Debates of February 13, 2013 (day 6)

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Moving on with questions I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask the Minister on the biomass energy initiatives for the Sahtu specifically, the Minister mentioned Norman Wells school and the airport. I want to ask the Minister if he had some discussions regarding the new health and long-term care facility that’s going to be built in Norman Wells. Also, what opportunities for the people in the surrounding communities of the Sahtu to look at biomass supplies/opportunities with the Aboriginal groups, businesspeople, what discussions have happened with the people of the Sahtu regarding this new wholesale supplies of biomass with these wood pellets burners that are going to go into these government buildings?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, when there’s new construction, wherever there is biomass possible, there’s discussion underway with Public Works. They have done it in Fort Smith, Hay River, Yellowknife, Simpson, and we’re working our way north. I understand that, yes, there has been, as it pertains to the health centre, discussions with our folks, Arctic Energy Alliance, the Public Works folks as well, to see if that’s going to be a money saver. We believe it is because we are installing it into the school and in Transportation at the airport anyway, so we’ve done our own numbers. So, yes.

Mr. Chair, I want to ask the Minister in regard to biomass business opportunities in the Sahtu for the Sahtu people. We have communities that could be involved. We have businesspeople that could be involved. Where are these pellets going to be coming from? Are they going to be made in the Sahtu? Do we have an opportunity, giving our native organizations or businesspeople an opportunity to say we want to participate? Or is it all going to come from La Crete, Alberta?

Mr. Chairman, the intent right now is to get a northern-based supplier. There is a project on the books that was funded by private money slated for Enterprise that is looking at churning out 60,000 tons of high quality pellets with the capacity to ship them across the North. As Mr. Bromley pointed out, there are local opportunities, should that be of interest or possible, to be done at the community or regional level. We did have a pilot project out at Checkpoint Charlie by Simpson. It was just one pilot. I would say it had modest success. That opportunity is there, but right now the one big opportunity for a northern-based supplier is the project slated for Enterprise and then I am assuming that there would be distribution opportunities flowing out of that as well. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I certainly look forward to that northern supplier at Enterprise. I would like to also keep the door open for an opportunity for the Sahtu people, to have that opportunity, should an opportunity come forward, that we could produce and look at our own wood pellet industry. We look forward in the future to that type of discussion. I know what the Minister is saying, that there is a mass of pellets that could be done in the South Slave. That’s in Enterprise. I certainly encourage those gentlemen to continue that work, but I want to make sure that the door does not get shut on the Sahtu in terms of the biomass initiatives.

Right now, I am very happy to hear the Minister finally saying that we are looking at the school and the airport and possibly the new wellness centre, the health centre in the Sahtu. After eight years of talking we are finally looking at an opportunity here.

I want to ask the Minister if there is an opportunity for the Sahtu such as wood chips. Can these new facilities burn wood chips? We have to know that we want to take advantage in the Sahtu about this new facility. Will the facilities that he describes in the House, would they be taking wood chips? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I can’t say, with any degree of definitiveness, that that discussion has been held. I can tell you that wood chips are very labour intensive when you are operating 24/7 on essential services heat in the wintertime especially. I will raise the issue with the Minister of Public Works and Minister of Health, but I’m not sure if wood chips has been actively considered just because it is a whole different… It gets you into a whole different area of issues to deal with in terms of staffing and harvesting locally and having dry wood, especially during tough times like Christmas and New Years and those types of times when you need to rely on a certainty of supply. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I would like to continue this dialogue with the Minister on the issue of wood chips. We come from hard, strong working families in our communities. It may be a little different today; however, the Minister raises some points. I would like to have further discussion. I also look at the opportunity. Do not dismiss the concept of a wood chips because of what the Minister says. We have always come over some difficulties and hardships in the Sahtu.

Look at the Norman Wells community that had to deal with the running out of gas and other issues in the area. I want to ask the Minister to keep an open mind. Let’s have some further discussions. I think this would be really good. We need to get our people out working hard and getting away from the communities. There is high unemployment in our communities. There are a lot of young guys that can do a lot of hard work. Anyhow, that can be said in another meeting here.

I want to ask the Minister before my time runs out, in terms of the Arctic Energy Alliance, has the Minister received some discussion papers, option papers as to where we can save money in our smaller communities that primarily rely on diesel? We just had a motion here on the oil heaters. That is what we want. Has the Minister looked at the Arctic Energy Alliance so that we would look at some of the initiatives that we can pursue in our diesel fuel communities? It would help with the carbon emission and help with the cost of living. Take some of these initiatives that make sense, look into those communities such as Colville Lake or Deline or Paulatuk or Sachs Harbour, high cost of living in Trout Lake and any of the communities that I mentioned that it costs quite a bit to live there. Can we have some more discussions on some of these initiatives that would save us money in the long run?

Mr. Chairman, if my memory serves me correctly, in the last government we worked extensively in trying to do community energy plans with all of the communities working with Arctic Energy Alliance. We subsequently put in these Pathfinders.

If I just may offer one final comment… And yes, our door is open to have those further discussions.

I speak of wood chips with a caution in my voice because in Fort Smith the Metis local started out putting in a facility to heat about four of their big buildings right by Roaring Rapids and a number of other buildings. They started out with wood chips in mind and got fairly well along the design and building and, clearly, they redid their numbers and came to realize that they better switch to pellets, because when they did all the numbers on the labour costs and the certainty of supply, and getting green wood and drying it and all these types of things, it became, in their mind, cost prohibitive and they basically put a stop on the project and they’re going to spend the extra dollars to convert to wood pellets. I was offering that just as an example to keep in mind.

Our door is open to have discussions with all of the communities, not only ourselves but the government and the Arctic Energy Alliance, on how do we go forward with all of the implementation on the implementation side. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya, your time is up. If you want to come back in the queue, let me know. Moving on, I have Mr. Blake.

Frederick Blake Jr.

Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of comments under the energy conservation. One thing I would like to see in each region is similar to what is happening in the Tlicho region. They’ve hired an energy coordinator to work within the communities to help the residents there to realize how much savings can be made with little things, whether it’s unplugging appliances, different ways to conserve energy. I hope that can continue in every region in the Northwest Territories.

Under the Business Support Program, I was hoping this funding could continue. Last year, it was $200,000, but this year it’s not continuing. This sort of initiative, as I mentioned earlier, is manufacturing wood pellets, it would be nice if this funding would be made available for those initiatives.

Under wind energy, that’s not continuing this year and it hasn’t for the last two years. I am very hopeful that we can start this initiative. We can learn a lot from the diamond mines. You know, the diamond mines, or one of the mines, have put a lot of funds towards that and I think you’ll see a lot of long-term savings. Hopefully this government could continue along those lines. That’s all I have right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Miltenberger.

A response to some of the concerns, there is a Pathfinder in Inuvik, his name is Donald Andre and he’s there to provide that support in the region. I think there’s another one in Simpson and another one in Tlicho and Norman Wells.

There is wind energy. There’s $100,000 in wind energy but it got put in under the Alternative Energy Program. And we’ve had an expression of interest from Paulatuk. We did a lot of work in Tuk initially, but they sort of put their efforts into natural gas so Paulatuk indicated an interest.

The $200,000 in business support programs has been moved to the commercial energy conservation. So it hasn’t been cut.

And we have entered into a 10-year agreement with the proponent for the Aurora Pellet Plant in Enterprise. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. I have Mr. Menicoche.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Can I have the report from the Committee of the Whole, please?