Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to my Member’s statement, in regards to the Robertson report, very simply is that proposed NWT residents will receive the first right to purchase shares and no individual or group could own more than 10 percent of the shares. That was in the Robinson report. Now it seems like we are in the game of selling all possible assets of the Power Corporation, looking at venture capital by way of the Taltson project. I know that at the Beaufort leaders meeting, especially with the Gwich’in leadership, the issue came up in regards to equity partnership or ownership of any sales of the Power Corporation or the possibility of buying them or allowing them to buy into the Taltson project. Has the Premier taken that into consideration? Is that an option that is being considered by this government?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First and foremost, let’s be clear: we are not selling off pieces of the Power Corporation. We are not selling off our assets. We had a proposal put on the table by ATCO to look at a partnership arrangement. We have not gone down that line to see if, in fact, that is where we are going to go.
We talked about a process of reviewing electricity rates. Review of that was done. We are preparing our response to that. The NTPC report, we are sitting down with Members to go over that report and look at how we go forward on that initiative, but the issue that we need to deal with is how do we expand our abilities to generate electricity in the Northwest Territories that is affordable for people in the Northwest Territories. We looked at some options of that partnership. For example, on the existing Taltson project as it sits, we have partnered up with the Metis and the Akaitcho on the Deze front. On the issue of the ATCO proposal, back in January of 2009, when we sat down in Fort Simpson with the regional leaders, this issue was raised by the regional leaders. Would we be willing to look at a proposal from aboriginal businesses in the Northwest Territories? I informed them at that time, by all means, we are willing to look at that, so that if they felt that they wanted to put a joint proposal in, we are willing to look at those. To date we haven’t got a proposal from them, but the door is open to those types of partnerships. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in the case of request for proposals, government seems to do that a lot. I am just wondering in regards to comments made by the Premier, is there a formal request for proposal that has been put out there in regards to allowing the interested parties or aboriginal organizations or formally some corporations in the Northwest Territories to look at the possibility of partnering on some of these large-scale projects.
Mr. Speaker, the formal arrangement we do have is Deze, as I mentioned. The formal call for proposals on the Power Corporation, we have not done that. We have accepted the actual proposals in the sense of reviewing it, but that hasn’t gone anywhere. I put in a public meeting with the regional leaders back in, as I have stated earlier, January of 2009 in Fort Simpson, said that we are willing to look at a proposal, whether it is joint or a proposal from aboriginal leaders, as well as the meetings held in Dettah in November of 2009. Again, the issue about proposal and open the door, that we would be willing to look at such a proposal if they were to come in. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, we are not privy to the ATCO proposal. We haven’t seen it. There have been meetings between the Premier and the Minister of Finance in regards to meetings with Nancy Southern. And yet I know that the Minister is responsible for the Power Corporation. The Minister of Finance is responsible for Finance. I would just like to know in regards to those discussions, if at some point the framework of the ATCO proposal will be put out there so we can get an idea of exactly what is in it, what the benefits are or the advantages or disadvantages are to the people of the Northwest Territories, and also what is it going to cost ourselves as ratepayers in regards to the cost of power if we decide to sell.
Mr. Speaker, over a year ago, I believe, I presented information to Members of this Assembly on what we had received. In fact, there may have been a meeting as well with members to provide that information. At the same time as we laid out our process of how we would look at electricity generation rate subsidies, the Power Corporation itself and this proposal. We have not done any further work on the proposal. There are some very preliminary meetings with some of our senior staff to talk about what that proposal actually meant, if it was a starting position or what. We haven’t gone any further than that. As we decide on these first two pieces on the energy rates regulation piece and the Power Corporation review, we will decide if, in fact, that initial proposal is now ready to go or are we going to deal with these first two reports and go forward on that basis. Thank you.
Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear anything in regards to the meetings held between the Minister of Finance and Nancy Sothern. Was that a pitch for Nancy Southern to come up with $6 million to basically kick-start the Taltson proposal?
Mr. Speaker, it has been our practice, and we talked about the agents and companies but we try to not raise individual members’ names. It is not part of our process in this forum but the proposal or the recent meetings that were held are not tied to that proposal that we initially received. The meetings that Minister Miltenberger spoke of in this House as well as in his budget address was very preliminary talking about would there be interest in looking at partnering up on a project specific basis. Again, we are, as we have shown on Deze already with Taltson, we have partnerships with aboriginal governments in there. We are going to have to continue to work along those lines. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
