Debates of August 23, 2011 (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of energy, Minister Bob McLeod. It follows up on a statement from the other day on the conversion of communities to gas energy systems.

Norman Wells and Inuvik are up against the wall with their natural gas energy systems and, of course, we know the high cost of converting communities, yet we appear to be going down the road of committing new communities to the inevitable end of non-renewable energy supplies. Feasibility studies have been prepared on the conversion of Tulita, Fort Simpson, and Fort Good Hope to natural gas as the principal community energy supply. In this day and age I’m wondering why these contracts were not written to provide a comparative cost-benefit analysis of at least two options: conversion to gas or development of a local renewable energy infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the Energy Coordinating Committee, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the time -- and we have to remember that this process started about 10 years ago -- it was envisioned that it would be a stand-alone community gasification process and it was proceeded on that basis. We’ve gone forward with those communities where it seemed to be feasible. During our interventions, during the Joint Review Panel hearings we made representation that provisions should be made to offload from the pipeline to convert these communities to natural gas if it was deemed fit to proceed. That’s the reason we proceeded on that basis.

I do appreciate the Minister reminding me of the history; he was dead-on there. I guess I would note that the information out of Norman Wells indicates that even if the community can transit to propane, the cost will be high, future costs will remain volatile. Because of costs, the propane conversion can only be considered a stopgap there.

As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, and as demonstrated in thousands of communities across the globe, employment and investment opportunities from renewables can be the basis of strong, local, sustainable economies and drive down living and business costs. Taking into consideration the Minister’s comments and the reminder of the history here, will the Minister work with his MACA and Environment and Natural Resources colleagues to consider this opportunity to take Norman Wells and other communities onto the path of renewable energy as a viable option that needs equivalent feasibility studies?

With the recent developments in new technologies in renewable and alternative forms of energy, I think it would be appropriate for us to do so. Our only consideration is we’ve been working mainly at the behest of the communities and we would want to go back to the communities and indicate that we want to take another look at... I guess to me I think the best course would be to find a way to use all forms of energy. I know we talked to different provinces and they’re using alternative and renewable energy to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. There are certainly new capacities in storage of electricity. I think that it would certainly be incumbent upon us to look at all those alternatives. We do have to come up with a time frame for the National Energy Board for energy conversion, so we would have to take that into consideration. This was something that was decreed through the Joint Review Panel process.

I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to look at this. I think he brought forward some good points. I think a suite of energy sources is probably the way to go. We need to transition to a greater and greater proportion of renewable or at least low-carbon sources. I think the Minister is well aware of that. I’d like to note that in those communities there’s already been feasibility projects going, for example, for a pellet manufacturing plant out of Simpson, geothermal, hydro projects and so on that the Minister himself has been involved in. Given his comments again and this recognition of the need for a suite of energy sources transitioning to renewable, will the Minister pursue these feasibility studies and incorporate in them and re-examine the gas ones to look at what the local benefits are to the local economy and employment opportunities as well as the environmental benefits?

I think we can do this relatively quickly because we know, as the Member has indicated, Inuvik has gone to gasification and they’re having some issues. I know Tuktoyaktuk has been looking at converting to community gasification by doing the same thing as Inuvik. Norman Wells has been looking internally what they can do to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, and we’ve been doing a lot of work both in the private sector and in the government on biomass. I think we can look at all those various suites of energy generators and see what the best way forward is when we can do that fairly quickly.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for those comments. I guess my last point really is to see if the Minister might ensure that these are profiled in any transition documents, the need to transit to the heavier low-carbon sources, especially renewable, and work to make sure that that appears in any implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy as well.

I know that there are some transition requirements due to our energy priorities plan, so we would take that into consideration there. I don’t know if we can incorporate it into the Greenhouse Gas Strategy because I think that’s pretty well close to completion and release. We’ll certainly endeavour to put it through the transition plan.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.