David Krutko

Does committee agree that the Minister brings in his witnesses?

Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses in?

For the record, Mr. Minister, could you introduce your witnesses?

Page 11, Municipal and Community Affairs, capital investment expenditures, regional operations, not previously authorized, $308,000.

Page 20, Environment and Natural Resources, capital investment expenditures, corporate management, not previously authorized, $77,000. Agreed?

Thank you. With that, I’d just like to defer you, in consideration of the clause-by-clause, we start in regard to the schedule of the bill, which is on page 5. So we can turn to page 5. Does committee agree that we defer to clauses and deal with the schedule first?

Mr. Beaulieu, we are still on page 5. Page 6 would be a problem of its own. Maybe we can conclude page 5 and then we will get to that, unless the Minister wants to respond to the question now.

Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in.

For the record, Mr. Minister, can you introduce the witnesses.

Total department, not previously authorized, $18.146 million.

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, with industrial development in the Northwest Territories such as cutlines and the possibility of a pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley, they are going to be destroying trillions of board feet of lumber that could be used for biomass and industry. We have to be serious, as government, as Northerners, that we have to stop wastage of our resources in the Northwest Territories and use, reuse and find ways to reduce the cost of living in our communities by way of our energy costs and our dependence on fossil fuels. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. At this time I’d like to ask the chair of the standing committee responsible for reviewing the bill if he has any general comments. Mr. Beaulieu.