Michael Miltenberger

I don’t have a definitive estimate at this point, but I will keep the House up to date when I do get that number. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments and his suggestions of where we could make life better. I want to reassure him that even though he challenges my memory, I have not forgotten what it’s like to be a Regular Member. I just want to reassure the Member of that as he constantly reminds me that I’ve forgotten, and I constantly remind him that I can well remember.

Unfortunately, I’m going to just tell him some things that he doesn’t want to hear. He says he knows the answers. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources is working, in my opinion, at capacity. In fact...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’re very interested in pursuing biomass initiatives. There are those projects underway in the community, as the Member indicates. As we achieve success, we’re interested in looking at those. There are other ones with the Willows and waste heat. I commend Fort McPherson, as well, for their initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Mr. Ernie Campbell and Ms. Susan Craig from Environment and Natural Resources, the deputy minister and finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do. I am pleased to present the 2015-2016 Main Estimates for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Overall, the department’s estimates propose a decrease of $112,000, which is less than 1 percent over the 2014-2015 Main Estimates.

These estimates continue to support the objectives of limiting expenditure growth in order to sustain the long-term sustainability of the fiscal framework.

Highlights of the proposed estimates include:

$1.5 million for the continued implementation of the Water Stewardship Strategy, including the implementation of transboundary...

Those are all legitimate, real concerns that we are as well very cognizant of, and as we plan to affect repairs, those are issues that are being addressed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. They are looking at the repairs. We, earlier on, made a contribution of $20 million to the Power Corporation to offset some of the diesel requirements due to the low water. This is related but not directly tied to that. However, we had anticipated that we would be saving some money with the lowering price of diesel and that we will be using that $20 million to offset the additional diesel costs as the appropriate repairs are affected. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We believe that the strategy will work. The elements are there. We spent some time getting organized. The private sector, Dominion Diamonds, for example, has taken a very strong position to discourage the fly-out part of the operation, to encourage people to stay here. The Ministers of ECE as well as ITI have laid out through the Nominee Program the increases and the seats are available. Now that we’re going to aggressively pursue maximizing every seat that is there, we can see as much as, if it all works out, 800 people a year with these 250 seats that we can fill...

There are three members out of the board, so there is critical mass there already. If, God forbid, these three hardworking individuals from the South were hit by lightning and were unable to do their jobs, we would soldier on. We would pick up the pieces and we would put people there to do the job. So this is a circumstance where there’s a natural break where we can put Northerners in place and we are looking for people, Northerners, educated, knowledge of the regulatory system, knowledge of the context of the work that’s being done, knowledge of the players, knowledge of the history of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This particular board has bylaws where folks are appointed, but there is no end date to their terms. That’s one issue. At least one of the members has been on the board since 1997. That’s another issue. In the Northwest Territories in my time in government, my time in government period, the whole goal has been to put Northerners in positions and on the boards where they are making decisions about activities that affect people of the Northwest Territories, the whole thrust of devolution. So when the opportunity came that the board bylaws were going to be redone, that...