Statements in Debates
Mr. Speaker, I do know that for the month of January of 2012 the local housing authority spent approximately $84,000 for natural gas. A year later, January 2013, that cost went up to $181,000 and that is just for the month of January, and you multiply that over 12 months, we spent over $1 million. I think it is $572,000 more than we would normally spend because of the conversion to SNG. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation has committed to trying to keep the ferry crossing at Tsiigehtchic opened for as long as possible, where there is no interruption in service, so that would be a huge help.
However, in the event that something does happen, we have to deal with it then. I do know that it will cost the NWT Housing Corporation and this government approximately $5 million to convert all our units back to diesel in the event that we have to. It’s not something that we would like to do. We would like to work with, obviously, the community and the suppliers to keep a...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have 240 public housing units in Inuvik and all 240 of them are all on natural gas or SNG. That would include the boilers and the hot water heaters. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents, entitled Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Motion 6-17(4), Gasoline Pricing Regulations; and Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Motion 10-17(4), Ground Ambulance and Highway Rescue Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Since the gas tax and the community infrastructure money were introduced a few years ago, a lot of the communities have built their own water treatment plant. There have been a few communities that have teamed up and did a bundled water treatment plant where, with economies of scale, they would get it a little cheaper. But we have money that’s allocated for this particular type of initiative. It’s $28 million that we divide amongst the communities across the Northwest Territories, and then they determine that a water treatment plant is a priority, and they do have the tools in place to make it...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that the communities have a contract with the water service deliveryman, and as far as I know, that contract is still in place. He, in turn, would get his water from the community of Hay River. As far as I know, the contract, unless things have changed, is still in place.
I will say yes with an explanation. I will commit to having our staff go into the communities, upon invitation from the community, to start discussing some of their options and start discussing how the O and M may be affected if they do get a water treatment plant. We will, again, upon invitation, go into these communities and start the discussion with them.
We would work with the community to find other sources of water, be it bringing in water from another community, but again, my understanding is they do have a contract with the deliveryman who buys his water from the community of Hay River. But we would work closely with the community, and I think there have been some preliminary discussions as to one of the communities possibly looking at acquiring their own water treatment plant.
Mr. Speaker, we will work with the other department to see what assistance that we may be able to provide to the community, and I will commit to the Member that we will do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; there was a flood committee we had made. All the claims have come in and the recommended compensation. We have submitted a claim to Canada for reimbursement under their Disaster Assistance Program.
As far as the committee that’s together now to do the rest of the work, I don’t think there’s a committee per se. It’s probably the individual departments now working with the community.