Michael Miltenberger

I would take your direction, but this is the area where biomass would be covered. We’re looking at tabling in this House, I believe Thursday, the Biomass Strategy. We have a range of capacity for implementation. Public Works, when we do their department, will show that the renovations and retrofits they have done have been very successful. We’re still working with communities to conclude the community energy plans and the other thing we have to make a decision on this year is the whole issue of picking a technology to go into communities. We’re interested in biomass for heat, eventually...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would share this information with the Member that the site in question is 22 kilometres east of Lutselk'e on Krys Point and Stark Lake. In the 1950s some advanced exploration was undertaken on site, which included blasting of a tunnel into the hillside in order to obtain samples for an assay. No milling or ore processing took place. The site was abandoned and the tunnel remained open. In the early 1990s, personnel from GNWT mine safety inspected abandoned mine sites around the NWT for safety concerns. The tunnel at Stark Lake was inspected and determined to be a...

At this juncture it’s the government pulling together all its work on its adaptation plan. At the same time we are doing a lot of work. For example, there’s money in the budget to do further work on permafrost, which is a direct area of study that’s going to require adaptation as changes in permafrost occur across the land. The government is going to finish pulling together its plan and at the same time we’re continuing specific areas of work as we look at actual adaptation to situations, circumstances, and realities on the ground.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we are monitoring it to make sure that we look at the gaps for where there’s a need. If there’s a declining need, we’re going to move the funds to where they’re most needed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re prepared to consider that. We’re trying to get this up and running. One of the considerations we’re looking at is possibly offsetting the, as the Member suggested, but possibly raising the fee on pop cans, for example, which are sugar and water, as a way to subsidize that particular, subsidize the milk containers, so that we are prepared to look at that. Right now, we are just trying to get it all up and running, but in the very near future we are prepared to consider how we could do that. That is one of the specific ways we are looking rather than just lose or...

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my Minister’s statement, this process is only partway through. We have not come to any final conclusions or recommendations. We have to be very careful how we do that because we’re one of the responsible Ministers. We know that before the start of the JRP process there was $500 million that was talked about as a socio-economic impact fund that would be shared by affected regions up and down the valley. In conjunction with the fact that we already spend 65 cents of every dollar on social programs, that there would be some opportunity for integrating and...

It would be our hope at this juncture in early days of planning and scheduling that by spring 2011 that we would hopefully have a product on the table that would set the standard for the Northwest Territories when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Chairman, the intent of the government’s land use framework is to help us as a government get our thinking clear when we go to the tables with the regions and the aboriginal governments so that we can be a constructive proactive partner at the table. That document and that work is coming to the stage where I think we are almost ready to see the draft. We are working with Gwich’in, the Sahtu, the Deh Cho, as we speak, the Inuvialuit, on their land use plans. Maybe the deputy minister could speak to where we are with the Sahtu land use plans. Thank you.

I would just like to point out a fact that as these discussions go on it becomes more important every day. In this part of the Northwest Territories there is no harvest management plan for the Bathurst herd or the Ahiak or the Bluenose-East as it comes down into the Tlicho territory. The critical one is the Bathurst herd. We wouldn’t be having this discussion in the Sahtu, Gwich’in, or Inuvialuit regions because they have agreements, they have co-management boards, and they’ve got processes. What’s clearly evident here and is incumbent upon us once we get through this hunting season and before...

Mr. Speaker, I was trying to follow where the Member was referring to in this particular letter, and I’m unable to follow it. The thing that sticks in my mind was the dot, dot, dot. I have the report here. I was trying to listen to what he was saying and find it in the report. So I’m unable to clearly respond to that unless I can be pointed to where it is in this document which, while it’s before all the Members, is not really before this House. Thank you.