Mr. Speaker, for a lot of the community youth strategy MACA will have to have a lot of direct input from the community to work together to come up with a plan for a strategy for the community. I did commit that we would start looking into this. As I said in my previous answer, once we’re done in the House, I’ll have an opportunity to sit down with the department and come up with a schedule of all the commitments I have made and try and see how soon we can come forward with strategies and other information for the Members of this Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I admire the Member’s perseverance and commitment to an important issue, and it’s an issue that we all share in this House. Having said that, we are identifying more youth funding, and as part of identifying the youth funding, we’re hoping to come forward in the business plan. That should increase some of the funding to a lot of youth organizations.

Mr. Speaker, that is an area…. We’re at a disadvantage. There are shortages, but we have been working with the Arctic Energy Alliance, which has been providing a significant number of programs to fill that gap. As part of our energy priorities this is an area we want to look at. As well, we will be working with the municipalities and the NWT Association of Communities so we can find ways to provide that expertise. Certainly through some of the federal programs there are a number of initiatives that could assist.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a number of initiatives underway that deal with the issue of energy initiatives and also mitigating climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas strategy that is being developed by the government would be looking at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We all know that transportation is probably, as the Member indicated, the largest sector in terms of producing greenhouse gas emissions, so that is the area we would be looking at.

As I said earlier, MACA is doing all it can and will continue and commit to working with the communities to identify their equipment and come up with any type of plan that they can. This is the early stage of the New Deal, and MACA is always willing help the communities come up with a plan until they’re to a point where the capacity is there to take care of all this type of information themselves.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As part of the New Deal the authority for capital infrastructure was transferred over to the communities. Along with that transfer came the responsibility for maintaining a lot of the equipment they have. Having said that, MACA does work with the community governments to establish preventative maintenance plans to ensure that equipment lasts for a while. There are also the community works advisers in each regional office to assist the communities in coming up with these plans.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Workers’ Compensation Board Northwest Territories and Nunavut Annual Report 2007.

Document 110-16(2), Workers’ Compensation Board NWT and Nunavut Annual Report 2007, tabled.

Making natural gas available for communities is an area that we’ve been pursuing for some time now. Right when we first heard about oil and gas coming back to the Northwest Territories and people talking about pipelines, we commissioned studies to look at the potential for conversion to natural gas. Through the environmental assessment process we’ve indicated the need for the pipeline to provide for outtake so that we can convert communities along the pipeline right-of-way to natural gas. This is something we’re interested in. Plus we’ve updated our studies that were done approximately six...

Mr. Speaker, we do have the ecoTrust. That was the program whereby we provided incentives to NWT residents to reduce their costs. In this case we were providing incentives to people who were purchasing vehicles that were fuel efficient, and certainly that is one area where we are helping people. The Energy Priorities document, we sent it out for discussion. We are seeking input from the general public, and certainly if it is seen as a gap, we would look at it. I should point out to the Member that with the ecoTrust program and energy conservation, our focus has shifted more to energy...

As the Minister of MACA I can’t make a commitment of funds on behalf of other Ministers. However, I will commit again that MACA’s staff will work with community governments in Tu Nedhe to see what options they have and support them in ensuring their equipment and planning and preventative maintenance needs are looked after.