Wally Schumann

As the Member knows, the Minister of Finance has been working closely with the federal government to understand the full impacts of carbon tax on the Northwest Territories and the cost of living and doing business here.

In addition to that, though, the federal government tends to reflect the unique circumstances in the NWT. The Premier has had that commitment from the Prime Minister on this specific topic. Regardless of the carbon tax, our department is moving forward with our energy strategy, which will help with alternative and renewable options for people in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories is actively considering the transmission expansion of the Taltson system into the communities of the South Slave in particular. This will be reflected in our 2030 Energy Strategy and Action Plan.

With that being said, we are looking at expanding into the Fort Providence and the Kakisa area. That is a 140 kilometre T-line expansion, and we are also looking at possibly expanding into the Whati off the snare system, which is a 65 kilometre expansion T-line section.

As for the Member's question around the Nahendeh riding, being part...

First of all, drivers must drive according to the conditions. The maximum speed is posted for optimum conditions, so if the highway is 100 kilometres per hour, that is for optimum conditions. If there is bad weather, well, then you have got to drive to those conditions. To ensure safety in the Northwest Territories, the highway system is a top priority of our department. We are always promoting safety as the number one thing. Driver education is one way that the department is working to communicate to residents in the Northwest Territories through advertising, enforcement, signage and such...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, our highway meets the national guidelines with respect to engineering, signage, and design posting limits along that highway. We've all had an opportunity and Cabinet has had a chance to drive it.

The further work that we're going to commit on signage going forward is there is going to be some information signage installed and some more delineators to add to driver comfort along the highway. We realize that this piece of highway is in one of the harshest conditions in Canada, or anywhere in the world, and people must have to drive accordingly through it. As...

As the Member knows, we're in our budget process. To have a new park or something like that just doesn't slide into the budget just like that. At the minimum, at the very minimum, this project will need some planning, a consideration of costs, a project description, and these sorts of things. The Member is also, you know, asking the question if we will support that, and I gladly will support it moving forward, but he is going to have to get his constituency or people in his constituency to buy into this. I'd like to hear from them on what they have to say about it and have someone try this...

This question is perfect for me, for Infrastructure and ITI. We are committed to our parks system and investing in them in the Northwest Territories. Maybe this is something, again, we can have another discussion about this whole thing and have a look at how we can maybe move this thing in stages. Maybe we add it to our existing parks system, but I think it is a conversation that I am willing to support, and we can have those conversations. Again, I ask the Member to contact our regional office.

One of the key messages we heard coming out of the carbon tax public engagement was the concern over the cost of living, as we have said, and doing business in the Northwest Territories. The second part to considering a carbon tax is what will we do as a government with the revenue that is generated from a carbon tax.

I support using a portion of these revenues to offset the high cost of living in the Northwest Territories, for sure. The reality of the NWT is that we have a high demand and high prices already for fuel and electricity. While we want to continue to advance alternative energy...

First of all, I want to thank the Member for giving us a heads up on this question here. There are a bunch of things we have done in his riding. In Fort Simpson, we are looking at LNG. It was a commissioned study in 2016, a liquefied natural gas vaporization study. An LNG facility in Fort Simpson is being considered as part of the Energy Strategy and Action Plan, and that is in development right now.

We have biomass wood pellet in Fort Simpson. In 2012, it's a GNWT-owned biomass central heating system for the rec centre and the elementary school. Combined heat and power in Fort Simpson; the...

On this section of highway, we have a Government of the Northwest Territories employee and a maintenance contractor who inspect the highway twice a day to make sure the road is safe and cleared. If it is snowing or blizzardy and driving conditions are conditions that need to have the road closed, that will be informed and we will post that. There are protocols around highway maintenance of when the road needs to be plowed, and those are at the discretion of the maintenance contractor and the GNWT employee, and then they will follow up on that. For moving forward, being this is the very first...

We have our web page where we continually update the highway conditions of the highways in the Northwest Territories. The department also uses Twitter on a lot of occasions, because I always re-tweet out what the department is putting out there, from waits on winter roads to closures of the Dempster and such.

On the Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik Highway, I think a lot of people maybe even don't even realize they're driving by, because as the Member said, people don't pay attention to signage sometimes. At the beginning and at the end of both sections of the highway, there's a sign up there to say if...