Mr. Speaker, I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement and ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources about the biomass initiative and the Biomass Strategy, if he can share some of the details around that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, the intent of the Biomass Strategy is to do a number of things. One of the key areas we are interested in, of course, is lowering the cost of living in the small communities. We’re looking at heating; generation and distribution of electricity are two main areas. We are of the opinion that there is great potential and there is technology that is currently in existence. We know that the Member’s community of Jean Marie River has been very active in this area. We are very interested, should the budget be approved, to move forward to find a smaller community that could be used as a demonstration or a pilot project that would allow us to look at the type of technology that would work best in there, and to work with the community to, in fact, get it up and running. If it works then we’d be able to see how we could roll out the biomass potential all the way through the boreal forest area, which takes us almost up to Inuvik. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member supplementary questions. Mr. Menicoche.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. As well, in terms of should we get to the feasibility or planning stages, are all the funding and resources available only in his department or are there other resources in other departments that can be accessed to move this proposal forward? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the budget speaks about $60 million basically over four years with this year to be the start-up year. The Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee, chaired by Minister Bob McLeod, is overseeing the projects. The money would be located in different departments as we look at moving forward. The intent, though, is to have it coordinated through the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee to ensure that the whole range of projects move ahead, be it hydro, mini-hydro and wind and such. Thank you.
I would also ask the Minister at this time for any assistance accessing any federal dollars that can be used for this fund. I’m not too sure what specifically is in the federal budget but I’m sure that his staff can assist us in identifying the exact program that may fit this proposal. Thank you.
The one fund that we’re aware of is there’s a billion dollar Green Fund that the federal government has money for. It’s project-based. Once again, once the criteria is clear, we believe that we have a number of projects that may be eligible. We’ll have to get in line with every other province and territory across the land, but we believe we have two things: we have our share and we have projects that we think would be considered, by the federal terminology, as shovel ready. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 9, written questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 8.
---Unanimous consent granted
Oral questions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Ms. Bromley.
