Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Public Works does a lot of energy retrofits. We track all of the greenhouse gases that we save through energy retrofits. We track all of the money that we save by using energy retrofits and installing biomass in our buildings, then we put that money back into more energy retrofits and biomass.

With the hospital, we will be using a biomass heating system and the envelope of the building would be of a high energy standard. Thank you.

We do try to buy fuel, heating fuel, motor fuel and gasoline at the lowest possible price. We do make a call on the price of gasoline. We do buy mid-grade gasoline. It’s very important to the communities to have gasoline that doesn’t de-grade. If we buy low-grade gasoline, which is four cents a litre cheaper, the communities also realize that sometimes when we buy a lower grade gasoline there have been issues with snowmobiles and boat motors and so on. When people are out on the land, it’s essential that they have good gas, so we do pay four cents a litre more for that, but we do try to get...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The plan is to chipseal the highway. I’m very familiar with the product the Member speaks of. There was no discussion between the government and the industry that would provide Easy Street on that highway at this time. I think we are in a contract that says that we will be chipsealing the highway. If the company decides that they would put a different application on there within the same dollar amount, then perhaps the government and industry could sit down together and discuss that possibility. But moving forward, our intention is to chipseal at this time.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The biggest contributor to the increase of heating fuel has been the wholesale cost of fuel. The wholesale cost of fuel over a 12-month period from early 2013 to early 2014 was 20 cents a litre. That is the price increase of the wholesale price when we purchased it Edmonton, and somehow that contributed to, for example, an increase of 17 cents a litre in Yellowknife.

The money that is put in here is a carry-over from an agreed contracted amount between the Department of Public Works and the contractor that did the work. As far as the government is concerned, we have a contract in place. There is a commitment on the part of the company to complete that road 100 percent according to the contract that they have in place, and our intention to do that.

All the highways in the NWT that are public highways are safe, as is this bypass road.

It’s a fairly standard process when the highway is ready for chipseal often it is open to traffic. The concept is that actually the driving on the road before the application of the chipseal doesn’t damage the road where it would need a lot of remediation before the application of the chipseal. As the road stands today, we would be able to prepare it and apply the chipseal and that opening it did not cause damage that exists now today had we not opened it at all.

Preparing the road is just to ensure that the road is ready for the application of chipseal.

With new buildings, it is anticipated that the energy costs would be much lower than other buildings built previously. There is no actual savings because we don’t have a comparative data, but when we upgrade older buildings into this type of energy-efficient envelope, increasing insulation values, we then take that and use those for all of the savings of the fuel that we burn or that we don’t burn, I suppose, on these buildings and then redistribute it into all of our energy programs.

For the new buildings, like I said, we would see a lot less cost than it would be having not constructed the...

Yes, we try to use the latest energy-efficient methods when we do new construction, as well, at this time. Thank you.