Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On May 12, 2011, the Finance Minister in Committee of the Whole stated, “We’ve been working diligently on a P3 policy for government. That policy has been to committee. We have had extensive feedback. We have what we think is a workable P3 policy.” According to public records on that same day, a Public-Private Partnership Policy No. 15.02 was born and on that same day the Minister also reassured the House, “I can assure the Member that the P3 policy, once in its place, will be followed by government and there’s a built-in full engagement of committees as well.” My questions today are for the Minister of Finance.
We have today what is referred to as non-statutory P3 related policy and not legislation. Real P3 legislation, which at times is referenced by the Minister as very prevalent now across the country, entails what is called “vinculum juris,” or the “network of rights,” duties, liabilities and so forth. Unfortunately, this policy does not. In fact, this six-page P3 policy merely reflects the objectives of the government and grossly lacks institutional framework.
How can the Minister assure the public this non-statutory policy will stack up to the rigour of public confidence? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, in this case, the proof will be in the pudding. We’ve laid out all the steps that we are following, the rigour and due diligence that we’re putting through in evaluating whether in fact the Stanton Hospital would even make the test for a valid P3 project and we have very capable people that are going to look at implementing the policy that we do have. It will be held accountable. It’s going to be a transparent process and we will engage on an ongoing basis with the appropriate committees. Thank you.
Let me remind the Minister, an act is designed to improve public operational efficiency, environmental performance, promote safety, attract the right private investment and minimize public liabilities. This P3 policy does not.
So again, how can the Minister stand before this House and denounce what is in the interest of public of a proper accountability and transparency process? Why did the department just not enact proper legislation rather than support and promote a policy? Thank you.
Thank you. If the Member has specific suggestions other than we should do legislation, we’d be happy to look at those at this juncture.
If there is going to be any legislation considered, that would be now part of transition planning for the 18th Legislative Assembly.
Thank you. The public has been led to believe that this lesser degree of scrutiny under a P3 policy rather than legislative process is what will guide and govern the decision-making of hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars of public money.
Can the Minister elaborate by what statutory obligation will general liability tort third-party liability for taxation or general risk liabilities be covered with the inadequacies of a non-statutory P3 policy? Thank you.
Thank you. It was a long question, lots of technical requests, legal references. Let me just assure the public and the Member opposite that, at the end of the day, $350 million will be invested in Stanton. It will be a state-of-the-art facility, it will last us well past the time that I’m still walking God’s green earth and it will be something that we’ll all be very, very proud of. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you. We’ve come to expect these types of responses from the Minister. To my opening comments today where the Minister assures there would be a built-in, full engagement of the committees on this P3 policy, upon review of the policy, it only briefly mentions standing committee would be involved in the proposal assessment phase, yet fails to prescribe exactly by what means this would happen.
Can the Minister elaborate? Where is the full engagement as promised? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We’d be happy to sit down with committee if there are concerns by committee on the process going forward. We’d be happy to have those discussions to make sure it is as fulsome, integrated and engaged as possible as befits consensus government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, I’d like to ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources a few questions.
Over the last few years, his department has worked with the Arctic Energy Alliance to install woodstoves in the communities. Moving forward, will that continue? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we intend to maintain our commitment and enhance our commitment to alternative energies, to biomass, and one of the questions that’s going to be posed tonight is what type of regulation and legislation do we need, in fact, to allow us to enhance woodstove use, biomass, solar use. Are there specific pieces of legislation that other jurisdictions may have, because we don’t have any right now. We have legislation that governs oil and gas installations and those types of things, so we are very interested in that. We’ve got pathfinders in the regions. We’re going to be looking at training more people so that, in fact, you can do the proper inspections and get the insurance coverage and those types of issues dealt with as well.
That sounds good. I’d like to ask the Minister, how is the department working with the communities who have taken on biomass to expand?
We work with communities on a community-by-community project basis at this point. Where there is an interest, for example, in the Member’s community of McPherson there has been waste heat work done. We have been studying the viability of using fast growing willows as a source of biomass in addition to all the other standard programs of general applications that are there for all businesses and individuals to apply for. We’re also, of course, very interested in working with communities as they do their own energy plans, to see what long-term planning needs to be done to ensure things are integrated and fit both for the community but are part of the broader planning of the government.
Aside from one of the diamond mines, we don’t really have any wind turbines within the Northwest Territories except for a miniature one that’s always been up in Inuvik.
I’d like to ask the Minister, when does the Minister estimate the first wind turbine to be operating in the Northwest Territories communities?
