Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. With the vote coming on Monday with respect to Yellowknife’s Con geothermal project, if the vote is yes there is going to be significant opportunity for the City of Yellowknife to provide stable, affordable and reliable heat to businesses throughout the community, especially in the downtown core. If these businesses want to gain maximum benefit, many of them are going to have to consider doing some energy retrofits on their buildings windows and whatnot. Through the Minister’s department, the Arctic Energy Alliance provides some really fantastic rebates to residents, non-business residences, to help them do some energy retrofits and purchase equipment in their homes that use less power. But I’m not sure, and I haven’t been able to find any information whether or not these types of rebates are available to businesses who want to do some energy retrofits themselves to maximize things like the Giant-Con geothermal project.
My question for the Minister is: what is available to business throughout the Northwest Territories to help them create more energy-efficient buildings? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as I’m aware, there are two programs. The Energy Efficiency Incentive Program and the Energy Conservation Program are both open for applications from business, residents and communities. Thank you.
Thank you to the Minister for that. I appreciate that response. In talking to businesses that are interested in this geothermal project, many of them talk about the buildings being a little bit run down. Some of the apartment buildings we’re talking about are fairly old and they’re going to need windows and doors and things like that. I’m not suggesting the government pay for those, but would these rebate programs assist with things like that? Would it provide some incentive for these businesses to replace some windows and create some better heat containment within their properties? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I believe the opportunity would be there to do a range of things including the audit to determine what types of things are needed, if it’s energy efficiency, if it’s retrofit, the doors or windows, or the type of doors and windows, the insulation. Assistance maybe to, in fact, lead to other potential pots of money possibly from the federal government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
