Mr. Speaker, I want to assure you that I have been listening carefully to Members during the recent debate around Junior Kindergarten. I also want to assure you that the Government of the Northwest Territories remains committed to the principle that focused, targeted support during their first years of life will help our children reach their full potential and become healthy, educated, successful adults. Our government has introduced Junior Kindergarten, a program designed to achieve just this result, Mr. Speaker, and has already rolled it out successfully to 23 communities.
I believe that the people of the Northwest Territories agree with this government that our children deserve the best support possible to give them the right start in life. At the same time, I recognize that people have reservations about the way the program is being implemented. The Government of the Northwest Territories respects those concerns, and I want to reassure Members and the public today that we are listening carefully to what they are saying.
We planned for a phased rollout of Junior Kindergarten, Mr. Speaker, to ensure we would have the opportunity to review and adjust the program implementation, and that is what we will do. I want to be clear with Members that before our government goes ahead with years two and three of the Junior Kindergarten rollout, we will do a thorough review of our implementation plans.
That review will allow us to assess the success of the program in the 23 communities already delivering it and to address any issues identified
during the first months of program delivery. It will also allow us to hear again from parents, educators, communities and other stakeholders on their views and concerns. I commit to returning to the Assembly with the results of that review and any required changes to the implementation plans during the coming winter session.
Clearly, we need to do more for our children, Mr. Speaker, and Junior Kindergarten is the way to do it. But it is also clear from the current public debate that our government needs to do more in planning for the continued rollout of this program, particularly in the area of engaging parents, educators and the public.
We remain committed to Junior Kindergarten, Mr. Speaker. We still believe it is the right program for all those parents across the NWT who chose JK for their four-year-olds. We will look to move forward in a way that is sensitive to the concerns of parents, educators, daycare operators, Aboriginal Head Start programs and other stakeholders.
Implementing this program will require changes, we need to be clear about that, but the children of the NWT deserve the support and the advantages that Junior Kindergarten will give them. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Mr. Speaker, in the 2013-2014 fiscal year, there was a tremendous increase in the number of visitors and visitor spending in the Northwest Territories, and today I would like to share details of this exciting growth with Members.
Last year we welcomed over 90,000 visitors. This is our highest number of visitors in the last decade and an increase of 20 percent from the previous year.
Visitor spending also rose by 24 percent to $132.5 million.
Tourism is this territory’s largest renewable resource-based sector and these numbers demonstrate that this government and our partners are on the right track to promoting the NWT as a spectacular destination.
Last year the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment increased funding to NWT Tourism, the GNWT’s destination marketing organization, by $1.2 million. The visitor numbers I just shared with you demonstrate that increased investment in marketing achieves results.
The two largest factors for this increase are aurora viewing and business travel. The number of aurora viewing visitors has been on the rise over the last five years, with a substantial 38 percent increase last year.
The NWT is known as the Aurora Capital of the World and clearly this message is reaching far beyond our borders. Our marketing efforts overseas, particularly in China, Japan and Korea, are paying off, and we expect the demand for aurora tourism to continue to increase.
The number of business travellers also grew by an unprecedented 47 percent and the GNWT is well-positioned to strike while the iron is hot. As I shared with you last week, the NWT Economic Opportunities Strategy recommended we establish a conference bureau to support business travel. We took action on this recommendation and signed a contribution agreement with NWT Tourism to establish this bureau last June.
NWT Tourism now provides support to conference planners looking to host events in this territory. Not only will this strengthen our business travel sector but it will provide spin-off benefits for all sectors, including transportation suppliers, hotels, restaurants, artisans and tour operators in all regions. NWT Tourism has already assisted conference planners who are interested in holding conferences here and is working to attract new ones.
We are also working with our partners and lodge operators to strengthen those areas of tourism that have experienced a decline, such as the number of fishing visitors from the United States. Through better research and the launch of a marketing campaign, we are working to improve these numbers.
Mr. Speaker, last year’s numbers bode well for the future of tourism in the NWT, and ITI is dedicated to seeing all sectors and all communities thrive. With a dedicated industry and focused strategies in place, tourism will continue to provide great economic benefits for the NWT and contribute to a diversified and sustainable economy for our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, the 2014 forest fire season is officially over.
