I respect the Member and I respect his point of view, but when we got together after the 17th Legislative Assembly was elected in 2011, we came together, we formed a vision, we came up with our goals, and I’ll list them off here: a strong independent North built on partnerships; an environment that will sustain present and future generations; healthy, educated people free from poverty; a diversified economy that provides all communities and regions with opportunities and choices; sustainable, vibrant communities; and effective and efficient government.
Mr. Speaker, we have a region of the Northwest Territories that has high unemployment levels, people looking for work, looking for opportunities. We need to balance protecting the environment and creating the right economic conditions where people can have jobs, we can graduate children from high school who will have a future and will have a job. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also support our goals and vision totally. We are now talking about the interpretation of those. I would note that clearly, for a million dollars of investment, the jobs are there for renewable energy far and beyond, half an order of magnitude beyond oil and gas.
We are fortunate in having alternatives to fossil fuel extraction and its form of tremendous renewable energy options in every community. The technology is here now and getting better by the day. The United States is planning a complete switch to renewable energy in the next 30 years.
My question: What aggressive policies is the Minister pursuing for recommendation to the 18th Assembly for this required shift from destructive energy policies to ones that give us hopefulness for the future? This is not an optional thing, unless the Minister knows something I don’t. I am listening to the scientists. Mahsi.
We are doing both. That work is underway for the transition to the 18th Legislative Assembly. But our priorities, when we talk about our goals, the priorities that stem from those goals are increasing employment opportunities where they are needed most. In a region like the Sahtu, that is where we need the economic opportunities the most. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Colleagues, before we go on today, I would like to draw your attention to the gallery, to His Worship Mayor of Niagara Falls, Mr. Jim Diodati and his daughter, Olivia, who is visiting us here today from Niagara Falls. Welcome to the House.
Also, Norman’s CA, who is assisting him, Ms. Natasha Pryznyk.
Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will continue on with my Member’s statement here, but I will ask questions to the Minister of ENR, mainly around some of the monitoring and some of the public disclosure of how we are regulating our wastewater.
I know that our government just signed a transboundary water agreement with Alberta just recently. I know we have one with BC and the Yukon as well. As I mentioned earlier in my Member’s statement, last year we had on record one of our lowest water levels throughout the Northwest Territories, and this year you heard some of that in Great Slave Lake as well as you are probably going to see it again on the Mackenzie River.
I want to ask the Minister or ENR, during our transboundary water agreements, were the water levels and monitoring of water levels an issue? As I mentioned, Alberta and BC both do hydraulic fracturing, and whether the amount of water they are using for hydraulic fracturing was discussed in these transboundary water agreements? It eventually might affect our water levels here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The transboundary water agreement with Alberta definitely looked at quantity issues. We are blessed with significant flows into the Northwest Territories and on through into the Mackenzie and into the Arctic Ocean.
The amount of water coming in the Slave River has been negotiated at about 1.9 percent of the water is available for extraction between Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The other basically 98 percent stays in the river to feed the river and aquatic ecosystems and the Mackenzie Basin to make sure it stays healthy. It gives you a sense of the volume of the water that is going north. That 1.9 percent represents five times what Alberta’s most aggressive development needs were calculated to be. They looked at everything they had on their schedule and they multiplied that amount by five times. So there is an enormous cushion there in terms of the overall flows.
However, the issue of concern is quality, as well, and monitoring. It looks at not only flows but quality issues. We have built in requirements for quality, sharing information with Alberta, with the Northwest Territories, with the federal government what we are measuring for. We have spent millions of dollars within the Northwest Territories for community-based water monitoring, as well, up and down the Mackenzie River, to make sure that we work with communities so that they can have a certain degree of comfort that the water they are drinking is coming down to them is in prime, pristine condition as possible. Thank you.
I thank the Minister for the update on some of the information around the transboundary water agreement. What the Minister did say was the flow from Alberta down to the Northwest Territories, and that becomes a concern, as well, in terms of monitoring. It becomes a concern with wastewater and also becomes a concern with some of the fracking chemicals that might, if possible, if there’s a chance that it does get leaked into the water system and then comes down here.
