Caroline Cochrane

Madam Chair, if you can ask the Minister of ITI?

Thank you, Madam Chair. At this point, no, we're not contemplating doing a plan to get every community off of diesel. In the short term that, probably, is not feasible. Even if we bring in alternative energy, there is only a certain capacity that solar panels can provide, that wind turbines can provide. If there's no wind, you don't get energy. If there's no sun, you don't get the energy. I don't see that as being a short term; I see for the long term that we will still have diesel being utilized in communities. Even in our hydro communities, in Yellowknife, which is our biggest hydro...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that we are in the assessment, the research portion of that. I will transfer it over to the Minister of Infrastructure to see if she has any more information other than what we have at the moment. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just trying to remember back; I'm getting old, so things blend. Back in the day, before we had tourists in Yellowknife, we never had tourism operators. People would just come up here. I mean, we didn't even have paved streets, back in the day. We slowly got more and more advanced, and then tourists started coming. We weren't ready for it, and then the tourism operators started, but it's free enterprise, Madam Chair, and so it's important that we get the word out to northern businesses that there are opportunities here.

That is a job that we can take on, bringing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Some of the difficulty with this is that actually putting the broadband is not a GNWT project on its own. In fact, we do not have the capacity to do that. We need the federal government at the table, but we also need private enterprise at the table. Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, it's on the books already. The other ones might not be, and so it's a matter of developing those partnerships and those relationships with our Internet provider, as well. It would be inappropriate to put actions in a mandate when we do not have firm commitments on things that are outside of our control...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just a bit confused with where this is going. The government is in the business of trying to get communities off of diesel, in partnership with the federal government, and in partnership with any governments or any individuals that want to take part in that, so we have been actively seeking partnerships all along. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree that there are lots of opportunities. When I was the housing Minister a couple of years ago, I believe we only had 15 apprentices. That is not okay. If we have 33 communities, we can do better than 15 apprentices within housing. I did hear the Member say that there were no qualified journeymen, but I also heard the Member say that he has a housing maintainer, so we do have one person who is actually certified. We just need to convince that one person to take on apprentices. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Once we have done this mandate, and we've tabled the mandate, the next process is to actually come up with a budget to address some of these mandate things. Again, recognizing there's 22 priorities, we're not going to have a lot of money. We're not going to get everything done properly. We can either spread it out really thin or focus. I'm not sure where we're going to go with that yet. It's a debate that Cabinet will be having. Yellowknife's not going to get forgotten.

The Minister of ITI just brought up that they do get $161,000 every year towards the visitor's...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, there is a negotiated policy within the GNWT. However, we also need to make sure that we are abiding by the policy. For example, the negotiated contracts to help Indigenous governments to get their feet on the ground, I think it's five years that will support them in that. At some point, though, it has to be open to competition. It's not good to always have negotiated contracts, and then there is no market for any other business; you will shut down every other business. There is a fine balance to starting up, and we usually use them for Indigenous governments. Yes...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Deputy Minister Goldney would like to respond.