Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to add a few words, as well, to this debate.

For 46 years and 17 Assemblies we have been working together on a foundation of very, very fundamental principles, the protection in accordance to the land, the water and the animals. We need to work together, Aboriginal governments and public government. Our common desire to control our own fate is to eventually achieve self-government.

I would suggest to you that what we should be talking about and what the focus is, is this motion, as it is worded, appropriate at this particular time. I would suggest to you that...

Mr. Speaker, Enbridge is a good corporate citizen. They’ve had their challenges with the aging pipeline. They are taking the steps necessary to protect the interest of Northerners and protect the pipeline route. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As with other similar instances, we are having our staff work with federal folks that are responsible and we’re encouraging, of course, Enbridge to do a thorough review and all the repairs necessary and not just wait for things to happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are getting about $1.1 billion. Over 70 percent of our income as a government comes from the Territorial Financing Formula for 43,000 people. If the Member does the math on a per capita basis, we have one of the best deals in the country.

The Member points to a broad issue of we’re the government and the only shareholder of the Power Corporation. On one hand, as a government, we set up a Solar Strategy, for example; and on the other hand, we have our utility that we own and seem to be working at cross-purposes with the successful implementation of that strategy. So, yes, we are going to fix that.

We’re going to look at net billing and net metering, and we’re going to look at the standby fees, and we’re going to make sure that these bodies that are working on behalf of the government and the people are coordinated and not at...

Madam Chair, I have with me Ernie Campbell, deputy minister of Environment and Natural Resources, and Ms. Nancy Magrum, director of shared services for ENR and ITI. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have built a recycling system now that enables us to go to every community in the North. The hope is we can build on that capacity that is there. We want to prevent, as I pointed out in Fort Smith, we have a mountain of computers at the waste site at our dump, they haven’t stuck into the waste site. I’m sure that situation is repeated across the North. So the intent is to work out the details of how we can bring that electronic waste to the regional centres that are now doing the recycling and work out ways from there with trucks to send them back.

We have to work...

Yes, I would, Madam Chair.

I am pleased to speak to the 2013-2014 main estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The plan proposes total operational expenses of $71.5 million for the upcoming year. This represents an 8.9 percent, or $5.8 million, increase from last year’s budget.

The bulk of this increase is attributed to forced growth adjustments of $5.3 million to cover increased costs for forest fire operations and suppression, preparing for increased oil and gas exploration and development in the Sahtu and completing negotiations on a transboundary water agreement...

Mr. Chair, the intent of the $100,000 is to allow work to be done, options to be explored. It is not money that is there to actually look at… That money is not targeted at this point for any type of implementation. When we are in a position to stand up and announce formal arrangements, should we be able to do that with liquid natural gas, then we will be making different decisions. There is going to be maybe a different process separate from the money that is here. The Power Corporation, for example, is the lead on the liquid natural gas as it pertains to the generation of electricity.

If we...

Mr. Speaker, let me offer this to the Member and to the public as well. When we did the budget dialogues, people asked us, when you come back next year, give us more comprehensive information. We tried to give them a summary, but they wanted to have the detail. So what I’ll commit to in this House is that when we do our budget dialogues, we will lay out the fiscal strategy in detail, plain English, but enough detail so that folks will be able to see on the capital side, on the O and M side how we budgeted ourselves for the next four years, two years, when we go out to the communities. We can...