Michael Miltenberger

If my memory serves me correctly once again, I do recollect the Member sending me pictures of the site, which I sent to the department. We’re aware of the circumstance, but there’s been no active ability to put funds towards the cleanup at this point. Thank you.

We’ve been looking at talking to the people we have on retainer, the meteorologists that take long-term forecasts. NTPC, in the next couple of weeks, is going to be doing testing of the snowpack in the Snare system just to check to see what they anticipate the runoff might be. Of course, we’re monitoring. With the benefit of satellite imagery now, we’re monitoring the snowpack and we can tell, from everything I’ve heard, that what has fallen so far this year is less than a normal year. To have any positive effect, we need at least double the snow we currently have to date. Thank you.

There was a range of vision, there was a need to replace, there was a discussion with the community looking for appropriate land, and then working through the logistics in terms of the actual project to get it built. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. As we move forward, we have a lot of the tools already. Depending on how we evolve in terms of distribution and generation, we have to look at things as I raised previously, the role and relationship of the Power Corporation. Right now it’s a stand-alone power corporation with a board. Given our close working relationship and financial investment, is that the best structure, could it be structured more efficiently and effectively any other way? We have to look at the distribution, and the Cabinet is going to be looking at the request from Hay River and responding to that in the not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was at the Energy Charrette where the reference that my colleague from Yellowknife Centre made in terms of the most complicated 65 megawatts the guest speaker had ever seen and I think it’s indicative of one of the challenges. We have two challenges. It’s to bring down the cost of generation and then there’s the cost of distribution and transmission. On the generation side we know that we have to get off diesel, and we’re investing and will continue to invest in things like LNG investment in Inuvik. We’re doing some groundbreaking work in Colville Lake with batteries...

If there is consistent will expressed by committee, SCOPP, for example, that we need to have a review of the tax rates on alcohol production, beer production, and if they make that clear to us, we will have a discussion about that. But I would suggest to the Member you can’t just pick a micro-brewery and talk about some kind of modified favourable tax rate. We would have to be prepared to talk about taxes on alcohol, what’s our position on alcohol, how do we want to manage the business piece along with dealing with the incredible social impact that we know exists in every one of our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We need to look at this issue. I would suggest a broader perspective of why we have placed such a high cost on alcohol. Having spent a good number of years in social services, five and a half years as Health Minister, I can tell you it’s because the abuse of alcohol costs this government over $100 million a year, probably more if you add in all the costs related to hospitals and FASD children. We just approved in this House, I think about $11 million for residents down south, the majority of which, if you checked the case files, would have alcohol abuse in there...

I’ll commit to the Member to get him a complete list of sites in the Sahtu, federal and territorial, as they currently exist today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are well aware of that. From what I recollect, that is one of the waste sites that the federal government has kept to be remediated. Thank you.