Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 35, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2014-2015, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. If the Member has specific suggestions other than we should do legislation, we’d be happy to look at those at this juncture.

If there is going to be any legislation considered, that would be now part of transition planning for the 18th Legislative Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 39, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 4, 2014-2015, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes supplementary appropriations for infrastructure expenditures for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Thank you.

As we move forward on renewables like solar, that we have in place, after some considerable debate over the years, a Net Metering Program which encourages and doesn’t penalize folks for putting in solar in their own buildings. We have removed the cap, we have removed the standby charges. As we look at the charrette, we are going to be asking people for further ways that we can encourage people to look at generating distributed energy that they can generate and that we will buy back through a net metering process. There are those kinds of opportunities that currently exist and are going to...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 40, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2015-2016, be read for the first time.

At the beginning of the 16th Assembly, we came forward and we put $60 million, as a government, into the development of an approach to energy savings, energy efficiency. We rolled out the biomass plan, the solar plan, a strategy that has guided us. We have spent millions converting to biomass in our own facilities. We have put millions of dollars into Environment and Natural Resources as well as the Arctic Energy Alliance to help people, to give them rebates for switching over to energy-efficient appliances, to switch to biomass, conversion with LED lights, we’ve picked up our work we’ve done...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 37, Financial Administration Act, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have the honour of recognizing a gentleman who is known to just about all of us: Dr. David Suzuki.

From the Suzuki Foundation we have, as well, travelling with him Miles Richardson, Michiah Prull, Alvin Singh, Deneze Nakehk’o, and Steve Ellis was there from Tides Canada as well. I also don’t want to miss the rare opportunity to recognize my friend and colleague of many terms together – four, I believe, 16 years in the trenches in this House – former Premier Floyd Roland.

I don’t believe I’ve used this phrase since the last Assembly, but in due course and the fullness of time as these discussions advance through the charrette, we will look at moving as fast as we can. The question is going to be, how do we get from talk to action? How much money are we going to be able to put into these initiatives? Clearly, the intent is to seriously move with great alacrity on this particular issue. Thank you.

We started this process in the last Assembly with spending the time to develop our biomass strategy. Part of that strategy was to build a market, then look at building the industry, and we’ve done that. We’ve converted a significant amount of our own facilities to biomass. We’ve taken those savings and reinvested them. We’ve set up incentives to encourage people to switch to biomass. We’ve now just completed two FMA agreements, the first of their kind, forest management agreements, with the people in Providence and the people in Lutselk'e to lay out access to a source of wood fibre, so that we...