Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During this Education Week the buzz on the street is about the possible move towards educational reform. I’d like to inform the discussion based on the experience of Finnish educator Dr. Pasi Sahlberg.

When the Finns began retooling their education system 30 years ago, they didn’t set out to be the best, but today it’s one of the most successful public education systems in the world. They just set out to make schools the best possible place for children.

Finnish education is based on three principles: all education is paid by the state, from preschool to primary through...

Thanks for that information. On the $700,000 for pellet boilers estimated to serve about 50 units, I’m very happy to see this. We’ve talked about this for a number of years and I appreciate the Minister moving this forward. Do we know what the anticipated savings… Have we had the opportunity to do that work yet, or is this where we would start? I’m just curious.

Again, have we got locations figured out for this? Would it be in several places or are we talking a couple places where we have a concentration of units? Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s comments. I would hope, if and when we do have such money, that there will be a focus to getting something done on the ground rather than just planning. Again, I appreciate the Minister’s comments. That’s all I have at this stage. Thank you.

That’s good information. I missed the date that the asset system was brought on stream or will be brought on stream, but also I’ll throw in my next question. Sort of getting back to the energy side, are the 171 major retrofits, are we taking the time to select those or using all of our information so that we get the best payback, that sort of thing, rather than just sort of methodically going through them from A to B? Thank you.

Madam Chair, it doesn’t answer the question but, yes. I think we continue to see our energy dollars decrease when the need is, in fact, increasing and there is an opportunity to redirect the funds that we’re no longer using to subsidize energy to put into energy initiatives. I’m very disappointed if the Minister did not try to capture some of those dollars here.

I think the point is, hydro we know is expensive. It has serious frontend costs, but it’s also self-financing. It’s typically very long lived, 50 to 70 years. We have an opportunity, if we were to capture these dollars. The difference...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe I’m correct in addressing my infrastructure dollars, energy efficiency stuff here. So I want to start off by saying I’m very pleased to see the investments in this line. I know we’ve addressed some of our energy costs through the work that’s been done. There’s been some progressive work over the last six years, I think I heard 1.8 or 9 percent savings in energy costs, and a significant effort being proposed for this fiscal year. It’s got my support.

My first question, was it $14 million, 171 units, about $82,000 per unit? That seems to be the cost of major...

I have to say I am disappointed in the Minister’s response. Transmission lines are at least $750,000 a kilometre, typically more, and in our environment probably more. That’s not what I’m talking about. We’ve been talking about that for decades. We can’t do that. We don’t have the money. The Minister said it himself. I agree with the Minister; we do not have the money. What we do have are customers. All of the South Slave.

Everybody uses energy. We heat our homes, we drive our vehicles, et cetera. Arctic Energy Alliance studies once again have demonstrated, for example, that the entire...

Thank you for that explanation. That clears it up. I think I probably ask that sort of thing every year. I appreciate the refresher.

I noticed in the narrative here, they talk about the incorporation of energy-efficient technologies and so on in the housing design retrofits, but I don’t believe the expenditures in that area are on this page. If I’m right, I will hold questions until later, but if they are somewhere on this page, I will ask questions there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural.

What are the comparative cost benefits of employing the different methods of fracking for fossil fuel extraction?

What is the failure rate of fracking operations (e.g. drill casings) and, since failure is inevitable and we plan to permit fracking, what predicted level of failure will we permit?

What is the potential for contamination of drinking water from fracking operations?

Given our low rates of precipitation and replenishment of waters, and the unpredictable rates of precipitation levels as a consequence of...

Thank you. Again, it seems to be good news on that front, Mr. Chair. So thanks for that information. I guess my last follow-up on that would be, are there things in particular for those seven that are common across them that they need to focus on or that we should be aware of. Thank you.