The most viable site, in my mind, is a place called Storm Hills, between Inuvik and Tuk, where they’ve been doing wind mapping for some time now. We’re looking at the viability of that site, and we know that if we put in six, seven megawatts, eight megawatts of power between Tuk and Inuvik, you could cut the diesel consumption for the production of electricity in half, and wind is free. We just have to work on the money. Part of the commitment here going forward with the charrette is the investment in those types of very fundamental community infrastructures that will allow us to make a serious dent into the reliance on diesel.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed today to the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation. I spoke in my statement about the fact that we are now giving up on the plans for power generation and transmission. The government’s message that we’ve been hearing in the last month or two is that we’re moving on to smaller projects now. I mentioned in my statement about community biomass, power and heat systems.
I’d like to first ask the Minister, has there been any work or any research done on community biomass, power and heat systems to date, and what has it told us?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Out of the first charrette came the direction to look at the issue of the distribution and the transmission grid build-out where we could hook up the Snare system and the Taltson system and investigate the cost of an intertie to Saskatchewan where we could potentially move cheaper power from places like Manitoba and north. We did that. It came back in at about $1.2 billion, probably more than double what we had initially estimated. Rather than keep pursuing that or not do anything, we have recognized the need to change our focus to generation, and not just small generation, but we know, for example, that Yellowknife is in serious need of additional generation capacity both to offset things like lower water, minimize use of diesel, but to pick up extra growth and demand and potentially service the mines.
In regard to the question about the biomass small scale, we know from our research, in fact, we just had a meeting this morning with some of the participants from the charrette. There’s a gentleman over from Germany who has installed over 3,400 different installations around Europe and some in Canada that is eminently feasible to look at that type of generation. You put in some potential batteries or diesel backup or biomass and solar, you have an opportunity to provide a very consistent, affordable, made-in-the-North type of energy source.
Certainly, he mentions Europe. I think it was probably three or four years ago now that we had a mission, so to speak, of Members who went to Europe. It was certainly evident in Europe at that time, and I imagine technology has advanced a great deal since then. The Minister is saying that it’s 3,400 systems, I think, this gentleman has put in, in Europe.
Why are we not doing it here? It’s been possible for us to do it here probably for the last four years. I’d like to know from the Minister what is holding us up from implementing a pilot or basically implementing a community biomass heating and power system?
We started this process in the last Assembly with spending the time to develop our biomass strategy. Part of that strategy was to build a market, then look at building the industry, and we’ve done that. We’ve converted a significant amount of our own facilities to biomass. We’ve taken those savings and reinvested them. We’ve set up incentives to encourage people to switch to biomass. We’ve now just completed two FMA agreements, the first of their kind, forest management agreements, with the people in Providence and the people in Lutselk'e to lay out access to a source of wood fibre, so that we have a private individual that is going to put up a wood pellet plant in Enterprise that is going to be churning out tens of thousands of cubic metres of wood pellets that are going to be part of that initiative.
Now that we’ve proved out that the transmission initiative is beyond our capabilities financially, we’re switching our focus to generation, and we are now looking very, very seriously, through this charrette and other preliminary work that we’ve already done, at what kind of capacity do we have for that type of configuration of biomass and solar plus diesel backup, for example, in Yellowknife, but also all the other thermal communities.
To the Minister, I guess I have to say – my colleague has corrected me – it was six years ago that we heard how successful community plants are in Europe, but nothing has come to fruition. The Minister mentions a lot of small things. Sure, we’re pushing biomass boilers in individual facilities, but we’re not developing one at a community level.
I’d like to ask the Minister, is it conceivable that this concept of a community biomass system will be part of the charrette discussions, because maybe if it comes out of the charrette it will put a little bit of a fire under our rear-end and we’ll get something in place.
I would like to point out that one of our areas of interest where we’ve invested a considerable amount of money has, in fact, been on development of our solar strategy and the solar arrays that we’ve put into Simpson, one of the largest in the country up to the point that it was built, and the pilot project that we’re working on in Colville Lake, where we’re putting in a significant amount of solar power with batteries to look at how much we can maximize penetration into that service system so that we can minimize the cost and reliance on diesel. Now, as the technology has improved, and I’ve mentioned this in the House, that we know that just south of us, in La Crete, they’ve got a 40 megawatt biomass plant. We know that they have a 200 megawatt plant that they just refurbished, a coal fire plant in northern Ontario, and that BC is doing the same thing. We are seriously looking at that now that we are focused very, very intently on generation.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
It will be very short. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I’d like to know from the Minister, when can we expect to see a community energy biomass system?
