Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister of Finance as well as the Minister of the Power Corporation. I think known here was in this agreement. We have seen some pretty good things in the budget address yesterday, especially in areas of community-based alternative energy programs out there. Again, my hat’s off to a lot of those great programs in solar, wind, biomass. I think these projects are definitely needed to enhance our position statement on cost effectiveness for the residents of the Northwest Territories. In a lot of cases, these initiatives are really no more than throwing rice at a freight train for some of the urban centres. I think the fact that remains is that the hydro project which was mentioned in the delivery of the budget address was a motherly statement at that.
What are this government’s plans with the hydro project and, more importantly, with the Taltson project? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s interest and comments about alternative energy and his interest in hydro.
I would point out that we have done a significant amount of retrofits, for example, and we are saving many hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is a lot of rice. It should be appreciated for the value that it brings. I know that the Member supports that approach.
In terms of the hydro project and in Taltson, we spent over the last probably two Assemblies about $13 million doing technical assessments both on the project at the Taltson site and the other piece was the initial plan to put a transmission line up to East Arm straight to the diamond mines. That project did not go ahead. The technical work was all done, the geophysical work, the engineering work, all the environmental approvals were there to do the project.
Now we are revisiting the issues that the Member is wisely talking about, the benefit of linking the Taltson and the Snare grid, the ability to be able to power and provide energy to places like Avalon, Nechalacho, Thor Lake, the NICO mines. There are going to be some energy requirements at Giant. There is over $100 million heating market here in Yellowknife. There is also eventually a long-term benefit if we not only had those grid connections but a southern grid connection so that we could move power north and south. There is tremendous opportunity.
Minister Ramsay’s economic plan and his Mining Strategy are going to be contingent upon us being able to deal with that energy issue, so this is a big issue for the government, for this Legislature collectively to be looking at in the coming months. Thank you.
I do agree with the Minister that there is great economic opportunity and I’m not disagreeing with the fact that a lot of money has been spent on the project and enhancing it especially for our diamond or mineral sector. The problem we have here is that the residents themselves are suffering greatly. We are seeing some increases in power consumption and rates that will probably push the cost of affordability in this territory to probably one of the highest in the country.
I am really concerned that we need a long-term strategy. We need a legacy project to push power and energy costs at the forefront so that we can put this to the people of the Northwest Territories to make it more affordable.
When can we see these economic opportunities in print? When can we see them on paper? When can they be debated in the House? When can we see a business case statement that we can actually debate here? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, there are three key components to a broad territorial-wide Energy Strategy that I believe in the coming life of this Assembly. One of them is the one the Member has talked about, which is the Hydro Strategy. We are visiting that. There are also significant opportunities, for example in places like Deline to put in power in a very environmentally sustainable, friendly way. The Solar Strategy will help us address the crushing diesel costs in the thermal communities. Then we have the broader issue and the pressing issue of sorting out the Inuvik long-term energy needs.
All of these pieces are being looked at. There’s work being done internally here as we talk about the way forward in these critical areas that have implicated that were coming forward with the Solar Strategy, for example, and I would suggest within the next five months or so we should have our thinking clear enough that we’d be able to put things on the table.
There’s been a tremendous amount of work done on the hydro piece and it’s a question of looking at some of the very specific issues like the Member has mentioned, which is going to focus on not the technical work on the actual dam expansion but the transmission lines and what route would we go and how would we pay for it. Thank you.
Today, for the first time, we’re hearing a move forward from this government that sounds like it’s putting hydro in the front seat of their decision-making rather than the backseat. I think that’s a very clear message that I’m hoping we can earmark further.
The Minister indicated within the next five months, but yet we’ve already talked about the budget address here. Is there any possibility that the Minister can make a firm commitment that this policy, moving towards a stronger hydro commitment to the people of the Northwest Territories, will be done sooner than later? Five months is a long time from now. Thank you.
I will commit to take the Member’s request under advisement. I’ll report back and we’ll have a discussion in the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee to see how fast we can move on this.
There’s a lot of work that’s been done, but there’s more required, and as I indicated, there’s also some important related work like the Mineral Strategy and the Economic Development Strategy. So there are a lot of pieces at play here and that are linked. We want to move those along as quickly as we can, I agree with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