This year a total of 3.4 million hectares of forested land were affected by 385 wildland fires. This was composed of six reported fires in the Inuvik region, 32 in the Sahtu region, 52 in the Deh Cho region, 143 in the North Slave region and 152 in the South Slave region. An estimated $60 million was spent fighting fires in the 2014 forest fire season.
In keeping with established policies, action was taken on 126, or 33 percent, of reported fires to protect values at risk. Wildland fire responses were required on eight large complex fires that had the potential to affect communities and other major infrastructure.
The 25-year average annual fire load is 262 fires affecting 528,000 hectares of northern forest lands.
Core support to the fire program this year included six helicopters and four air tanker groups from both territorial and other Canadian aircraft contracting companies. Several short-term casual helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft were hired through the fire season to supplement the core program. Additional tanker groups were imported from other provinces through the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement, or MARS Agreement, to assist with the heavy fire load.
Twenty-eight type 1 government and contract wildland fire crews were located across the NWT to provide initial attack capacity. Another 175 seasonal and permanent personnel provided direct support to the fire program.
Several additional national resources were brought on over the fire season to help with ongoing fires and initial attack during severe burning conditions.
Four hundred eighty-five EFFs, or extra firefighters, were hired in 2014 for training purposes or in support of fire operations. This included the initial EFFs hired at the start of the season and the additional training camps held in various communities to bring more EFFs on board to cope with the length and severity of the season.
Four hundred sixty-eight type 1 wildland firefighting personnel were imported from outside the NWT under the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement. These imports consisted of crews, aircraft and overhead resources. These crews were composed of eight Canadian provinces and the State of Alaska.
In addition, nine incident management teams consisting of five to 15 people were necessary to coordinate the fire response. There were five from Ontario, two from Alberta, one from British Columbia and one from Nova Scotia/New Brunswick.
Several single resources were also imported to assist with the heavy workload. These included planning specialists, fire behavior specialists, warehouse personnel, two community protection specialist teams and five air attack officers.
Training for the 2014 fire season included seasonal refresher training of type 1 crews, S-100 basic firefighter training, fire line leadership, fuel system training, and fire reporting training for fire clerks, warehouse staff and duty officers as required.
As Members are aware, this was a particularly challenging season for fire crews. The NWT experienced long-term above average seasonal conditions including above average seasonal temperatures and below average precipitation. This resulted in extreme drought conditions that lasted much of the 2014 wildland fire season.
Given the extreme conditions, limited resources and large complex fires, Mr. Speaker, I would consider this a successful fire season in that there was no loss of life, no significant injuries and no significant damage done to any community.
As well as 3.4 million hectares of our northern forests affected, there were, unfortunately, some structural losses, Mr. Speaker. In early July a home on the Hoarfrost River was lost due to fire. High winds and extreme fire conditions caused the fire to switch directions and destroy a home and some outbuildings on the Hoarfrost River.
Again, during the weekend of August 16th, strong southwest winds and explosive fire behavior conditions caused a fire to jump Moraine Bay and resulted in the loss of the Moraine Point Lodge on the west side of Great Slave Lake. While the Moraine Point Lodge and outbuildings were lost, the fire did not reach the commercial fish processing plant on Moraine Bay.
While the above losses were significant, we must not overlook the effects and losses traditional harvesters are bearing from this past season: approximately 15 cabins including a community complex at Lake 690 north of Fort Providence, and trapping areas removed from use for five to seven years while the land recovers. Our government expects to assist a number of harvesters under our Harvesters’ Fire Damage Assistance Program.
Fires of note in 2014 include the Kakisa complex, which began in late May. This fire was very difficult to contain and spread to 100,000 hectares. The fire caused the voluntary evacuation of the community in July and help from several crews from Alberta, NWT, Saskatchewan, Yukon and Ontario managing this complex over a two-month period.
Due to the community’s significant work FireSmarting around Kakisa and the commendable efforts of the firefighters and air tankers, there were no structural losses and residents were able to return to their community with little to no damage.