I want to ask the Minister, in one of our areas where we talked about the four new regulations that we got with fracking, one of them is public disclosure. I want to ask the Minister in terms of the public disclosure of fracking chemicals, what percentage of chemicals do companies have to publically disclose to Alberta but also to the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
They are encouraged to disclose them all. What the discussion is, as we have heard around the table, is that they need to have the best practices possible. The issue of moving away from voluntary disclosure to mandatory full disclosure so that it is clear that we have the best practices, that is one of the things that we’re discussing and we’ve been talking about that industry knows is coming. In more and more jurisdictions in the United States, it is becoming a given, as well, that it’s not optional anymore. That issue is a very important one and it has been flagged by the government as we looked at these changes. Thank you.
The Minister mentioned the voluntary disclosure practice that is currently being used, and I am sure it is being used worldwide in terms of what companies have to disclose in their fracking ingredients when they’re doing the practice. He also mentioned it’s on the radar for the government to make it mandatory. It has been a concern heard in Inuvik at the public engagement session.
Can I ask the Minister, is there a timeline or does the government intend to make the voluntary disclosure practice mandatory so that we know all chemicals that are going into the fracking ingredients?
The goal with devolution was devolve and evolve, knowing that we’re going to have to look at amendments to various pieces of legislation and change things to better suit the requirements of the Northwest Territories. That issue is on the table for discussion, as the Minister of ITI has laid out, and we’re very well aware of the strong trends to mandatory reporting, and that is going to be a clear, I believe, expectation from Northerners as we talk about proceeding.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned in my Member’s statement the shale potential in the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, the Sahtu region, and the Laird Basin. Should hydraulic fracturing get the green light and go ahead? Does the government foresee or has created or are they currently in existence of wastewater disposal sites, and if so, how many?
There is work being done on waste disposal, wastewater. The long-term goal is to manage it very effectively, treat it, if possible, and reclaim it, if possible, in the Northwest Territories. Those regulations and practices are also being reviewed. Right now every project in the past would have their own separate wastewater disposal requirements. There is an economic economy that I know has already been discussed and talked about in the Sahtu about if we’re going to do this in a coordinated way, having a state-of-the-art facility like that in Norman Wells as development occurs, again, to make sure that we can do the best job possible.
Right now there is no active fracking or drilling going on in the Sahtu to the ones that are there, and I don’t have the number at my fingertips, are relatively small and there are no new ones on the horizon because there is no activity currently in the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to move away from fracking for a little bit today, and I have some questions for the Minister of Finance. I would like to ask the Minister some questions about a statement he made last week about our borrowing limit. The Minister, in his statement, made two comments about what this new borrowing limit, this increase of $500 million will do for us. He said it would give us “increased flexibility to invest,” and “in consultation with Members of the Legislative Assembly.”
To date, we haven’t heard from the Minister, as Regular Members. We haven’t heard any questions to us about how we think we might maybe invest this brand new $500 million.
I’d like to ask the Minister, what plans does he have for consultation with Regular Members about how we will use the increase in our borrowing limit?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The discussion about the borrowing limit, the opportunities presented by that borrowing limit, the responsibilities that go with that opportunity are there to be discussed. The most imminent part of our financial cycle that is now coming due, of course, is the capital planning process. That has been underway for some months. The main estimates, the capital estimates will be released and we’ll be sharing them with committee based on all the work that we’ve done over the winter and spring. There is going to be the initiation of the business planning process that comes forward through its normal cycle, knowing that we’re going to have a cycle that is out of sync because of the extended date for the election. There will be discussions there. There is going to be a fiscal update as part of the transition plan. We’ve indicated that there is going to be a requirement to keep expenditures and revenues in sync, and our expenditures are increasing faster than our revenues and that we’re going to have to do the things necessary to make sure that we bring those two key variables in line. That is going to take place.
