Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make quick comments. The Great Northern Arts Festival, it’s $25,000 last couple years and that’s what they’re getting this year. I just wanted to ask the Minister if that’s a fixed contribution agreement with the society or is it just what this government is allocating to them.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Knowing what he knows here and the report that’s in there, can the Minister provide Members on this side of the House a detailed plan of how he’s going to start implementing the effects of this report that he put out, a plan that’s going to allow us to know what’s going to be coming in future business plans? Thank you.

I forgot to mention, I just wanted to thank the Minister for tabling the document so that our public and our residents get an opportunity to see this and see the impacts that it’s going to have on our government and our communities.

In the conclusions, the Minister mentioned that there might be an extra pod for the North Slave Correctional Centre, as well as maybe the construction of a proposed women’s facility. When we were going through the process of Arctic Tern in Inuvik, can the Minister commit to looking at that facility, the Arctic Tern facility again and maybe, possibly making the right...

Obviously this is something that I have a lot of passion about and it’s something that I want to bring to the attention of all residents of the Northwest Territories. Regardless of your gender, your sex, your age, your ethnicity, talk to us. They have to talk to us to make sure that we can move forward on this business. Like I said, regardless if it’s Highway No. 7 or roads or health centres or schools, we are not here only to represent our own constituents but the whole territory and all the people.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is World No Tobacco Day. Initially I wanted to speak to that. It was something that I kind of started my career of doing a lot of work on tobacco, creating legislation and some of the legislation that we brought to this House.

However, what grabbed my attention and got me thinking last night and today was the motion that we passed in the House yesterday. Members on this side decided to pass a motion to defer a certain budget within this government because we didn’t think that government was acting in the best interest of the people of the Northwest Territories. I’m...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a couple situations here in the Northwest Territories. We have the Inuvik situation and we have the Norman Wells situation coming up. The general rate applications, we’re just increasing the cost of living for our residents. As stated, the more northern you get and the more isolated in the communities you get, the higher the cost is going to be. The government continues to subsidize the communities and some of the rates that they have to pay when we can actually be investing in some cost savings. I’m in support of this motion and as we move forward we have to...

The estimates that he’s got in this report are $32 million for the North Slave Correctional Centre, and then he’s got another $35 million in his conclusions for another building. We’ve got existing infrastructure out there and we have to look at how we can use those so that we don’t always put money into capital.

With that said, there’s also going to be an increase of, he states that more people are going to be wanting to appeal their sentences, so it’s going to put more stress on our legal aid system, which is already exhausted enough. What is his plan for the legal aid system should people...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to make some questions today for the Minister of Justice on the document that he tabled a couple days ago, Analysis of Federal Bill C-10, Safe Streets and Communities Act: Impacts on the NWT Department of Justice. I didn’t get a chance to go through it in detail yet, but just some stuff from the conclusions that were mentioned. He’s talking about if our institutions should become full capacity, what is his plan with this impact on the justice system? What is his plan for inmates if they can’t get into our institutions?

No further questions, Madam Chair, but duly noted on the structure of the building, and thanks.