Evidence of meeting #41 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
So the chances are that taxpayers are going to have to pay for the extra funding that's being cut.
10:10 a.m.
Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
Taxpayers? It will be taxpayers or travellers or a combination.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
You mentioned several times that you had problems getting access to land to expand your municipality. Who owns the land you're talking about? Is it crown land, private land...?
10:15 a.m.
Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
It is crown land held by the province.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
So by withholding that land from you, the province is not helping you in developing your municipality.
10:15 a.m.
Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
That would be true. We have certainly tried to initiate a new deal, so to speak, with them as well. We have a memorandum of understanding that was signed last year. The new government is just trying to find ways to execute it. We have an anticipation that this will change in due course.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
You also mentioned several times that you believe that the census is wrong. Why do you believe that?
10:15 a.m.
Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
I'm not saying it's wrong; I'm just saying it's inaccurate.
10:15 a.m.
Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
No, the difference is that because we host so many people from other parts of Canada, they cannot legitimately say they live in Fort McMurray, if they have a home in another province; therefore, they're counted in their home community.
So overall the Canadian number is correct. The Fort McMurray number underrepresents our population, because so many people are still in the community for the bulk of the time, using the services that are here. The temporary—
10:15 a.m.
Mayor, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
That's a funding problem. So when you look at funding and planning—except that I know they're here, so I plan for them anyway.
The difference is that if you have gas tax revenues going to the province, they are distributed on a per capita basis. If I'm 40,000 people short in the number I'm receiving funding for, it's a shortchanging of what I have for expenses against what I'm doing to serve the people who are here.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you, Mayor Blake.
My following questions are for Mr. Mackey.
I'm looking at the information you have given us. I see that Nunavut is 100% dependent on diesel fuel. How many litres of diesel fuel does Nunavut use in a year?
10:15 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Qulliq Energy Corporation
Purely for electrical generation during this sealift supply year, we've purchased 45 million litres.
10:15 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Qulliq Energy Corporation
The cost...we're still incurring it, because some of it we purchase in bulk, and some of it we purchase through the Government of Nunavut through their petroleum products division. This isn't the straight cost per litre, but the cost to pay the contractor and the community and various other costs. I expect our budget for the 45 million litres to be somewhere around $55 million.
10:15 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Qulliq Energy Corporation
That's per year—and growing.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
I see also in the information that was given to us that the city of Iqaluit is expecting to grow over the next several years, and I also see that geothermal is a process that could be used.
Have you thought about any new homes built in Iqaluit being heated with geothermal?
10:15 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Qulliq Energy Corporation
I think about all opportunities for alternative energy within Nunavut, and certainly within Iqaluit, seeing that it's our largest consumer of diesel fuel. Unfortunately, it's limited to thinking, because when I get beyond thinking, in terms of trying to do some investigation beyond that, I need the dollars to do it, and we put the limited capital budgets that we have into replacing engines rather than looking at alternative sources of energy.
10:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
If you were to heat more homes with geothermal, that would decrease the cost of diesel. Is that correct?
10:15 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Qulliq Energy Corporation
The 45 million litres of diesel that I talked about is purely for electrical generation. Diesel for heating homes is a separate volume of diesel. But yes, if you were able to do it....
We do that. The only single alternative energy that we have working right now is district heating systems that we've installed in 13 different communities. These take the heat from the diesel engines, as well as the exhaust gas heat recovery, and we use it to heat large buildings within the communities.
We've recently created a small group within Qulliq Energy Corporation whose sole focus is to expand those district heating systems throughout all the communities, in large part because we're moving forward aggressively with the replacement for the 17 plants that are at or near the end of their design life. Incorporated within the new designs are district heating systems to provide heat throughout all the communities, to displace the need for diesel-fired boilers and use the heat from the engines....
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Is there any openness to that in the territory? Is it anything realistic in terms of cost, do you think? I know that they talked about using them in mine projects. Perhaps communities could benefit as well. Have you looked into that? Do you have any thoughts on that?
10:20 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Qulliq Energy Corporation
I have looked into those on several different occasions. I've had discussions with various proponents of those. They've come in and provided presentations for us.
If these met federal and territorial regulations in terms of their being allowed to be installed, these would certainly be something we'd be interested in looking at. Given the potential, I think our ability to get a regulatory process through for hydro is going to be much quicker than getting a process through to install mini-nuclears in different communities.
