Thank you. Mr. McCormick.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Page 245 is the total cost to the department of the program budgeted, the 1,508. The 1,480 is what it actually set aside for the contributions made under it, and the difference is some departmental O and M costs, like travel associated with it and those sorts of things. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is clear to me. Thank you. That is all I have.
Thank you. Infrastructure, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, activity total, $11,670,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Moving on. Programs and services, beginning on page 248. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the department has done a good job over the years of making considerable contributions, especially to other organizations, NGOs and the like, that do work on our behalf. In particular, the Arctic Energy Alliance, we give a significant sum to every year, and they do an outstanding job in making sure that their programs and services benefit the residents of the North. Recently, it has been brought to our attention that a particular program within the Arctic Energy Alliance, and unfortunately, I don't have the exact name of the program in front of me, but again, it was successful, it was oversubscribed, and so it has a shortfall this year. I heard that it is around $50,000. Maybe it is more.
I am wondering what kind of decisions the Minister is making as it relates to finding a way to be able to credit those people who were applying for programs that late this year discovered that the pot had ran out. Will the Minister find a way within his means to be able to credit those people who went and made those purchases, like we would have wanted them to do? Can the department find a way to help give Arctic Energy Alliance some money to be able to back-pay those people who made their purchases during last year's budget cycle? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this question came up in the House here just lately. We are still hopeful or confident that we are going to be able to resolve this year. As I said in the House, we are having a look at our other programs within A and E, but we are also reaching out to other departments for other sources of funding that we can use to help alleviate the people that haven't been able to get the rebate.
I have also said in the House here that we have our application in with the federal government on the Low Carbon Economy Fund, and we are hopeful to hear from them by early April on the funding of that agreement, which would help prop up Arctic Energy Alliance and probably double their budget.
We are still doing our program review of the programs and services within the AEA to streamline and see what we need to adjust there to try to get away from these types of problems and which programs are working the best and which ones aren't. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, this is all good news and appreciated. Does the department know, in fact, how much shortfall there was in the Energy Efficiency Incentive Program that was administered by Arctic Energy Alliance last year? Do we know what kind of resources we're looking for to try to backfill the oversubscription? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We believe it was between $50,000 to $100,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When could we maybe provide some certainty to folks that we would be able to give them those credits back? Are we hoping by April 1st we would be able to have Arctic Energy Alliance contact those people who were on the list and be able to inform them of the good news? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the fiscal year end is coming up here right away, we want to be able to resolve this before March 31st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Vanthuyne.
No further questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Further to programs and services, Infrastructure, programs and services, operations expenditures summary, activity total. Mr. O'Reilly.
I just want to understand better from the perspective of the department the large sort of renewable and alternative energy projects, the larger ones, say like the Colville Lake solar panel array, that kind of thing. Those things would normally come out of the capital budget. We wouldn't see them in the departmental budget. Is that correct, in the O and M budget? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In instances where they are investments in the capital that the GNWT would own, going forward, it would be amortized by the GNWT. It would occur in the capital portion of the budget, so in the capital plan. Some of these are contribution agreements, for example, to the Power Corporation or another entity, and then they would show up as a grant or an O and M contribution. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that's helpful. I don't really see much here. I'm looking at page 250 in terms of any new grants or contributions, then, to help larger or even community-scale renewable or alternative energy projects. We're just sort of sitting back waiting for federal dollars to rain from heaven? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The deal that we signed yesterday with Minister Sohi, that's where a lot of these funds are going to come from. Now that we've signed our bilateral as of yesterday, the projects that move forward in the next fiscal year, we will be coming back for except for those ones. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Nothing further from Mr. O'Reilly. I'll give Mr. Vanthuyne another crack at it, since he didn't use all of his time the first go-around. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. In the past, Members have raised a little bit of concern as it relates to the Net Metering Program that the territorial government undertakes. We appreciate that, you know, the Public Utility Board plays a role and the Power Corporation plays a role.
First of all, maybe what we can do for the record is get a little bit of clarification from the Minister and from his colleagues with regard to the energy division of Infrastructure and what role they play in support of the Net Metering Program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The role of the energy division when it comes to energy policy and planning, we would look at policy issues, things like net metering, prepare position papers, or prepare approaches where we can implement those types of things, and we bring them forward for approvals. So net metering would be one of those policy decisions that would be done through energy policy and planning. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the insight. It's been brought to our attention in the past that, you know, we're doing what we can as it relates to net metering in promoting it for residential use and there have been some who have been taking us up on that. That's good. Where we really need to encourage net metering is in the higher diesel use businesses and facilities, and in particular, in large centers like Yellowknife.
