Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s with great affection that I’m often able to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of my mother, Esther Braden, and today it gives me special pride to advise the Assembly that she is here and with a special distinction as the Northwest Territories most recent recipient of our country’s highest civilian award, the Order of Canada.

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Mr. Speaker, she is in good company with retired Anglican Bishop Jack Sperry, also a member of the Order of Canada.

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With them, too, is another very respected Yellowknife senior and someone most deserving of the Order...

Mr. Speaker, the Co-op is to be applauded because they've decided to absorb this cost off their bottom line, rather than pass the cost onto the customers. But the reality is most businesses don't have that option. They must absorb and then pass along the added cost of the freight, along with the storage for the extra inventory and, of course, the hit that their cash flow takes.

Mr. Speaker, from Deline to Cambridge Bay, from Yellowknife to Gameti, and the four diamond mines, we are more and more vulnerable to tremendous impact when this ferry service is interrupted, and it's not just the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. If we all listen very carefully we will be able to hear a very irritating, a very frustrating and a very expensive noise in the background. It's a noise that's been going on for the past 40 years, Mr. Speaker, and it's high time we did something about it. That noise, Mr. Speaker, is the clawing, scratching sound of our cost of living and the cost of business going up because we don’t have a bridge across the mighty Mackenzie River.

Mr. Speaker, is a start to this project, as the Premier has suggested, is it contingent on the P3 approval that we are anticipating from Ottawa? Yes or no?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the real Minister of Transportation and they involve some more questioning, Mr. Speaker, on the status of the Deh Cho Bridge. Mr. Speaker, in his sessional statement a little while ago, the Premier did say that the federal government must step up to the plate and provide its share of the funding necessary for this important piece of the national highway system. Mr. Speaker, we have already filed with the federal government, I think about four years ago, a great plan, a very good plan, called Corridors for Canada, which outlined this...

Thank you, colleagues, Mr. Speaker. That other factor, Mr. Speaker, is climate change and environmental warming that is causing these unexpected interruptions because of low water, especially in the earlier winter. Our economy cannot sustain the cost or the risk of these interruptions which can launch those freight costs upwards of 54 cents a pound.

Mr. Speaker, building a guaranteed, year-round road connection between the NWT's capital city and the rest of Canada is already a mandate of the National Highway Strategy. It is imperative that Canada joins in the partnership that the Premier...

At this very moment, Mr. Speaker, another noise we're hearing is the helicopter shuttle that clatters back and forth across the kilometre-wide span that separates us from year-round road connection with the rest of Canada. That shuttle is bringing everything from parts for yesterday's engine breakdown to tomorrow's bacon and eggs at an added cost of about 14 cents a pound on top of regular freight rates. But in the fall, Mr. Speaker, with unscheduled ferry interruptions due to low water, those costs can escalate an extra 46 cents a pound. For instance, this cost to shareholders at the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to report on the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures. This is our report on referred matters.

On October 26, 2006, the Speaker referred two issues to the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures.

The first issue related to the amount of time available for Members’ statements by a Member speaking in more than one official language.

The second referred issue was the addition of a section entitled “Acknowledgements” to the daily order of business in the Assembly.

The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures held an initial meeting on December 4, 2006...

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the other big one on the shopping list here is related to the resource revolution stuff, is the formula financing deal that I know in fact we tried to crack that one even late in the previous Assembly, Mr. Speaker. After almost four years now, are we going to see some real progress in amending the very old-fashioned and cumbersome formula financing deal that we now have with Ottawa, Mr. Speaker?