David Krutko

As we all know, some communities are having difficulties with deficits or lack of core staff to ensure they have capacity to do the work to complete these reviews. I’d like to ask the Minister what other resources are there for communities that do not have the capacity in SAOs or people in the communities who can actually physically do the work. Is the government willing to put more resources into those communities so that we can try to meet the deadline of March 31st?

We are moving on to page 13-13, Environment and Natural Resources, activity summary, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, $14.366 million. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just reviewing the Minister’s opening remarks I noted he didn’t mention anything about the Aklavik community access road to the gravel source and yet there was a motion passed in this House regarding that community and the community of Tuk access road to their gravel sources through the community infrastructure funding. It seems like we’re no farther ahead than we were two years ago. This department’s going full out on other projects, so I would just like to ask the Minister, when motions are passed in this House how seriously do you take them? What is this government...

Okay. Turn to page 13-7, department summary. Can I get some direction to defer that page to after consideration of the rest of the detail?

I believe probably the most fundamental foundations for moving on this initiative is going to have government policies, a directive that directs departments to make the change. Like with anything else, anything new, a lot of people are used to simply burning diesel fuel. You put it in the tank, you turn it on and you call the fuel truck next time you need it filled up, but just get people around the idea that we’re going to wean ourselves off of diesel fuel or fossil fuels and start looking at these new initiatives. So I’d just like to ask the Minister, is the government going to be coming...

Page 13-28, information item, lease commitments – infrastructure.

I didn’t think we left.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Community governments must complete the Community Energy Plan by March 31, 2010. The Gas Tax Agreement requires that all community governments complete an integrated community sustainable plan by the same date. Community energy plans are one component that has been considered. All communities in the Northwest Territories must comply with this arrangement.

March 31, 2010, is only a month and a half away. As the information that has been provided by the Minister indicates that only 10 communities have completed this plan out of 33, yet some 23 communities remain to have...

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for providing that information. We could circulate it. Mr. Yakeleya, do you have any other questions?