One of the things that's been identified in the past is that, and forgive me if I don't have the proper terminology, but the kilowatt per hour maximum that we've allowed net metering to be utilized for is only like 15 kilowatts an hour. When businesses or large facilities do their business case on whether they should switch over to solar panels, it just doesn't work out.
There's been a request in the past to move that up from 15 to 50. Is this something that the department, through their energy division, is aware of, and is it something that they would be supportive of in promoting so that we can get these bigger facilities to switch over to solar and reduce their reliance on fossil fuels? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not the Minister of the Power Corporation, but I think I know enough about it to speak to this a little bit. The reason that it's at the 15 kilowatt is to protect the rate bases to start with, because the problem with that is that you start getting into these people who get bigger than 15. Say you get to 500 kilowatts or more, you know, you start getting into independent power producers, things that we're going to have that in our energy plan for some of the communities that want to be able to sell it back into the system for Aboriginal governments and communities.
At the end of the day, we sit here and argue in the House about whether rate bases and the increases, and we have to protect the shareholder, which is the Power Corporation, to be able to at least break even on their cost of operation. The higher we give, to be able to put these renewables into the system like that, it puts a lot of pressure on the Power Corporation. Plus, with us trying to balance off all these other things, with carbon tax and everything else coming, I can't see us trying to increase that, especially in a hydro community where there's already hydro in the system. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I respect the concern, but, I mean, are we a government that supports getting off fossil fuel and working towards alternative energy sources or not? We continually say that we are, but then, you know, unfortunately replies like that are not proving our mandate correct. I mean, why can't we even give owners specific requests? When it comes to large companies or bigger facilities that we want to see get off of fossil fuels, I'm quite sure they're not trying to be in competition with the government as being a power provider. I mean, the government could even set the return rate. All they're trying to do is reduce their costs and the cost of doing business. We say that we stand for that, as well.
It's being proven in other jurisdictions. The Yukon is doing it already, and they've increased their kilowatt per hour ability for net metering.
Can't the government make a commitment to at least look into this further, see what our sister territory is doing and why they're successful in this, and work towards us meeting our goals of reducing the cost of business, the cost of living, and getting off fossil fuel reliance? I think this would be a helpful. Can the Minister commit to that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member will know, we're rolling out our energy strategy. We're very open to getting territorial citizens and the industry off lowering our greenhouse gases as much as we can. We're trying to figure out a way to implement renewables into the system and at the same time balancing off costs.
I get the Member's point. I'd like to get some specifics around what he's thinking about, say give me an example of a specific system that someone wants to put into Yellowknife that they want to operate. At the same time, we still have to be very mindful of the costs of doing this. The federal government, as we have signed off our bilaterals there yesterday, we have an opportunity to shift our whole economy around this energy, the way we continue to use it. I think there is a great opportunity to be able to do that moving forward.
At the same time, back to the Power Corporation, I have to protect their costs moving forward. I stood up in the House here the other day and said the amount of subsidies that we gave the Power Corporation to offset their costs on low water and these sorts of things, it's millions of dollars, and, if we were to continue to allow, particularly in the hydro communities, more and more renewables onto the system, it would put more pressure on the Power Corporation to supply power at a reasonable cost. It's going to drive up subsidies, as well.
We are open to this. I am not trying to get into a debate with the Member, but I think this is a very complicated situation. We are willing to look at all things, of how we can try to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and get off of diesel across the whole system. So we are willing to look at that through the energy strategy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. This has been a well-canvassed issue throughout the years that we have been in this Assembly. Anything further, Mr. Vanthuyne?
Yes, really nothing further. I think I have made my points, but, as the Minister has asked if I could be able to provide him some more detailed information with regard to what other jurisdictions are doing and, in fact, I do have that information provided to me by some sources, and so I will be able to share that with the Minister and his department so that he can evaluate what others are doing. I am sure, when he does, he will notice that we can do both. I mean we can be able to allow the Power Corporation to generate the required revenues they need to sustain their infrastructure, but we can also meet our goals of getting off of fossil fuel and lowering the cost of doing business and the cost of living here, in the North. So I will commit to that, and I will get it to him today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Infrastructure, programs and services, operations expenditure summary, activity total, $23,925,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Moving on, regional operations, beginning on page 254. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my question is in the previous one about CAP and local roads. I had in my mind to ask about the program where the department provides docks in the communities, but I am not really sure where that budget item sits, so I would ask the question here, in regional operations, if they have money set aside, aside from the CAP funding, if there is other money set aside for the dock program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is no other program. Docks fall under the Community Access Program only. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.
I will move on to this section. Mr. Chair, the money that is allocated in the winter road is only to maintain the existing winter roads right now? Is there any money in there to possibly build new winter roads? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