The Birch Lake complex, composed of over six fires between Behchoko and Fort Providence, resulted in periodic closure of Highway No. 3 mainly due to extreme smoke conditions. Most of the work on this fire consisted of the construction of dozer guards on the south side of the fire to restrict growth towards Fort Providence and the Forest Management Agreement areas. Four different incident management teams from the NWT and Ontario managed this complex over a two-month period. The Birch Lake complex is estimated to be 650,000 hectares in size.
The Reid Lake complex started from a fire in the Consolation Lake area. The fire was first actioned by fire crews to protect values in the area. It eventually threatened values in the Highway No. 4 Ingraham Trail area and caused the closure of the Reid Lake Territorial Park for a few weeks while crews were stationed at the campground. Incident management teams from Ontario, Nova Scotia and the NWT managed the complex over a six-week period from mid-June through to the end of July. The fire is 365,000 hectares in size.
ZF-085, the fire that was approximately 30 kilometres from Yellowknife and seven kilometres from Highway No. 3, caused the voluntary evacuation of residents along the Yellowknife Highway and a number of public safety updates. The fire burned approximately 15,000 hectares.
Mr. Speaker, over the coming months, ENR will be engaging stakeholders to determine stakeholder values and priorities. FireSmart and value protection is part of our annual comprehensive review. The department will also administer applications for compensation to renewable resource harvesters with re-establishing their livelihood under the Harvesters’ Fire Damage Assistance Program for possible replacement of lost cabins or for clearing trails affected by wildfires.
The department conducts maintenance activities for air tanker and fire bases, fixed detection sites, fuel systems, the lightning detection network, the automatic fire weather station network and radio communications.
Environment and Natural Resources also completed construction of the Enterprise fixed detection tower which will be operational in the summer of 2015.
Under normal seasonal fall weather, cooler and wetter conditions would wet the deeper forest layers and reset drought values. Without sufficient fall rain as well as significant over-winter precipitations, drought conditions may persist into the 2015 fire season.
I would also like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to the men and women from the Northwest Territories, across Canada and Alaska who fought fires on the ground and in the air this summer. They worked tirelessly to protect us, our homes, our communities and our values during the toughest fire season on record. They faced intense, often grueling conditions, and I am very proud of the professionalism and courage they displayed in our time of need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My colleagues here today have worked hard in organizing a theme day, but it’s important for me to respond to issues raised in this House about securities to the Minister of Lands in respect to Canadian Zinc’s Prairie Creek Mine.
It is important that our government ensure that adequate security for reclamation is in place before the proposed mine starts its activities. These securities are important to protect the health and safety of our public and the environment. Securities are important tools for government to address potential for environmental damage. At the same time, sustainable land use can support strong and responsible economic development in the territory. It can bring new employment and resources that will have real benefits for all residents of the Northwest Territories.
The proposed Prairie Creek Mine has been subject to the rigorous regulatory environmental assessment process under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. Aboriginal governments, regulatory authorities, government departments and the general public participated in the review of the proposed mine. Those views and concerns were considered by the independent board before approving the project.
Canadian Zinc requested the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board adjust the timing schedule for the posting of security under its operating permit to reflect the actual timing of construction activities and planned mining operations. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Canadian Zinc has committed that they won’t start development authorized by operating permits until this security is in place. It’s important to point out that Canadian Zinc Mines is not requesting any change to the total amount of security and it’s not disputing the security amount.
The Prairie Creek Mine will be an important source of new jobs and wealth for people in my riding and bring new economic activity that will benefit the residents of Nahendeh through infrastructure initiatives and spin-off activities. These activities will not just be limited to Nahendeh but will also benefit the whole of the Northwest Territories as new resource royalties will support strong economic development for our territory, help diversify our population and strengthen our economic future. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Money ain’t for nothing, cheques for free. That’s according to Dire Straits. Whether it be those lyrics or the band’s name, Mr. Speaker, we’re all, indeed, in dire straits across the Northwest Territories when it comes to the cost of living.
All the great minds in the world should be able to come to the conclusion of why is the cost of living in the Northwest Territories so high. Some of the question my constituents are asking: When will we catch a break? When will the middleclass or the elders catch a break?
