Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Speaker, the continued high cost of energy is an ongoing concern for people in the Northwest Territories. Many residents are making changes to reduce their energy use and costs. Many are taking advantage of our energy contribution programs to make these changes.

Last year our government paid out more than $165,000 in rebates through the Energy Efficiency Incentive program to residents who purchased energy efficient appliances and vehicles. The majority of 549 approved applications were for the purchase of new household or home heating appliances in communities in every region in the NWT.

We...

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I’ll commit that we’ll get the committee members an update on the status of the evaluation of the work that is being done on the facility usage for correctional facilities.

Mr. Chairman, it’s a point that we try to keep in mind. We strip down these proposals to make them as realistic and basic as possible, recognizing the significant costs. I appreciate the Member’s concern that there are skilled Northerners we can put to work in these areas. We’re definitely looking for those. A lot of these systems we are engaged with have proprietary information and specially trained folks. It’s a constant struggle to try to do those things, but they are things we try to keep in mind.

Mr. Speaker, we’re proceeding on the assumption, clearly, that we have hundreds of boards in the Northwest Territories in the area we’re talking about. Just between health, education and housing we have 70 boards. We’d like to streamline that down to be more efficient.

Over time we let things develop, often in an unplanned way. We intend to work closely with you folks in committee and all its members and committees of Regular Members to hopefully reach a consensus at the end of the day for a plan that’s going to allow us to rationalize, as the very first step towards boards and agencies across...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clearly, this is a new arrangement process. We’ll be doing a review of how the process worked and how best to present the information. In the substantiation sheets provided to committee, that type of information was provided. If it’s not properly laid out, of course we will be happy to look and make whatever improvements the Members deem appropriate.

Mr. Chairman, there was no intent to mock or diminish. It’s an important question. The percentage that the Gardner Group, which is a world leader, had is 5.4 per cent of overall budgets. The GNWT is between 4 per cent and 4.4 per cent of its overall budget.

First let me indicate in this House that I look forward to having the Chair of EDI and the Chair of Social Programs hopefully come on board as fully participating members on this very important committee so we can in fact do all of the work.

The issue that the Member raised of one size fits all. There are some fundamental principles we’re moving on, but we recognize that we’re going to have to tailor circumstances to each of the regions. For example, we recognize that the North Slave, which comprises mainly Yellowknife as well as Lutselk’e, has some unique challenges. They’re complex in a...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The master development plan hadn’t progressed to the point where we were able to tie up the amount of money that was initially identified in the budget, so it was temporarily removed from the capital plan. When the development plan is fully ready to roll, then we will be looking at reintroducing it back into the plan.