of our alternative energy framework. I’d just like to point out that in 2009 we allocated $1.3 million for the Fort Liard Residual Heat Project and in 2010-2011 $800,000 will be used to complete the Fort Liard project and $1 million is allocated for the Inuvik project. The Fort McPherson Residual Heat Project is a success story today. As the Member indicated, the system is a 50-50 joint venture. Right now investigations on upgrading the school service and moving to 100 percent is in the works. We’re also looking...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Whoever in statistics the Member is referring to, we would never say that those sectors were too unimportant to be counted because we feel that agriculture is an important part of our economy. Certainly in the past we introduced the harvesting of morel mushrooms into the Northwest Territories, so we will continue to work with my colleague to see that sector developed.

As the Premier said, it will all hinge on completion of the environmental assessment process, the negotiation of power purchase agreements, the financing and arrangements with the partners in the Deze Corporation. So we’re optimistic about the whole project and, certainly, every step of the way we have to do the due diligence for a successful project. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s correct. These are six positions for the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline office that are located in Hay River.