Well, Mr. Speaker, when one of the Members is planning to visit the Sahtu, here’s some of the food prices we pay. In Fort Good Hope two litres of milk costs $5.49, and it’s a little more in Tulita at $5.99, and in Norman Wells it’s $6.59. If you’re going to shop in Deline, a dozen eggs will cost you a little more than the Independent store at $3.99 a dozen in Yellowknife. If you’re going to go in the bush, you want some bannock. If you get a can of Klik, that will cost you $5.49. Right there you can see putting meat on the table in the Sahtu costs you a few more dollars than in the capital of Yellowknife.
What if you decide to live off the land and be a trapper? Well, it’s not an easy life, Mr. Speaker, but it’s a good life, especially when you have to go on the land and pay for gas, like in Colville Lake at $2.99 a litre. Perhaps we’ll see more people going back to the dog teams.
But there’s a catch. The barge didn’t make it up the Mackenzie, so food and other goods will have to be flown into the region, and further down the valley, extra costs will fall on consumers when they fly it in.
My colleague from Hay River, Mr. Bouchard, raised a good point about dredging the Hay River. Why aren’t we seeing NTCL barges bringing goods and supplies down the Mackenzie River in the spring when the river is running high, instead of waiting until the fall when the levels are so low?
High gas prices, low oil prices and inflated costs and climate change are putting extra pressure on our household budgets. Half the household earnings are spent on keeping the house warm.
When will we in the North, especially in the small communities, get a break?
I’ll have questions for the Minister. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Residents of the North are clearly burdened with astronomical costs: power, heat, food, and gas for cars, ATVs and snowmobiles, transportation to other communities. Nearly everything costs significantly more here than elsewhere in Canada and the world. For many this burden is manageable. They make a good wage, often two in the same family. However, this is not the case for everyone, and a significant number of Northerners struggle to make ends meet, often losing the battle. Our social service and income support statistics bear this out.
Government has gotten into the habit of responding with millions of dollars in subsidies, particularly in the area of power generation. While attractive politically in the short term, subsidies have not addressed the underlying systemic problems yielding ever-rising costs and causing the true costs associated with diesel power generation to be hidden.
For us, this has meant ever-larger debts and requests to big daddy to increase our borrowing limits. Key funds desperately needed for services are vaporized with ever-more-expensive fossil fuels for electricity generation or heating or food.
Environmental and social costs mount both directly and indirectly. We must stop this policy of failure and begin moving towards an economically and environmentally sustainable model.
From now on, if any new energy subsidies are contemplated, they must be matched by an equal and rigorously justified investment in renewable energy infrastructure for heat and power. In addition, we need to begin a schedule and steady replacement of current subsidies with the provision of energy infrastructure that stabilizes and reduces costs and that through its implementation provides local and lasting jobs in every community.
A concerted and focused policy is essential to address our costly, damaging and undermining reliance on diesel. This shift will pay dividends in cleaner energy, reduced costs across our economic sectors, a reduced cost of living and many new long-term jobs, jobs that will have positive effects on every community at every level.
But what’s required, Mr. Speaker? A key feature of this approach, however, must be community participation that accrues benefits to communities. To achieve this, we must invest in community-owned distributed energy systems or energy systems…
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you. A key feature of this approach must be community participation that accrues benefits to communities. To achieve this, we must invest in community-owned energy systems if we want to build local economies, address cost of living and restore the environment. The time for a serious renewable commitment has come. If not now, when? If not us, who? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all know there’s a high cost of living here in the Northwest Territories, and the further north you get and the more isolated you get in the communities, those prices go up. The high cost of living in Inuvik is causing many hardships that I have never seen before or that residents of Inuvik have never seen before.
Last week we heard in the House that even though the price of oil has dropped throughout the world, we don’t see that reflected here in the Northwest Territories, specifically for home heating fuel. Why isn’t this regulated? Why don’t we get people bringing the fuel up to the Northwest Territories, buying it at a cheaper cost? We know that they have to pay to get the fuel up here, but yet we don’t regulate at what cost they’re buying it at.
