Michael Miltenberger

Work was done towards a power purchase agreement with Borealis. It was realized that a power purchase contract would be quite complex and timely to negotiate. In order to facilitate Borealis’s discussion with financing partners like Husky Energy and one other large energy player, we gave them a term sheet which provided a 25-year contract at the marginal cost of diesel, committing customers to 25 years of diesel rates that was indexed to inflation of diesel. Borealis took this term sheet but was unable to find a partner to complete this $16 million dollar project. Our due diligence, through a...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was what we thought was fairly plain English, but I’ll ask the deputy to provide further detail.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a challenging summer for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. During this past summer the Taltson hydroelectric plant and the transmission lines between the Snare plants and Yellowknife were threatened by forest fires. Fortunately, all major infrastructure was preserved; however, these same fires were responsible for half of the power outages experienced on the Snare system.

The same drought conditions that contributed to this being one of the worst forest fires years in history is also responsible for low water on the Snare system. Water levels at Snare are at...

It reflects that fact that last year we had more capital projects on the go in Finance and this year we have dialed it back to the $210,000 that is here before the House for the two modules that we’ve talked about. I can also get the specifics of last year’s capital, if the Member wishes, and provide that to committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just quickly on a couple of the items. I understand the bridge for the Willow River is in Inuvik just waiting to be hauled over to Aklavik so it can be put in in the coming year. So, very timely as you think about it.

The extension of the ferry or the changing of the ferry, I think that’s a discussion you’ll need to have with Transportation. My understanding is there is significant differences in the ice and how hard the ice freezes up north as opposed to much softer ice and the way it freezes down on the Mackenzie at Providence, but the Minister is listening closely...

We’re going to continue to talk about our own employees negotiating very competitive wage packages where some of our teachers, for example, are some of the best paid in the country. We are going to be talking in an Energy Charrette about the need to look at the issue of type of generation, and we’re going to indicate as a government that we’re prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the generation issues that have a direct effect and impact on the cost of living tied to energy requirements that the Territorial Power Support Program we currently have does not benefit...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments, the overall support. I’m not wanting to look like I’m just pushing off his issues, but he has made some very specific comments about new units, burned units. I’ll leave those for Minister McLeod.

The issue of upgrading a 38-year-old loader as being too old, at 63 I get really sensitive about replacing things that are too old, but the Minister of Transportation will deal with that issue in detail as well as the discussion about the ferry.

The good news is, as we’ve pointed out previously to Minister Moses, with the Building Canada on...

I would be happy to share with the Member the analysis that was done last time this issue was discussed among the three territories. There’s a benefit to higher wage earners, but overall, the general consensus from the three territories was it’s not something that would directly benefit Northerners overall or the territories as a whole. I would be happy to share that information with the Member and we could always revisit it once again as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member commented about the millions that we’ve spent, and we have, since the last government. In the last government I think we earmarked about $60 million, and this government has continued to spend additional millions on things like biomass, solar, wind, looking at other alternatives, energy conservation. We’ve spent money probing out the issues tied to the connecting of the Taltson grid and the Snare system with an intertie to the south. We took the approach that if we created a market for biomass, which we have done both with our own facilities and with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not recently.