Bob McLeod

With regard to energy efficiency, I think the largest part of areas where you can make efficiencies would be the benefit from conservation. I think if we change the way costs are allocated with regard to the generation of electricity, I think that there is an avenue there. Certainly with the $60 million Alternative Energy Initiative that this government has instituted to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, I think we would benefit significantly from that. As well, through our Green Government Initiative I think there are certainly opportunities for government to reduce their consumption of...

I guess, first and foremost, I’ll be working very closely with my Legislative Assembly colleagues. We have also received input from almost all the sectors or interveners who have intervened in the process and also we’ve heard from a number of different associations and a number of municipalities that have given us their views on the direction we should go with the electricity rate review. What we are proposing to do is to put in front of the Members a number of different costs of modelling and to see the direction we’re heading in, to see if everybody is supportive. Hopefully when we do that...

I guess in the fact that the federal government has responsibility for oil and gas and mining and they collect all the royalties, we have been able to get through the back door through the environmental assessment process to promote value-added. I am pleased that the Member is supportive of value-added, because in Yellowknife when we set up the secondary diamond industry, we put a lot of money into it and we had a lot of pushback on it. To this date, we are reviewing our Diamond Policy and it’s something that’s tentative out there. I think everybody here wants to see value added. To date that...

I’m quite prepared to commit to that because we do that as a matter of course. Certainly this is an area where we want to see development proceed and certainly we’ll work very hard to make this happen.

The NWT Power Corporation owns and generates the power. What I was talking about was, based on the current schedules, it’s basically who comes first.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the will of the House I’m sure that anything’s possible. I just wanted to point out that on the regulated side, the cost of operating the power facilities has to be recovered. I believe that what Avalon is looking for are rates that are similar to what are being provided in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In the Northwest Territories the commercial rate is 7.4 cents per kilowatt hour plus a one cent rider. That’s delivery. So that number is higher than what Saskatchewan Power charges Nico, for example. But certainly if we were to make an exception for Avalon, then we...

They amount that Avalon is requesting, or has identified as requiring, is available through the current production at Taltson. But the way it works, the current timelines of the different projects would indicate that that power would go to the diamond mines when and if or when the Taltson Hydro expansion is completed and the transmission lines are done. We don’t have a process for reserving power. So it’s basically on a first-come, first-served basis. If that power is made available on an immediate basis it would be through the regulated side and it would have to go through and obtain PUB...

I would like to recognize my wife and partner of 40-plus years, Melody McLeod.

We’ve been involved in a number of meetings with Avalon. We have sent a representative to a conference in Washington on the benefits of rare earth minerals. We are looking at their energy requirements. We will be co-hosting a conference with CanNor to discuss the value-added opportunities.

So rare earth minerals are something that’s fairly new. We don’t know a lot about all the different value added, but we will be working with the federal government to identify value-added opportunities and, of course, we’ll be working with Avalon as well.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I agree with most of what the Member said, but I would like to point out that the comparisons with the diamond mines, the reason we focus on value added is the fact that that’s the only way we can get benefits from development. The royalties go to the federal government, so if we want any benefits, we focus on the value added. With the diamond mines, through the environmental assessment process, we got the regulators to agree with what we were doing to provide for value added. I expect we would do the same thing with the Avalon project once it goes for...