This government also subsidizes the heating fuel for public housing, and from 2010-11, when this government subsidized heating fuel in public housing at the cost of about $6.5 million, and then just recently in this fiscal year, just over $9 million. More recently, we just heard an announcement from this government that we’re subsidizing the Northwest Territories Power Corporation to the tune of $20 million. I ask this government, what about the homeowner? What about the small business operator? What about those people trying to make a living who are contributing to the economy?
From 2011 when the cost of fuel was $1.24 to $1.70 just recently in Inuvik that the homeowner has to pay, this is causing hardships on our people, on our residents and people who have made Inuvik home their whole lives. With the high cost of heating oil, then you add in the high cost of power, you add in there the most recent increase to property tax to residents of Inuvik, and it’s causing many hardships, as I’ve said, in the community of Inuvik. It’s causing some people to go on income assistance. Not only that, we’re seeing a lot of foreclosures on homes in Inuvik. We’re also seeing a lot of homes that are going up for sale. This high cost of fuel and high cost of living in Inuvik is putting even double-income families at risk.
I will have questions today. We’re subsidizing the Power Corp, we’re subsidizing public housing units, why not the homeowner? Why not the people that do contribute to the community and the people that have called Inuvik home their whole lives?
I’ll have questions for the Minister of Finance later today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re talking a lot about the cost of living today. So what makes up Northerners’ cost of living? Well, food, water, vehicles and the gas to put in it, lodging, taxes, power, heat, phone, insurance, clothing, entertainment, TV, Internet; it’s a long list. But what can we do about our costs? Some are easily controlled; others, not so much.
I have some suggestions about what we can do. We can increase the Seniors Home Heating Fuel Subsidy. It hasn’t seen an increase in four years, yet we all know the cost of fuel has gone up every year. We can apply concerted pressure to the federal government to increase the basic northern residents tax deduction, which would increase our residents’ tax refunds. We must increase the number of low-cost or public housing units for low-income wage earners. We can apply concerted pressure again to the federal government to change the Nutrition North Program so it’s more effective for NWT residents and really actually does reduce food costs. We can make changes to our taxation regime for agriculture land, lower the mill rate to encourage farming and increase our local food supply, in effect eliminating or reducing our reliance on imported foods. We can put more money and support into community garden programs for the same reasons. We can provide training to residents to develop sustainable local food programs, another way to lower food costs. We can bring back the Community Freezer Program for storage of country foods to feed the community; more lower food costs. We can put a greater focus, or we can start a campaign for healthy foods, provide incentives for residents to buy healthy, natural foods instead of processed food stuffs. We can increase meal programs in schools. Children will be healthier and food costs for families will be reduced.
Then there is power, Mr. Speaker. That is a big cost and a big problem. This government has spent millions exploring power generation and transmission, both concepts now to be abandoned. Instead of spending those millions, we should have been investing far more heavily in alternative energies, for example, and the technology exists, so why do we not have any community biomass power or heating systems in place yet? Where is the NTPC conservation campaign that we heard so much about, the one that will help us reduce our power bills?
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Many of the things I have mentioned are small things, but either on their own or added together they can contribute to a lower cost of living.
This government has danced around the issue of lowering our cost of living without any in-depth engagement on it. We have thrown subsidies at it, instead of taking action to make inroads in how we live our lives. It’s time we changed our thinking or our plans or we will subsidize ourselves into debt. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise with the opportunity to talk about the cost of living as well. What’s important to say is I remember the days when people talked about families with one paycheque. I can’t remember how long ago that was. Any family with one paycheque must be an amazing money manager to this day. Because I will tell you, nowadays two paycheque families are having a tough go at it just getting through their day to day.
As always, I want to give thanks to my favorite champions out there in the government, that’s called the Bureau of Stats, because they have provided me these facts that I will remind the government of. So I can say that in 2014, August that has just passed, 22,200 were employed. Out of almost 32,000 residents that would be normally working, that is still a terrible number. But what is ironic about this is about a 1,500 dip from 2013. My colleague Ms. Bisaro just pointed on the area that I really wanted to narrow in on, the northern residents tax deduction.
You can have all the tax breaks in the world, they can give you anything they want, but the fact is they are useless if you don’t make any money. All tax breaks do is just make people feel good, but if you don’t have a paycheque, you have nothing to deduct it against.
