Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is no timeline on it. I am hoping it's not years. I am worried it might be years. Sometimes, governments tend to put people off and dance around us, but it is something that's really important. It is something that we will be going to the federal government with our Indigenous partners, with the other governments, and continually advocating. The federal government needs to realize that this is a huge part of our economic development; it's jobs in communities. Often, I hear that people do not have jobs in communities. This is a way of getting jobs into those...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am being careful what we are promising. I think what we need to do is: the policies or the legislation that is on the plate, for example, the Business Incentive Policy, the Northern Manufacturing Policy, absolutely, we should be doing that analysis. I have never heard of this, but I wrote it down, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. I am going to be looking at it myself. However, to do right across the whole board, I do not think that would be realistic at this point, but we can commit to doing it for the ones that we are looking at changing. Thank you...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the Minister for the Power Corporation is willing to provide a briefing to standing committee. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. When you are talking about entrepreneurship and red tape, regulatory burdens, that says to me all over, Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Mines. My experience, being with those chambers, is that neither of them is going to sit quietly and not have a strong voice at the table. I see other Members who are smiling, knowing that. If you look at it, I mean, we are beginning it in the fall 2020 and a bit already, and it will be completed by 2022. My experience has been, with those organizations, they are very task-focused; they will be watching us closely. Thank you, Madam...

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...