Floyd Roland

I believe that is affirmative that, yes, as we begin to look at that area and establish our strategies and implementation of those strategies, we are able to put targets in place and the requirements to meet those. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources along with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment are working on coming forward with a strategy as soon as this summer, I believe.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we’ve done our work around the previous draft Hydro Strategy and beginning to look at that strategy once again, the issues of connectivity in the grid, to greenhouse gases, to helping reduce the cost of living are all those pieces that will be looked at as we look forward to a solution that will work for an expansion to the Taltson.

I guess the process, if I understand properly the question, goes to with the as and whens in many of our communities are posted on an annual basis for businesses to put their names in and show interest in that area, to provide those services in our communities and regions. We do have a process established of doing that. I’m not sure if the Member is requesting that we look at them through our other programs that we have there. That is something I guess we can look at from time to time where capacity issues need to be met.

One of the things we do have to look at as a government is the cost of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Government of the Northwest Territories we use a number of tools to do just what the Member has spoken to, building capacity throughout the North both in our people and in our construction industry, for example. We have, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Business Incentive Policy, we have the Negotiated Contracts Policy, we have MOUs within a number of regions, and continue to negotiate renewals and new MOUs being put in place. We try to use as many of those tools as possible. Internally one of the things we‘ve done to look at the capacity issue...

The Member does have a flair for making statements in this Assembly. Clearly, as the Member is a veteran of elections and election processes, he knows that any election process is a very difficult one, whether it is at a constituency level for the Legislative Assembly or the bigger picture of the Northwest Territories. Of course, we have an interest, as representatives of the people of the North, to try to get the best voice out there and a commitment to what we’re trying to do as the Legislative Assembly. We have, I believe, established a past practice of communicating with potential...

We’ll follow up. Again, we don’t know if an election is going to be called, when an election is going to be called and all that timing, but we have made it a practice as the Government of the Northwest Territories to get our issues out there so that they can be discussed, part of commitments made, hopefully, by potential candidates in a federal election, and we follow it up with Members in writing, I believe, to that rule. We’ll continue to use the same practice. Thank you.

Thank you. The issues of the outages is one that I’ve asked to get some additional information on from the Power Corporation and I’ll get that back to the Member, as well as I’ll have them communicate with the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve been kept up to date on the outages that have occurred and some of the concerns around there. I know, for example, in February there were a number of outages, some from a 10-minute outage to about a 40-minute outage. Some of it is equipment related and we’re investigating what’s a growing concern.

I do know that in our past in our discussions about alternative energies, the Jean Marie facility was looked at I’ll have to get information of where that sits. I’m looking at replacement of our engines there to a newer model, but we are investigating if that was feasible...

Again, because, as the Member stated, we’re non-partisan in this Assembly, we have the same questions go to the candidates and we follow it up with the leaders of the parties with our positions. Much of the work on implementation to see the proof in the pudding, I think what the Member is looking for, is something we make it our job as a government to follow through on. Our request for infrastructure commitment requests, for some political leadership on some files like climate change, like infrastructure, like the Mackenzie Valley Highway, like the pipeline. Those things, again, we follow...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed we have made it a practice as the Government of the Northwest Territories when a federal election is on, to put our positions forward on where our key concerns lie. We’ve done that, for example, around climate change and our infrastructure in the North. We start by using the goals and vision of the Assembly and follow up through clarifying it as we have usually, through a Caucus process. I’d be prepared to go to Members with what our positions are existing, as we have them, and follow up with e-mails so that if an election were to be called we’d have some...