Michael Miltenberger

The work we’ve done in this area has been I think very successful. There’s been significant consultation and the recognition that there are, in this particular issue, three types of bags that are clogging up the landfills and scattered across the countryside. Paper, while in some people’s mind it may be something that’s seen as what’s the problem, is very energy intensive, it’s bulky, it takes up a lot of waste that when you combine it with all the other paper product waste -- for example, the tons and tons of paper generated by business and government or the wastepaper products with cardboard...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we looked at the lifecycle of the plastic bag, the paper bag and even the ones that are called biodegradable bags and compared it to the lifecycle of reusable bags, clearly all three were found wanting in comparison to the reusable, and that while paper may biodegrade in a landfill somewhat faster than other products, it takes more energy to produce and ship, it weighs more and in effect causes just as much waste or more than plastic because it’s bulkier. In fact, we have an initiative currently underway in its second phase where we are canvassing the North to see...

We’re anticipating to start with the one and we’re still working on partnership arrangements with the federal government to get us up to three. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will carry on under the heavy burden of the Member’s disappointment and we’ll make sure that the Minister of Education is listening carefully to the concern so that next year we can, hopefully, be labouring forward with her approval with a lighter step and a happier heart. Thank you.

This is the first increase to base funding for electricity since 2006-2007.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the FMB; and Charles Tolley, director of budgeting.

I appreciate the Member’s comments.

Mr. Speaker, I’m sure NorthwesTel would actually look forward to an opportunity to be invited before committee. They’re a private operation that runs... They have contracts; they have services they provide. We have a lot of vested interest with them. We are going to take steps to see how do we avoid this in the future to get a better idea of what steps they’re going to take to address some of the concerns that the Member has raised. At the same time, we’re going to proceed with our plan to see about setting the pieces in place that will allow us to proceed with trying to get a fibre optics...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this point we’re budgeting with the numbers that we do have recognizing, for example, that the price of fuel is now back over, depending where you look -- either the Brent Crude or the West Texas -- it’s either $100 or over $110 a barrel. We anticipate that there’s going to be upward pressure in costs in everything we do, including the provision of diesel generated power.

NorthwesTel manages its own day-to-day operations. We are involved through a number of different areas, but there will be a critical debriefing done. We recognize that there was a significant portion of the Territory that was cut off from communications. One of the reasons, in fact, that we’ve put out an RFP to do some initial work on the fibre optics line up to Inuvik is to, in fact, try to better address some of those issues. But to keep in mind, though, as the weather events around the world increase in extremities and to the degree of how intense they are, that it’s going to be a problem...