All of this to say that that process is going to capture what financial decisions have to be made and will be made. This government, our job is to get the levers and the tools for the subsequent Assemblies to have as much flexibility as possible. We would be happy to meet with committee about this issue, but there are no active plans of any kind other than those processes when it comes to looking at how we are going to manage our fiscal planning on a go-forward basis. How we’re going to do it to get us through the rest of this Assembly is laid out, as is the transition plan, and the 18th Assembly will pick up the reins at that juncture. Thank you.
To the Minister: I think the statement that there are no active plans simply reinforces Mrs. Groenewegen’s statement from earlier today.
Regular Members have had no exchanges, no meetings with the Minister, and he admitted to that, but we are now two days away from the end of this session, and we will then have four months when Members do not meet. Cabinet will meet quite regularly, as I am sure they do during the summer, so there is some concern on the part of Members on this side of the House that we won’t have an opportunity for input, looking at a budget. A capital budget, once it is done, is far different from having input on the front end.
In the Minister’s statement last week he also stated, “We have begun planning on potential projects.” My second question to the Minister would be to explain to me what he means by “they have begun planning on potential projects.”
I would submit to this House and to the Member that there has been a full and normal capital planning process that the Members have been involved in and the fruits of those labours will come forward as a proposed capital plan for the last session at the end of September.
When we made the case to the federal government about the need for an increased borrowing limit, we clearly targeted it for those infrastructure investments that have the ability to promote and help create the conditions for economic development. In order to substantiate that case, we made some very specific recommendations. We suggested and we indicated that we believe there is an opportunity, and we know there is an opportunity to convert, for example, the winter road north to MacKay Lake to the mines to an all-weather road. We indicated and we have submitted a proposal that committee is fully aware of, to extend the Mackenzie Highway from Wrigley to Norman Wells. We’ve put in a project proposal for projects of national significance. That one has been in the works for some time. We have indicated at our last energy charrette that we know that there are generation issues, especially in Yellowknife and in the thermal communities. We have indicated that we think, as a government, we should be prepared to invest significant money in the appropriate projects to advance and get people off diesel and to make cost of living more affordable in especially the thermal communities and to address some of the pressing generation needs in Yellowknife.
Those are some specific examples. There are not only examples, there has been work done. It’s going to be to get the groundwork done to start the planning, and that is the way, and committee is fully aware of all those proposed projects. We needed to get the groundwork done and we needed to be able to convince the federal government that our thinking was clear on why we needed that borrowing limit increase.
Thanks to the Minister for that fulsome response. I am somewhat dismayed. The Minister says that we are fully aware. Yes, I would say we may be fully aware of some of them through the media. I’m not sure that we’ve had full disclosure from Cabinet on some of those suggestions. Certainly we’re aware that there are projects that are in the works and we’ve been advised of those.
One of the other statements that the Minister made last week was “…infrastructure that will support the responsible development of the NWT and its economy.” When I read that, it said to me that we’re certainly narrowing the scope of the projects that we could deal with. The Minister mentioned quite a number of projects that go towards development and go towards the economy, but I was very dismayed and I have not heard much talk about this, certainly from any of Cabinet in the last number of months. I was dismayed not to hear anything about hydro.
Can the Minister tell me whether or not there are any plans, since I haven’t seen them, any plans to use some of this extra borrowing limit for development of our hydro to help address our cost of living of power? Thank you.
I’ll just restate that we have, over the last 18 months probably, two years, we’ve been before committee on a number of occasions as our thinking has evolved on the projects, the borrowing limit, what projects we’re identifying to justify and to get the borrowing limit. If there’s a need for further meetings, we’d of course be happy to have that. When we talk about a significant investment in generation capacity in Yellowknife specifically, one of the things that are there is they hydro expansion, both potentially to the Bluefish as well as there is additional capacity in the Lac La Martre River, in the Snare system. We know that there’s additional capacity in the Taltson system.
