Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to Oral Question asked by the Member for Great Slave on March 1st, 2023, regarding renewable energy.
Regarding the request for information about how much of the $20 million in funding secured for Taltson Hydro Expansion has been retained with northern businesses and how much has been sole sourced to former Government of the Northwest Territories, or GNWT, employees, I can provide some information in addition to what is already on the public record.
To date, approximately $11.5 million has been spent on prefeasibility work for the project. This includes activities related to regulatory planning, commercial development, forming Indigenous partnerships, and establishing the technical parameters for transmission and generation components of the project. Of this amount, approximately $6.2 million, or 54.6 percent, of spending has been distributed to northern businesses, residents, and Indigenous governments.
Regarding specific sole source contracts, a total of $167,000, or 1.4 percent, was paid to a single contractor over a fouryear term, from June 2019 to November 2022. The consultant was formerly an employee of the Government of the Northwest Territories whose experience was relied upon to build and coordinate working relationships between the parties involved.
The Taltson Hydro Expansion Project is being developed in partnership with the Akaitcho Dene First Nation, or ADFN, and Northwest Territories Metis Nation, or NWTMN. A key area of focus early in this project was the development of a guiding statement of principles and a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to advance the project. The success of a project of this scale hinges on collaboration and relationship building between the various parties at the table. Although it took some time to establish trust between the parties, this is a longterm project. An MOU was formally endorsed by the leadership of the ADFN and NWTMN at our first Taltson Expansion Steering Committee meeting which was June 2021. The consultant continued to support the MOU implementation until November 2022 and no further work is expected going forward.
Regarding the northern businesses, direct contracts have been awarded for services such as fixedwing and rotary aircraft consulting. Thus far, contract work has been awarded within GNWT procurement guidelines, which includes guidance of the business incentive policy and adjustments for northern and local content on bids.
The reality of this project is that prefeasibility work requires specialized and technical skills across a broad range of disciplines; accordingly, many technical aspects of this work are awarded to specialized southern contractors. We are seeing significant efforts by proponents to pull together teams that do include northern businesses wherever possible and expect northern spending to grow over time as we progress to a regulatory application and construction decision. This is good indication that the project is creating new opportunities for northern businesses, and the project will continue to prioritize the inclusion of northern businesses in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
