Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Chairman, when there’s new construction, wherever there is biomass possible, there’s discussion underway with Public Works. They have done it in Fort Smith, Hay River, Yellowknife, Simpson, and we’re working our way north. I understand that, yes, there has been, as it pertains to the health centre, discussions with our folks, Arctic Energy Alliance, the Public Works folks as well, to see if that’s going to be a money saver. We believe it is because we are installing it into the school and in Transportation at the airport anyway, so we’ve done our own numbers. So, yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, plus the Sahtu travel budget was almost nonexistent and it was always funded from taking from other pots. So the folks there didn’t have a lot of ability to do the work they needed to do. So between that and anticipated increased demand because of the oil play is the answer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would have to confirm this, but my assumption is, as we looked where we are doing diesel batteries and solar and putting in the other smart grid technology, it would seem to make sense to be able to monitor that and take advantage of all that. So that’s one place I would suggest be considered, but I don’t think we’ve made our final determination on where the smart grid technology will be applied other than that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That number is a projection based on a three-year average. It may potentially change, but it’s just based on a three-year average. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Arctic Energy Alliance is hard at work on concluding their report on biomass. I’ve had side discussions with Mr. Mapes about the opportunity, effectiveness, efficiency and economics of pellets being shipped to Inuvik. We expect that that biomass report will be concluded. In the meantime, I think because it makes such good economic sense, many people are migrating on their own accord to biomass for heat. We will look at that as well.

The liquid natural gas one, I see that as an arrangement that is going to get us through the next three to five years as we sort things...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do apologize to the Member. It was raised by at least two or three Members, both the tire shredder and the electronic waste.

What I will tell you is that our next priority on our recycling list is the electronic waste. That arrangement will be with Alberta. We have to sort out the particulars, but basically we are going to make arrangements to collect our electronic waste and hopefully be able to negotiate an agreement to use the fairly large facilities that they have in Alberta to have that waste recycled. That’s the next priority.

There has been some work done on...

The Member points to a broad issue of we’re the government and the only shareholder of the Power Corporation. On one hand, as a government, we set up a Solar Strategy, for example; and on the other hand, we have our utility that we own and seem to be working at cross-purposes with the successful implementation of that strategy. So, yes, we are going to fix that.

We’re going to look at net billing and net metering, and we’re going to look at the standby fees, and we’re going to make sure that these bodies that are working on behalf of the government and the people are coordinated and not at...

Madam Chair, I have with me Ernie Campbell, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources, and Ms. Nancy Magrum, director of shared services for ENR and ITI. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have built a recycling system now that enables us to go to every community in the North. The hope is we can build on that capacity that is there. We want to prevent, as I pointed out in Fort Smith, we have a mountain of computers at the waste site at our dump, they haven’t stuck into the waste site. I’m sure that situation is repeated across the North. So the intent is to work out the details of how we can bring that electronic waste to the regional centres that are now doing the recycling and work out ways from there with trucks to send them back.

We have to work...

Yes, I would, Madam Chair.

I am pleased to speak to the 2013-2014 main estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The plan proposes total operational expenses of $71.5 million for the upcoming year. This represents an 8.9 percent, or $5.8 million, increase from last year’s budget.

The bulk of this increase is attributed to forced growth adjustments of $5.3 million to cover increased costs for forest fire operations and suppression, preparing for increased oil and gas exploration and development in the Sahtu and completing negotiations on a transboundary water agreement...