Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Chair, the intent of the $100,000 is to allow work to be done, options to be explored. It is not money that is there to actually look at… That money is not targeted at this point for any type of implementation. When we are in a position to stand up and announce formal arrangements, should we be able to do that with liquid natural gas, then we will be making different decisions. There is going to be maybe a different process separate from the money that is here. The Power Corporation, for example, is the lead on the liquid natural gas as it pertains to the generation of electricity.

If we...

Mr. Speaker, let me offer this to the Member and to the public as well. When we did the budget dialogues, people asked us, when you come back next year, give us more comprehensive information. We tried to give them a summary, but they wanted to have the detail. So what I’ll commit to in this House is that when we do our budget dialogues, we will lay out the fiscal strategy in detail, plain English, but enough detail so that folks will be able to see on the capital side, on the O and M side how we budgeted ourselves for the next four years, two years, when we go out to the communities. We can...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I referenced initially in my comments responding to the opening comments, this Land Use Sustainability Framework is the government’s thinking, and it’s a framework that captures how we want to deal with the broad issue of land use and the sustainability principles that have been a cornerstone and bedrock of this government’s approach to resource development and just in general our relationship to the land, the water and the animals. Within that framework there are other subsidiary frameworks that are being worked on, strategies. Minister Ramsay referenced one today...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have laid out the fiscal framework going forward to Members. The Stanton Hospital is going to be done over time. We recognize there is planning work to be done. There’s money being budgeted, increasing amounts, over the coming years that will allow us to manage this project.

As we go forward, other projects will fall off and be completed. So we have looked at all the numbers, we looked at all these factors, and we are of the opinion – and we’ve laid it out before this House and before committee – that we can manage these projects with careful investments, some very...

Mr. Chairman, if my memory serves me correctly, in the last government we worked extensively in trying to do community energy plans with all of the communities working with Arctic Energy Alliance. We subsequently put in these Pathfinders.

If I just may offer one final comment… And yes, our door is open to have those further discussions.

I speak of wood chips with a caution in my voice because in Fort Smith the Metis local started out putting in a facility to heat about four of their big buildings right by Roaring Rapids and a number of other buildings. They started out with wood chips in mind...

As a government, we are cognitively working with all the appropriate departments, including ENR and ITI, the National Energy Board, industry and the folks in the Sahtu, to work on guidelines. We’ve briefed committee and Minister Ramsay has taken the Members around to see sites down south. We’ve been working on guidelines and there is work underway. We anticipate them by this fall. We will be able to put guidelines on the table for discussion that would lay out what we think is the most appropriate way forward as it pertains to hydraulic fracturing. Thank you.

Thank you. The money that’s in there for rebates and grants is there, and we’ve added dollars and we’ve raised the cap, especially for businesses. So businesses that have expenses that are fairly significant, I think the cap has been raised to $50,000 from $15,000 and to better support folks. So that money is there not only for Inuvik, of course – but if they make use of that, that’s more power to them – but other Northerners as well. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the intent right now is to get a northern-based supplier. There is a project on the books that was funded by private money slated for Enterprise that is looking at churning out 60,000 tons of high quality pellets with the capacity to ship them across the North. As Mr. Bromley pointed out, there are local opportunities, should that be of interest or possible, to be done at the community or regional level. We did have a pilot project out at Checkpoint Charlie by Simpson. It was just one pilot. I would say it had modest success. That opportunity is there, but right now the one big...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are confident that we have quite a comprehensive list. We have built into all our discussion the recognition that there’s always a possibility that something has been missed, but we have, over the years, catalogued quite extensively across the North, the many hundreds of various waste sites. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the government has worked with the community of Inuvik and other stakeholders through a response to the declining and depleted natural gas sources around Inuvik, one of the alternatives that came up as a viable option was liquid natural gas. NTPC has been engaged in a lot of work, talking to suppliers, doing the numbers, looking at transportation costs, looking at the cost per gigajoule landed in Inuvik versus other substances like the propane air mixture that’s currently provided, for example, or diesel, which is the most expensive. So there’s been work in that...