Tom Beaulieu

That would be a big part of the mandate of the energy division within Public Works and Services.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The department would have no problem with meeting with Diavik on their programs or energy-efficient programs. The decision on what type of stipulations that we put on industry in as far as energy conservation will be a government decision, not Public Works and Services’ decision. Thank you.

In addition to biomass still being feasible, we know that it contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gases. Also, in future, there’s a possibility that there may be an increase in the cost of the heating fuel. I know that the Member speaks about the traditional economy and that they need to have lower gas prices to pursue their hunting and trapping and so on.

So, our intent is this Friday in Colville Lake we will lower the cost of gasoline by 24 cents a litre. Also, in Fort Simpson right now, the Power Corp is installing solar panels at the NTPC generator, so they’re going to be looking at...

Yes, currently that is where we are buying the fuel that is going into the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have two communities in the Deh Cho that we are delivering fuel to. Nahanni Butte diesel fuel is currently 25 percent complete. The diesel order is about 384,000 litres. We’ve delivered 98,000 litres. In Trout Lake the diesel fuel is 55 percent complete. The order is about 140,000 litres of diesel, and we’ve delivered 62,000 litres of diesel and 49,000 litres of gasoline. We haven’t delivered any of the gasoline that was ordered into Nahanni Butte yet, but we aren’t anticipating any problems at all delivering all of what was ordered.

Mr. Chairman, with that, I will just...

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize the recent and ongoing improvements made by NAV Canada at 17 of our airport sites with community aerodrome radio stations and at Wekweeti and Colville Lake airports.

NAV Canada is the private corporation responsible for civil air navigation services and weather within Canadian airspace. It has recently invested in the weather observation systems at 19 of our airports in the NWT. This improved weather information, now available 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, will support safer and more effective air transportation services for our communities and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The details on the increase being lower than the amount of money we’ve got from energy, the consolidation of energy services. I’m going to have Director Lewis give the details on the ins and outs. Like the Member indicated, it was a bit of a net decrease once you consider we had an increase in the collective bargaining and then we took on the energy function at $6.1 million, but the overall increase was lower than that. So we’ll have that explanation.

We don’t have the details on carry-overs. All of the carry-overs are based on capital items. So we can provide the...

We would be pleased to provide that information to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will look at ways to increase the local content in our contracts in those three communities that the Member represents. There are some as and when contracts as well. We’d look at trying to get as much local involvement as possible. We’re not sure about the geographical restricted tendering process. We have some MOUs in place as larger government with the Gwich’in, and so in addition to that maybe we may not want to do the geographical restricting on the contracts because it also benefits the government to have as much of the as and when’s and the smaller contracts...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to give a few comments on each of these areas and I’ll have the deputy minister provide some detail.

The procurement shared services from the government’s perspective is something that is very positive. We consider it to be very positive for industry as well. It does consolidate the contracting, tendering and so on. We have offices now in the various locations across the North that handle the procurement services for all of government and all the departments, plus the NWT Housing Corporation. We feel that it’s going to improve the quality of our contracting...