Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Speaker, I moved, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that Bill 35, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2014-2015, be read for the first time.

I would like to point out that one of our areas of interest where we’ve invested a considerable amount of money has, in fact, been on development of our solar strategy and the solar arrays that we’ve put into Simpson, one of the largest in the country up to the point that it was built, and the pilot project that we’re working on in Colville Lake, where we’re putting in a significant amount of solar power with batteries to look at how much we can maximize penetration into that service system so that we can minimize the cost and reliance on diesel. Now, as the technology has improved, and I’ve...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Out of the first charrette came the direction to look at the issue of the distribution and the transmission grid build-out where we could hook up the Snare system and the Taltson system and investigate the cost of an intertie to Saskatchewan where we could potentially move cheaper power from places like Manitoba and north. We did that. It came back in at about $1.2 billion, probably more than double what we had initially estimated. Rather than keep pursuing that or not do anything, we have recognized the need to change our focus to generation, and not just small...

We work with communities on a community-by-community project basis at this point. Where there is an interest, for example, in the Member’s community of McPherson there has been waste heat work done. We have been studying the viability of using fast growing willows as a source of biomass in addition to all the other standard programs of general applications that are there for all businesses and individuals to apply for. We’re also, of course, very interested in working with communities as they do their own energy plans, to see what long-term planning needs to be done to ensure things are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 40, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2015-2016, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’d be happy to sit down with committee if there are concerns by committee on the process going forward. We’d be happy to have those discussions to make sure it is as fulsome, integrated and engaged as possible as befits consensus government. Thank you.

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...