Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was pleased to see the Biomass Strategy tabled yesterday by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. Switching our energy supply over to renewable energy is an important part to the answer to climate change and holds promise for affordable power both with local employment and investment benefits. Biomass is a proven solution and a Biomass Strategy is an essential part of our overall climate change and energy vision.
All Members and Ministers know my position on the need for aggressive action to fight climate change. Government is beginning to respond. A Biomass Strategy would have been thought frivolous 10 years ago.
But we’re running out of time. We don’t have until 2030 or 2040 to get where we must be. With the most vigorous steps possible today we could achieve a meaningful and timely shift to renewable energy.
What we’re talking about and what we must do is get the vast majority of our homes, businesses, and government operations switched over either to biomass, hydroelectricity, or ground source heat, for example, in the South Slave. That means changing out dozens to hundreds of furnaces in each community, creating residual and distributed heat systems, and building small hydro.
To do that we’ll need the renewable energy expertise that is coming under huge global demand and we need to grow much more of that expertise at home. It’s a huge order, but Europe’s huge success over the last 30 years is a model to follow. We have to overhaul our approach to one that addresses our energy structures and systems to meet total energy needs in new and better ways.
Electricity for heating sounds crazy, yet with good planning and efficiency it can address many of our goals. Electric vehicles are coming; that’s not science fiction. Our economy needs the economic advantages of reduced dependency on costly and volatile fossil fuels. We need the sustainable local jobs that new businesses’ biomass can offer. Northern Europe, in fact all of Europe, is now doing it and reaping the rewards.
Most of all I need the dedication of all Members to this vision. We’ve passed our budget so now we must turn to our next program of expenditures. I know the Minister’s staff is going flat out on many vital fronts: water stewardship, land use planning, energy, wildlife, contaminants, environment. It’s part of everything we do and this ministry bears that brunt.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted.
This modest Biomass Strategy has been slow to come, but it’s finally laid the basis for moving forward. It now needs full and progressive implementation. We have a start in 2010-2011, but to fully realize the benefits it can offer we will need the full support and capacity required to be nailed down in the 2011-2012 budget cycle. I call on all Members to ensure that we learn from this first year of experience with the Biomass Strategy and commit to a fully resourced strategy on how we will get our people, environment, and economy to where it must and can be.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
