Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, I want to talk about viability of a pellet mill for the Northwest Territories, and my questions will be directed to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Mr. Speaker, a certain amount of the viability of a pellet mill would depend on the sustainable availability of product to harvest to bring to make pellets with. I would like to ask the Minister if he could update this House on what is being done within his department to determine that there are sufficient inventories to make a project such as this viable within our borders. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been doing a number of things. As we look at the biomass sector, we have a fledgling market being built and we are looking at value-added down the road. We’ve proceeded with and continue to do inventories in the South Slave and the Deh Cho. Up the Valley we’ve been looking at areas such as fast-growing willows in terms of potential supply for biomass. We’ve brought in consultants to look at, in fact, the viability of setting up our own industry to create the pellets. As well, we have this concept of a wood marshalling yard that we’re looking at for certain parts of the Territory where we may be able to form a hub with access to supply and a market nearby where we could build up, in fact, a sufficient quantity to make a pellet industry viable. Thank you.
Being from Hay River where we have had a functioning, operating sawmill for many, many years, one of the problems we know that was often encountered, an obstacle that made it difficult to keep enough product coming in and harvested to keep that sawmill going was the whole issue of access because of unresolved land use plans, unresolved land claims, that a lot of this material would need to be harvested is in areas where claims are not settled and there was often opposition raised to harvesting the product. What has the Minister done or researched to assure himself that access issues would not continue to be an obstacle or preclude such a thing from happening in the Territories? Thank you.
The Member points out a key challenge and that is the issue of access to a sustainable supply. We’ve been working at concepts that would allow partnerships with aboriginal governments, with the landholders of the area, possibly with the concept of the wood marshalling yard, for example, but that’s one of the challenges. The other one is you want to make sure you’re located close to the supply. Some of the best timber that we do have and best forests for a viable pellet industry, for example, would be in the Deh Cho. There is a market right here in Yellowknife, and in the South Slave it is very significant. As well, there are forest products here in the Providence area, the Hay River South Slave area. We have a number of challenges, but most of the boreal forest tends to be in unsettled claims areas, so it is a factor that has to be resolved. Thank you.
I am glad to hear that the government is looking for ways to create partnerships and secure buy-in from different governments from different areas of the South Slave.
Mr. Speaker, is the government looking for a proponent so that such an operation would be honed and managed and operated by a private enterprise, or is the government thinking about getting into the pellet manufacturing business themselves? Thank you.
The government is not contemplating now or I don’t anticipate in the future getting into the pellet manufacturing business, but what we would see doing is what we have done and continue to do through ITI and economic development support programs we have is to hopefully get a proponent that would be able to partner up with an aboriginal government that has access to supply and be able to have a business venture that would be viable and stand-alone when it comes to looking at the pellet industry. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister kind of already went into the last part of my question. That would be the collaboration, cooperation with ITI so that when the information is available about the availability of the biomass of the product of the harvest and the sustainability of that, which would be under the Minister of ENR’s purview, then to work with ITI to look at the viability from the economic side, the size of the market, what we’d have to sell the product for in order to make it competitive with importing it from other jurisdictions and all those sorts of things. Perhaps the Minister could tell me how closely, what kind of communications, what kind of work has been done with ITI to identify where there would be sufficient resources. This is a very capital-intensive operation to get this going and, obviously, nobody in the private sector is going to have the resources to take a risk on something that will not be supported and ongoing for quite a number of years.
The Minister of ITI is also the chair of the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee which provides oversight to this area as well as all the other energy initiatives that we have underway. As well, we have spent a lot of time trying to build a market with our investments in biomass with the schools, the jails, the health centres that are all going onto biomass. The encouragement with communities to do energy plans as well as individuals to switch to pellet stoves. Those combined factors and the Minister of ITI wearing two hats. I as well, as the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, sit on that Energy Coordinating Committee. We’re having ongoing discussions as we look at the aspect of building a supply so we can have that value-added in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
