Michael Miltenberger

I haven’t yet used in this session in due course and the fullness of time, however, I will say that we are in discussions with Finance Canada. Finance Canada has indicated to us that they have this on their agenda, but they are now very preoccupied pulling their own budget together. So we are in ongoing discussions with Finance Canada about the resolution to this particular issue. As soon as we have anything to report, we will be coming back to committee. Thank you.

I would suggest that the $60 million this Legislature and the business plans that have been approved and the direction that has been taken by the department is a clear reflection of the political decision by this Legislature. Public Works and Services has a very ambitious plan to continue the retrofits. We are looking at concluding all, as the Minister of MACA indicated, the community energy plans. We’re committed to working with communities to make the transition. As well, we have significant funds in the budget to encourage homeowners to convert to more energy efficient appliances or wood...

Mr. Chairman, I have a list of all of the new positions in the regions in headquarters. I would be happy to share those and seasonal positions. I could read them for the record if you like or I can just agree to share it with the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The ‘08-09 are based on actual. We’re currently not concluded this year yet, so we’ll know and we’ve got another figure to start at $100,000. We won’t know the actuals for some time for the coming year either, but I don’t think we’ve concluded the final accounting for this year, but I’ll ask the deputy minister to maybe clarify that.

Just for the record, it wasn’t the Auditor General, it was Finance Canada that came back to us about how we treat and account for that money. I don’t believe that the Discovery Air loan had any bearing on how we were told we have to account for the money. I understand in Yukon it’s accounted for differently as well. I don’t believe the Discovery Air loan, which in fact is generating enough revenue so this fund does not lose money, had a bearing on this current issue with Finance Canada.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. This Legislature made a very significant commitment, political commitment, to structure an infrastructure to change how we generate energy, how we distribute, how we use it, and to reduce our carbon footprint and get off diesel fuel. What we have to do with biomass, there is a number of steps and we are on the way to doing some of that. We have to build the market, which is get the biomass infrastructure into the communities that use it. Then we have to look at managing the forests as a secondary step. Right now we import a lot of the wood pellets. There is some...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll get that information and share it with committee members.

Mr. Chairman, I will let the deputy… He found some more information in his briefing book.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the unique process we are a part of in the review of the JRP report.

As an administrative decision-maker under the MVRMA, as Minister of ENR I have a unique role to play in the decision-making process. As such, I am part of a process which includes other federal responsible Ministers. Mr. Speaker, as a result of this relationship, I cannot act alone. I have a duty to exercise my functions in accordance with the principles of administrative fairness required of me as a responsible Minister under the MVRMA and I must work with my...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We work with the proponents. We, being the initiators and the pushers on this particular initiative, will also go to other governments, like the federal government. The challenge for us and community governments, as the Member knows, is we’ve been talking about it, we have an interested community but we are almost in a state of paralysis by analysis as we try to decide on the technology. Is there the perfect technology out there and if it is not, should we wait?

We have had the discussion but we have to, in year two, make some decisions with communities. We are doing...