Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We haven’t come to the detail yet, but I understand your questions are on the opening comments. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciated the Minister’s opening comments here. I agree that Public Works and Services is a very essential partner in the achievement of government-wide goals, as he stated. A big one I’ve been emphasizing — and I know many people in this department have shown some interest in it — is dealing with our energy crunch and our environmental issues associated with greenhouse gas emissions. There’s sort of a happy overlap of a couple of problems that can be addressed with the same solutions.

I see one of the things mentioned is fuel services for residents, businesses and...

The residents and communities are actually doing quite a bit on this sort of thing, but we’re looking for some response to industry. The non-government organizations have shouldered the costs in the joint review process of the Mackenzie Gas Project. They are the ones who hired the economists to look at what the carbon-neutral approach would cost. And it’s quite modest, in the order of less than a 10 per cent increase in costs — 5 to 7 per cent. When is this government going to start playing that role and, instead of being open for business and subsidizing this industry, get some answers on...

This was reflected in our committee report, and it’s been discussed a number of times. I think the department has shown interest in this sort of thing already. It’s a recognition that we need to change our approach, change our way of thinking. I think the responsibility of this government is to…. If we’re going provide subsidies, let’s not subsidize things that we know are hard on people and are destroying our future. Let’s take those subsidies and put them into things that benefit everybody and actually work towards achieving our goals rather than competing with or opposing our goals.

This is...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t actually know whether this is the Minister of ENR or ITI, but as I mentioned during my statement, there is zero requirement for development projects, large industry, to provide even 1 per cent of their energy requirements from renewable energy or to offset, and no compulsory requirement to gradually wrap that up to increasing amounts to address the climate change issue. Is the appropriate Minister working on getting that legislation in place?

That’s fine, thank you.

As my colleague Mr. Hawkins has said, every day is Environment Day, and today is the last day of the recognized week called Environment Week.

I'd like to mention the tailings spill at Ekati Mine. Apparently, a large overflow of a contaminant wall — about 4.7 million litres of contaminants — spilled onto the tundra and the lakes where, of course, we have lake trout, grayling, whitefish, and so on, and the whole ecosystem, right from the invertebrates up to the migratory birds, and eventually to where we consume and where we get our energy from for our bodies.

Investigations are ongoing to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Apologies here. I have a question on 5-10.

Moving on, 6-18, Program Delivery Support, Activity Description. Mr. Hawkins.

But I really do appreciate the Minister’s comments and agree that some real innovation is needed in finding ways to protect our northern businesses. Thanks for that. I really appreciate that and encourage that.

Will the Minister include some of the ramifications of things like NAFTA — North American Free Trade Agreement — that’s been mentioned by my colleague Mr. Krutko, and the obligations we become vulnerable to when we lose these things that are forgiven because of grandfathering and so on? I’m asking for a very eyes-open approach to this. It sounds like there is a tendency to do that with...