The issue right now with that is that the only place we can dispose of that surplus would be to sell it south and use the money in the North, but we do have those types of projects on the list as well. It’s going to be a question of priorities and affordability.
The borrowing limit is not free money. This is money we have to pay back. So we have to be very, very careful and measure how we exercise the decision-making here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. I guess I agree with the Minister this is not free money and we have to be careful how we borrow it and what we do with it.
So, I guess I would like to know from the Minister if there is a list of things that they are contemplating that may or may not be in the capital budget, will the Minister commit to providing that list to Regular Members so we can have some comment on that list back to Cabinet before a capital budget is determined? Thank you.
I can put in writing the projects that I’ve mentioned, but I can tell you in this House, unequivocally, with no hesitation, that the capital plan that is coming forward is the last capital plan of this 17th Legislative Assembly that we have negotiated. The increase for borrowing limits to allow us to do things, we’re currently sorting out the potential amendments to the definition of borrowing. It may give us other flexibility, but there is and are no plans, other than what is in the current capital plan and the work that I just laid out to the Member about how, what projects we identify as things that we believe that the government should focus on to put that borrowing limit increase into play. But there has been no time, no process, no debate, no authorization to engage in any kind of major infrastructure. The only capital plan that’s going to hit the table is the one that has been in the works now as part of our regular cycle. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of ITI and, believe it or not it’s actually not on hydraulic fracturing because, well, I think the answers themselves are self-explanatory, but it actually is more on another area of his portfolio, which is about parks and camping and whatnot.
I’ve been contacted by people who have actually visited the Fred Henne Park and they’ve complained about the fact that a lack of enforcement is present in the park. So when we’re trying to encourage tourism, when we’re trying to encourage people to spend good quality time with their families, but at the same time we’re having partiers party way past midnight, 1:30 and later, and they have no one to contact to complain about the drinking and the rowdy and noisy profanity that’s happening next door.
How do people encourage their children, through family-orientated organizations, while they have a fire burning that’s defying the city and territorial ban on fires when they have no one to call? Who is taking care of the parks? Who is ensuring our campers are safe and who is ensuring that people are following the rules? At this point it appears no one is, and the campers don’t even know who to call. They called the Yellowknife Fire Department and nothing happened. What is the Minister doing? Because I know he was one of those guys who drove around in those park trucks. Let’s see what he remembers and let’s see what he’s going to do. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is true; I spent some years as a park officer in the North Slave region. A lot of my time was spent at Fred Henne Park during those years. If the Member has a specific incident that he wants to bring to our attention, I’d be more than happy to address that specific incident. We have had increased park officer presence at Fred Henne Park. I’m surprised to hear of the Member’s complaint. Like I said, we haven’t gotten a formal complaint from the Member. We don’t have specifics on who was involved, what time it was, what day it was and things like that that are very important for us to have an opportunity to look into it. Thank you.
All great answers, but not to the question I asked. Let’s focus in on who is working the grounds in the park. Who can they contact?
We have families going out there spending darn good money and we’re trying to encourage them to get out there and enjoy these treasures that we proclaim are important to us. But when people are rowdy next door – I’ve got an e-mail that’s after 1:30 – they have a full load of kids that are ages five and six years old, we have families trying to deal with these partiers next door and risking their own personal safety, but no one to call and no patrols.
So let’s find out who is on patrol. Is anyone on patrol? Is there anywhere that they can call for help? We can’t have good family people trying to deal with rowdy campers. I mean, we are just subjecting them to serious risk. Thank you.
To the best of my knowledge, the gatehouse at Fred Henne Park is manned 24 hours a day. If there are issues in the park that campers feel unsafe or they feel something is going on that shouldn’t be happening, I would encourage them to get in touch with the gatehouse attendant who is in radio contact with park officers. Perhaps park officers aren’t in the park at the immediate moment, but they certainly could respond to any complaints in a timely way.
Again, I will get some further information from the Member. We will find out what time of day this was, what day it was, who was working and what the circumstances were, and we’ll get a fulsome response for the Member. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, telling them to go to the gatehouse, leave their kids, whatever the case may be, is about the worst answer, well, I shouldn’t say it’s the worst. It’s the second worst answer. Nothing would have been the worst answer, obviously.
Do we have park officers out there doing their job to make sure the people we’re trying to encourage to enjoy park time with their families, do we have them on staff? Do we have them on duty? What a great opportunity to hire more summer students because, frankly, we have no one doing the job if they’re not out there. So, do we have park officers working in the evening to ensure those folks are safe?
I think the Member is taking a lot of liberties with the good, hardworking park officers that we have here in the Northwest Territories, specifically in the North Slave region. As I mentioned to him earlier, get us the specifics, let us look into it. Yes, there are park officers working in the parks, I don’t have the particulars of when this happened, but I will get an answer for the Member.
Just to throw out accusations without any detail, that’s not doing anybody any favours. Again, I did that job for seven years. It’s a hard job, and I want to thank all the park officers that we have out there keeping our parks safe. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sorry, but the Minister talked about years of doing the job, but I remember him and Minister Abernethy driving around in a brown truck saying that the firewood was empty and they called somebody. I’m not sure how tough those guys really worked. If it was a blue truck – I’m colour blind, my wife says – it doesn’t matter. The fact is I want the Minister to guarantee today in this House, if he has got a little political courage on this one, he’ll guarantee that we’ll have park officers patrolling those parks in the evening and certainly making sure that contact information is available for folks who go out there, bring their families, rent park spaces, enjoy the park that we’re supposed to be trying to encourage them to do and yet we want to make sure at the same time that they’re safe.
So I want him to be very clear that if we don’t have them working 24 hours a day, we will get park officers, we’ll hire more summer students if need be. It’s about delivering a safe and happy environment. That’s what it’s about. Will he commit to that? Thank you.
We don’t have park officers working 24 hours a day, but what we do have is a concentration on the weekend when the parks are the busiest, on Friday evening and Saturday evening. I know park officers work well into the wee hours of the morning. They stay longer. They work overtime if need be, especially on busy weekends.
Again, I encourage the Member to get me the particulars of the incident he’s talking about and we will get him an answer on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to pose a couple of questions to the Minister of ITI. My first question is: Will the Minister support the idea of establishing a moratorium on disallowing hydraulic fracturing in the NWT? Mahsi. Yes or no.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We inherited a system from the National Energy Board of Canada. We are moving forward with draft regulations of our own that take into consideration the views and needs of Northerners, specifically air quality, water quality and management, and disclosure. We are moving forward with that process. Thank you.
I wanted to ask the Minister if he could update the House in terms of the process of developing the regulations. At what point would this House see the final end product of these regulations coming to this House for public input at some point? Mahsi.
We’ve got some more community meetings to take place. We’ve got the process to try to wrap up. But given us some more time, we made an announcement last week that we are going to take until the end of August with the process. If we need further time, we’re going to take that time. We’re going to ensure we get that right. We’re going to talk to people. We’re going to try and get as much education out there on what we’re trying to do, where we’re trying to go. There’s going to be opportunity for Members through the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure. We’ll get their feedback. We’ll be back in front of them, I would suggest sometime in September. We have another sitting of the Legislative Assembly the last week of September, the first week of October. We’ll be back. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to ensure that we get this right. Thank you.
Other jurisdictions in Canada have established a resolute position in terms of allowing a moratorium against hydraulic fracturing. What makes the NWT different, that we’re not going to follow suit in establishing a moratorium for the NWT? Mahsi.
I guess you could flip that over and say there are jurisdictions in this country that do allow the process. Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, even the Yukon recently made a decision to allow fracking in the Yukon Territory, in a small portion of the territory.
We want to be a have territory. We want to have jobs. We want to have a diversified economy. We need jobs in regions that currently have high unemployment rates.
We can manage this resource. We’re in the risk-management business. Nothing happens without some risk, but you have to weigh the benefits with those risks, and we believe we can do that. We believe we can manage it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
