Bob Bromley

Great. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks again to the Minister for those comments. Again, I just want to stress that the experience in other jurisdictions is that when they tried to do this sort of thing, they’ve had to go through a long process because of the unreasonable requirements that initially come out of the utilities. It’s just sort of a heads up and an opportunity for us to expedite the system in an efficient way by dealing with that.

Maybe I’ll just ask if the Minister would be willing to at least be aware of that and be keen should the opportunity come up to deal with that issue...

Thanks for those comments. I think that if the Minister were to look into this, the process actually began a number of years before that. I wonder if I could find out exactly where we’re at right now and when we can expect the capability for this operationally to be in place.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are myriad ways we can build our local economies, provide opportunities for jobs in our communities and reduce environmental impacts of energy generation. One effective way is to provide for net metering. This is the chance for residents to generate their own power from renewable energy and to be connected to the power grid so they can contribute power when they have excess and draw power when they need it.

This issue has been before the Public Utilities Board for several years, and the Power Corporation has been asked to provide the option for this service. I...

Thanks.

Thank you for the comments from the Minister. I have spent a little time in that department in a past life and can appreciate the interest in utility for any surplus funds. Perhaps that’s an opportunity to look at sharing a surplus and rolling part of it into a fund, if that would be financially and administratively possible. So no question.

I assume there are no other remarks from the Minister on the likelihood of overcoming what’s left in the supplementary reserve this fiscal year.

I think the Minister semi-anticipated my next question. There are, as he mentioned, just less than a couple of weeks left. It happens to coincide almost with the federal election.

Are there any particular areas that our public should be aware of that you are interested in comments on that you have not heard from them on? This is an opportunity for our public to hear about that, and I think we’ve had some response on that. If there are any comments on how the public can best focus their comments on areas that might be most fruitful, this would be a good chance to hear about it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Finance can stay standing if he’d like.

My question is on revenue options. Specifically, in this case, one of the things I always hear back when I’m trying to come up with innovative ideas is that the cost of tax collection is prohibitive. Right now the federal government collects our taxes for us. If we take it on, is the Minister investigating what the actual cost of that tax collection would be so that we can make an informed judgment on whether that’s a valid response or not?

I appreciate that offer. That sounds wonderful. The experience in other jurisdictions — and I want to stress that this has been done for millions of households, so this is off the shelf technology. But where it has been done for the first time, typically the utility or some powers that be end up putting barriers in place through, for example, requiring unrealistically expensive meters and so on. I wonder if we can expedite this process by just getting all the players together at the table. I think this is a modus operandi of this government.

Would the Minister be able to facilitate getting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement on the net metering issue. It involves, I believe, the Minister of ENR for renewable energy, the Minister of NTPC, Mr. Roland, and the Minister of PUB, Mr. McLeod. So I don’t have a druthers on who this is directed at, but I’d like to begin by finding out exactly what regulatory process is required to set up net metering for Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories.