Bob McLeod

As I mentioned earlier today, I think when we first became aware of the growth of morel mushrooms, I think it was 10 or 12 years ago. At that time the department put on a couple courses. I think most of the fires were in the Sahtu region at the time and they put on a few courses to introduce some of the local people to opportunities associated with harvesting of morel mushrooms. I think we even, if I recall correctly, helped with showing them some of the techniques.

I think more recently we’ve more or less left it to whoever had the initiative to do it. I know that it’s a little bit different...

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...

Mr. Speaker, I am just going by the letter that I received from the Standing Committee on Social Programs. As my colleague the Minister of ENR indicated, we are quite prepared to do a joint briefing with the different committees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess for a couple of reasons. One is we normally work with the Standing Committee of Economic Development. Secondly, we weren’t aware that the Standing Committee on Operations wanted input into the response to NEB. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.