It has been years since the federal government even acknowledged our northern tax deduction under a residency issue and they bumped it up ever so slightly. As it stands today, it is approximately $16.50 per person per day. That goes down a complicated taxation line which I will stay out of, but the fact is the person can claim up to $6,222 a year. Again, that’s only useful as a deduction if you have a paycheque. Again, families with a single paycheque, how they do it, I don’t know. Two family paycheques are struggling through.
What is time, and certainly necessary in this particular occasion, is that our Premier should be furious about how low it is. It has not kept pace with the cost of living, it has not been indexed in any way, and at this point it is more of an annoyance to fill out on your tax form than it certainly is seen as a benefit.
I encourage our Premier to start getting a little fury and fight back on this stuff. Now he should probably be joining arms with our sister territories and fighting Ottawa about this broken system. An everyday family needs a break, not to be broken the way it is being treated through this cost of living process.
I look forward to the Premier finally doing something on this very important issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today our communities are struggling and challenged with the cost of living. Cost of living regarding the basic needs of food, shelter and, for the most part, is demoralizing in terms of the price. It saps people’s pride and longing for independence. The price of basics such as meat, fish, chicken, vegetables and fruits are way high. The goods are packaged and processed down south and either trucked or flown to communities. If you are fortunate and are one of 50 percent of the people that work in communities, you can buy groceries locally. If you live in public housing, you are charged your rent to the amount of $70 per month or, if you work, 30 percent of your wages. It is not surprising that in smaller communities people are more inclined to supplement their livelihood by hunting, fishing or trapping, but, of course, if you have a skidoo, boat and the necessary equipment to go out on the land.
As the sun sets in the communities, elders, youth and the unemployed are grateful to have lived through another day in the community, and they put their faith and hope that this government will finally do something about the cost of living.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Next week we will be having the Energy Charrette. The charrette is meant to look at the cost of power and costs of energy in the Northwest Territories, probably one of the biggest costs that most of our constituents currently have. The government is touting this as the opportunity for us to look at all the solutions for the cost of living, but I’m very concerned.
We had an Energy Charrette a couple of years ago, with limited successes. We talked about a power supply system that would link all our grids together, which we know is now ineffective cost-wise, as well as the lack of our borrowing limit. The other issue such as gas prices is always on the constituents’ minds, and one of those factors is our gas taxes. Last week I was asking questions about the reduction of that tax. We should be looking at that type of stuff.
The other area a couple of the Members have talked about in studying taxation is northern residency limiting from the federal government. We know that this has not changed very much. We see in the south where they allow cross-border shopping to increase the volume so that the people down there can live cheaper. What have Northerners had for a tax increase from the federal government? Very little.
Obviously, in this Energy Charrette I hope we’re talking about conservation as well. We need to learn to do more with less. We need to figure out the way that our costs of living are high. A lot of the discussions lately have been about these small houses. What are we doing with them? What’s the potential for that? I have several constituents that are talking about trying to be off the grid as much as they can. We obviously know in the Hay River area there are a lot of people involved in agriculture, trying to replace foods that they’re purchasing currently at the grocery store and reducing those costs.
We need to work at this problem at several different angles.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the most part, when people think about the cost of living, they gravitate to the high price of energy they pay. This would be a normal reaction given that we in the NWT face some of the highest energy costs in the modern world. Admittedly, when asked how to fix this, I’m sure many would point to such alternatives as wind and solar as a way to wean ourselves off fossil fuel.
These alternatives do have merit on displacing carbon emission by lowering diesel consumption, yet from an economic or commercial viability perspective, you would be lucky to recover your capital costs within 15 to 20 years, and by then you’re almost at the point of replacement, so the vicious cycle repeats itself.
To be clear, I’m not saying we shouldn’t make some strategic investments in alternative energies as part of our Energy Strategy, and I am supportive of decreasing our diesel use and carbon emission, but we need to realize that with such a costly capital investment, we are no further ahead of lowering our cost of energy to the consumer, and this needs to be our target.