I don’t believe I’ve used this phrase since the last Assembly, but in due course and the fullness of time as these discussions advance through the charrette, we will look at moving as fast as we can. The question is going to be, how do we get from talk to action? How much money are we going to be able to put into these initiatives? Clearly, the intent is to seriously move with great alacrity on this particular issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier today as the head of our energy issues. The recent comment in the House about renewable energy was that from an economic or commercial objective, you would be lucky to recover your capital costs within 15 to 20 years and by then you are almost at the point of replacement, so the vicious cycle repeats itself. Such uninformed and misleading statements undermine the very opportunity that citizens have to help themselves to cut energy costs and they derail effective government action yielding the unaffordable energy costs of today.
That didn’t come from that side of the House, Mr. Speaker, but a simple review of Public Works and Services’ energy project indicates simple payback, as short as a year or two. Solar panels themselves are guaranteed for 25 years.
So my question is: At tomorrow’s charrette, how has the Premier assured that the think-tank will start off with accurate baseline information and with the principles and the context that affordable energy systems must be based on from now on? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure whether the Member is attributing the comment to myself or to some anonymous source or not, but by all means, it is our intention to make sure that the charrette is informed as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Premier didn’t catch that. I said it was from this side of the House. The one-size-fits-all power system has been disastrous for our communities. In fact, community generation opportunities are diverse, from geothermal in Fort Liard and Yellowknife, to small scale hydro in Wekweeti, to solar in Colville. NTPC has considerable experience in some areas, but solutions may or may not overlap with their experience.
How has the Premier ensured that NTPC plays a supportive role rather than an influential role on the direction the charrette takes, given their record of short stopping community-owned renewable energy systems to date? Mahsi.
Over the past two assemblies, the role of NTPC has evolved. We now have the Ministerial Energy Coordination Committee, where all of the Ministers and departments that have responsibilities in this area come together, and the Power Corporation is working much more closely with the government to fulfill the objectives of the government, and certainly we are recognizing that one size fits all is not necessarily the way to go. We are looking to the Energy Charrette to point us in the right direction. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier. If new clean and renewable energy systems are to have a maximum economic benefit for our communities, they must be locally owned and operated. Buy-in, efficiency, community self-sufficiency and economic stability are all positive impacts of locally based power systems.
What steps has the Premier taken to ensure discussions are open to, or directed to, consider a community-based approach to energy solutions moving forward? Mahsi.
We’ve endeavored to have a very representative group at the Energy Charrette. We have over 130 people, I believe, that will be there. It is our expectation that with the facilitators that we have, with the speakers that we have, the outcomes will be focussed in that direction and certainly we are very prepared, as the ENR Minister has said, and the Finance Minister has said, we are prepared to move in that direction, pending the outcome of the charrette. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is good to hear. Cabinet’s recent subsidy of $20 million to cover diesel generation due to climate change-induced drought brings a total over the past few years, as we’ve heard, to $58 million if we ignore the indirect subsidy effects or costs. This perpetuates our reliance on diesel, obviously, by taking resources that could have been used to develop renewable energy systems and pouring them into a seemingly bottomless tank of diesel.
Has the Premier, or if not will he, include the question about where we should subsidize to get the best return for our citizenry and goals as a key question to be addressed in the charrette? Mahsi.
I guess you will just have to wait for tonight where we address that front and centre in both my remarks and in the Minister of ENR’s remarks. Certainly, we recognize that subsidizing is not sustainable, and at some point, very soon if not now, we have to have a very sustainable method of providing electricity going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today was on Movember and I challenge you to be baby-faced like me, too, if you want to be for Movember. My questions today will be for the Minister of Health.
Obviously, we are concerned with men’s health this month. I am just wondering what the Department of Health is doing to piggyback on top of this national campaign. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. That would have to be paid for if I was to shave this. An auction, starting bid: $10,000. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In September, to mark Men’s Cancer Awareness Month, the department launched an awareness campaign to help raise awareness on different cancers affecting men. The campaign launched with a press conference that was held on September 24th with local cancer survivors sharing their stories. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Patrick Scott and Mr. Walt Humphries for sharing their stories as part of that awareness campaign.
The awareness campaign also includes a number of ads you will see in the newspaper to encourage people to get checkups on a regular basis. The earlier the detection the better. Later this month the department will be hosting a call-in show in partnership with CKLB to raise awareness of all cancers. The show will feature cancer survivors as well as the chief public health officer.
When it comes to things like Movember and specific campaigns that different organizations are running, myself and the public health officer tend to use social media to get that information out to as many people as we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
