Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank Minister Bob McLeod for his Minister’s statement today on Creating a Brighter Future: A Review of Electricity Rates, Regulation and Subsidy Programs in the Northwest Territories. I really appreciate the government’s proactiveness in putting this out and tabling this today so that the public can have a chance to read it.
As well, to the Minister’s statement here today which tries to bring clarity, I guess, to the process that lies ahead of us, the Minister referred to working together with Priorities and Planning Committee, and most definitely over the last two weeks we have worked on this considerably. We received the recommendations. We took them, at first, just at face value. We had further questions and the Minister was good enough to bring the Review Panel back in and have a full-day working meeting. We’ve been meeting with the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee.
Mr. Speaker, when the committee was struck to review these things, as the Minister indicates, it was to look at reducing costs where possible, distribute the costs equitably and ensure affordability.
Mr. Speaker, there is just one thing in the Minister’s statement that I want to speak to just so that people are absolutely clear about it today too. The report that is being tabled today in its entirety are the recommendations of the review team. They are not the position of this government. That response to those recommendations will be a collaborative effort between the Cabinet, the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee and the Regular Members, and we are happy to work closely with the Minister on that.
Mr. Speaker, just in quoting this, we have all agreed that this response must be comprehensive and will need to reflect the results of the review of the NWT Power Corporation as well as the review of the ATCO proposal. Then it says, which we have discussed a number of times in this Assembly. I just want to be clear that in our discussions in the last two weeks, we have only been discussing the review of the electricity piece of that three-part equation. I know it’s confusing to people at times, because we were doing three reviews at the same time. But, Mr. Speaker, to be clear, I just want the public to know that the Members of this Assembly have not discussed nor seen the results of the NTPC review or the review of the ATCO proposal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