What is the answer? Well, if you want to wait, as Cabinet suggests, for next month’s costly Energy Charrette and for their report and then a committee report to that and then a Cabinet strategy and then, finally, an action plan, you’ll soon realize that the life of the 17th Assembly will have expired, which is very convenient. Or we can immediately or economically unlock the power within. But before I give you one solution, which is staring us in the face, let’s ask some questions.
How do we better harness our own production and storage of energy? How well do we manage and produce our own diesel power? Finally, how much unused energy goes up the stovepipe at our diesel power plants? Mr. Speaker, if I have you curious, this continues down the rabbit hole.
After doing a forensic look at more than the $300 million worth of NTPC infrastructure, its production, its capacity and its geolocation, there was one conclusion that emerged that will lower our energy production at the source: recapture unused energy and economically lower our cost of energy in non-hydro communities, and ultimately have a trickle effect for all Northerners.
The solution: The earth is a battery of heat storage potential.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
What this means is we have the capacity to recapture NTPC diesel-produced stovepipe heat, dissipate this heat into the ground, store it in earth tubes and reverse the energy in the winter months via utilidor exchange to heat homes and buildings. This process has many names, such as ground-coupled heat exchange or air-to-soil exchange, yet the principles of these processes all produce the same effect, which is to offer viable and economic alternatives in conjunction with lower diesel consumption.
With the government clearly out of ideas as we embark on yet another Energy Charrette, many Northerners hope this is just not another attempt to shelve at nothingness. We need economic and viable options for energy cost today, and we need real solutions we can all afford. Let’s hope the Cabinet is listening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No one who lives in the Northwest Territories would deny that the cost of living in the Northwest Territories is something that we need to concern ourselves with and where the government should be investing wisely and prudently to help the overall mitigation of that cost of living.
I think, as a government, we’ve talked about all the many subsidies that we contribute to try to help people with the cost of living, but I think we need to look for ways to empower people to make choices to control, as much as they can, their cost of living as well.
I know maybe this is a broken record, but I had proposed in this House a number of years ago that our government could be doing more to empower people with choices. People feel trapped. That’s the problem, is that people feel trapped in the utilities and the heating and the cost of all the day-to-day things that Ms. Bisaro listed off. Many of those do come with personal choices, as well, and sometimes I think, if I may say, we also need to manage our expectations a little bit as well. Sometimes people do not attempt to live within their means.
Mr. Speaker, my clock is running out. I can’t believe that was two and a half minutes, was it? It must have been set wrong. Was it? Okay, I’ll seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement, but I feel like I just started talking. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted
I’m going to go back and check Hansard and see how many words I actually got in in that two and a half minutes.
People need to manage their expectations. We need to empower people to give them choices and options of how they can control their cost of living. People also need to take personal responsibility.
You know, I’m probably not going to be the most popular MLA in the Northwest Territories for saying this right now, but when we talk about the cost of living in all these communities, wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to see in every community of the Northwest Territories how much people have to spend on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and gambling. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I represent one of the second-most-expensive ridings in the Northwest Territories, next to yourself that is.
My constituents pay the most in this territory for home heating fuel, diesel and gasoline. Diesel in Tsiigehtchic, for example, is $2.05 per litre, which is subsidized, by the way. Gasoline is $1.92 per litre.
We’re actually lucky because the price went down by 12 cents. So you can imagine how much our people are paying up in the Beaufort-Delta and Mackenzie Delta.
Groceries are another thing that’s the most expensive. For one litre of milk in Tsiigehtchic, we pay $7.99. For 10 kilograms of flour, $39.99, and that’s the three communities I represent. Eggs, $6.99 for a dozen. Bacon is anywhere from $8.99 to $26 depending on what type we get. With an employment rate of 35 percent, you can tell how our people are struggling in the northern communities.
One of our priorities is to lower the cost of living. This is something that we really need to focus on within our last year here as the 17th Legislative Assembly.
I look forward to what the government has in store and I’ll have questions later for the Minister. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t often get a chance to recognize my one hardworking staff, my constituency assistant, Ms. Amanda Mallon, and it’s a really special day for her. Not quite as special as Mrs. Groenewegen assistant’s day, but happy birthday, Amanda.
---Applause
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Dolynny.
