Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we provide substantive funding, along with other departments, to the Arctic Energy Alliance, who is our working arm in terms of energy conservation. This government, as well, has set up its own Energy Conservation Program to support initiatives, retrofitting, looking at new technologies and innovative ways to save energy. We’ve also combined, partnered up that money with money from the federal government. In this case, there has been assistance provided to the individual in question, money and technical support that is helping advance the work that he’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would recommend that, if there are questions in any particular community, they contact the local ENR officer or the local regional office. They should be able to hopefully resolve the issues and clarify any misunderstandings. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the cash in your trash is based on a price per container. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, there’s been at least two…Sorry, Mr. Speaker. There’s been at least two briefings that I can recollect in recent weeks and months where we’ve laid out in considerable detail all the work that’s being done across government to look at energy conservation, alleviating the high cost of living, the impact of rising energy costs, what we’re doing as a government to make government more efficient, what we’re doing as a government to work with the communities and the individuals and businesses to assist them to make the necessary steps on the energy conservation side. That is all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, very clearly the leadership lies with the seven Members comprising of Cabinet, with myself and Mr. Bell who are tasked with bringing forward first the discussion on the White Paper on the Energy Strategy and we’ve committed to bringing forward the formal Energy Strategy by this coming fall, which will address that and many other issues and provide a framework, provide the direction and the policy base for us to move forward into this, as the Member has indicated, very important area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me restate once again for the record that Yellowknife is not losing access to any service. It will be available across the lake in Hay River the same as services in Yellowknife are available to all people who have to fly into Yellowknife from wherever they may live. It’s a very simple situation. There is no loss of service to the people of Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what was initially proposed by YACCS was both that we would cover the O and M, as well YACCS would take out the loan and we would just cover off the monthly mortgage payments. Mr. Speaker, this issue has been on the table for some time now. There’s been funds, as the Member indicated, committed to this and the direction from Cabinet was to put this into the current business planning process that is now underway in the capital planning process and that has been done. Work has been done on the model and the initial cost estimates which we have received....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Joint Leadership Council already has that within their mandate. In the terms of reference we agreed to, as I just indicated in the last two responses, to formalize that process and that’s how we intend to move forward, that it’s comprised of all the board chairs and they are at the table and doing an effective job, in my opinion. Thank you.

I am, Mr. Speaker, and on May 26th I wrote to the chair of the Social Programs committee to give her the latest information that we had available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Minister, I always maintain in this portfolio the ultimate responsibility and I can’t give that up, but I am working very closely with the Joint Leadership Council. In fact, we spent most of the day last week meeting with the folks at Stanton to talk about our relationship and how we’re going to better move forward collectively and provide the governance oversight that’s required to do that job effectively when you consider the size of Stanton and that it’s a territorial resource with an $80 million budget and 500 staff. Thank you.