Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When asked what his secret to success was, Wayne Gretzky replied that most players go for where the puck is while he goes for where the puck is going to be. I know our Premier and ITI Minister are hockey players, and they’re good ones. If we want to be stars like the Great One, we need to recognize that oil and gas may be where the puck is at currently, but renewable energy is where the puck will be by the time we get there. Let’s apply this insight to the NWT economic development energy strategy and listen to the goal buzzer shriek with joy.
It’s obvious that the days of the world’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy and our economic foundation are numbered. We can continue chasing this elusive puck at great cost, and ultimately in vain, or we can jump to environmentally clean, locally derived and job-rich energy systems and sustainable economic models based on our knowledge of where the economic opportunities are shifting to.
Instead of asking what costly subsidies and complex but ultimately ineffective regulations are required to get one last gasp boom and bust cycle out of fossil fuel exploitation, let’s capitalize on the real opportunities that renewable energy development enables. Let’s shift from fossil fuel addiction – I know it’s hard – and climate destroying, water poisoning, forest flattening, rock fracturing and community stressing petrochemical exploitation to the earth replenishing, job creating, wealth distributing and community supporting development of wind, solar, biomass and small hydro energy sources.
Let’s connect the dots. Alberta is burning up and closing tar sands operations. The West Coast is parched with record drought. Texas went from a record drought to floodwaters rising eight metres in 24 hours. One thousand people died last week in India of heat stress. Six hundred twenty square kilometres of our forest burned in May under record draught conditions. Science shows that human civilization is now at risk from dangerous climate change as it comes with two degrees warming. Clearly, it is happening right now with a one degree change. Eighty percent of known reserves must stay in the ground, according to science, to avoid dangerous climate change and impacts on human civilization. The question of fracking is moot.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Abandoning already stranded fossil fuels and quickly positioning ourselves to take advantage of renewable opportunities is the obvious and compulsory answer. We have the chance to be there to meet the renewable energy puck and slap it into the net. Will we hear the crowd roar? We can if we so choose on behalf of our people and our land. I certainly hope we do. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
