Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity just recently to read a press release put out by Premier Jim Prentice, and of course, that is the Premier of Alberta. He had met our Premier Bob McLeod, it looks like, over the weekend. This has drawn my attention to the statement which is where I am going to focus my question. It says the Premier, and it talks about the long history between Alberta and the Northwest Territories, to set a path forward to strengthen our economies. I’m going to focus my area directly to that, as I mentioned.
I would like to know the nature of the discussion that they had, what is being discussed in relation to topics that fall under, sort of, the energy development relationship between Alberta and the Northwest Territories that he has been discussing with the Premier. To my knowledge, the Premier hasn’t had a mandate, so I’m curious about what he has been talking about or developing on our behalf. I think it would be a good time to talk about these types of relationships. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. NWT and Alberta has a very long, collaborative history. As a matter of fact, Alberta and Saskatchewan were carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1905. We have had an MOU on cooperation and development with Alberta for about 18 years and it’s been renewed twice and recently expired in 2013. We have been having discussions on entering into a new, renewed MOU. A lot of our discussions are on energy. I believe that at the start of this session, when we all met as Caucus, that was something that we all agreed, was we had to do some work in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the history lesson for the Premier about how Alberta and Saskatchewan came about, although I happen to already know that, just so you know, but I appreciate that all the same. But that said, energy is a very big topic, as we all know, and that’s kind of what some of us are talking about here today.
I’d like to maybe drill down just a little bit as to what type of energy cooperation relationship is the Premier talking about developing with the province of Alberta with the Northwest Territories. I think this is an important topic and we need to be talking about it, how in some ways we will be working together, in some ways we may not be able to find a path together.
So with that said, what specific energy initiatives and relationship building is the Premier working on with the other Premier, and can you give us some clear examples so Northerners know what we’re talking about? Thank you.
What we’ve been discussing is the need for an energy cooperation agreement. There are significant numbers of transboundary issues involved with energy. Not only energy, but water, transportation, tourism, medical health care, what have you, and in almost every instance we are very intertwined with Alberta.
When it comes to energy specifically, we are all part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, and I don’t know if you need another history lesson in that regard or not, but we have very similar issues when it comes to developing our stranded resources. If we don’t have transportation routes or pipelines or other ways to develop our significant oil and gas potential, then we are stuck in a situation where our population is declining, our economy is headed south. So this is an area where we feel it is very important to work together on. Thank you.
Well, it’s well known to most Northerners that Alberta has been looking north to ship their bitumen to the world, and when I say north, I mean through the Northwest Territories. I’ve always believed the old saying, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re certainly part of the problem.
So I want to know what type of role our government and certainly our territory, be it its people, its Aboriginal governments, everybody, will be playing in the development of any potential pipeline that’s being pitched behind the scenes. So, maybe that’s really the question.
What type of work has been done on that type of discussion with Alberta, because I know they’re eyeing the Northwest Territories after being refused Gateway. Is this government working on a deal behind the scenes to develop it and then present it to the people of the North, because I think this an important discussion we need to be having. Thank you.
I wouldn’t say we’ve been working behind the scenes. I think we’ve been very open and transparent about it. We’ve been working with Alberta. Alberta recently released a report that indicated it was technically feasible to go north, to ship oil through what some people are calling an Arctic gateway, that it’s technically feasible, and we would like to explore that much further.
The Mackenzie Gas Pipeline Project that was reviewed and was approved through the regulatory process and a certificate of public conveyance and necessity was approved, which would provide for one-third Aboriginal ownership, is a model that we think will work. We are very interested in working not only with Alberta but also the federal government because we think that is the way that we can develop our northern resources, to develop our oil and gas so that it doesn’t sit stranded for another 40 years. We need the jobs. We need the business opportunities and our people want to work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was certainly, and still have been, a supporter of the Mackenzie Gas Project, but that’s actually gas. It’s not the heavy bitumen provided by the Alberta economy that they want to get, which is stranded. I recognize what the Premier says, they have stranded resources, we have resources. I fully understand that point, but gas is not the same as the heavy bitumen that’s out of Alberta. Other regions are refusing it and it causes the question, do we want to take on this environmental burden in some process? We should be putting this question upfront before too much development happens on this file, and ultimately that’s the next question.
When will this type of discussion happen as a policy initiative for our northern government? Citizens need to weigh in on this type of decision before our government makes a choice for us that citizens don’t get a role in, and that’s important. So that really is the question, because I think citizens of the Northwest Territories will be concerned knowing that we would be playing a role in shipping Alberta bitumen through the Northwest Territories without at least a say well in advance of this deal being struck. Thank you.
Thank you. You can rest assured that any project, if it were ever to come to fruition, would have to go through a very rigorous regulatory process that we have in the Northwest Territories, that would identify issues or conditions that would have to be approved. We’re very interested in moving to the next step to determine the economics of such a possibility and whether it is not only technically feasible or technically possible but that it’s economically feasible. So that’s where we’re looking to move to, is move on to the next step. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Yakeleya.
