Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the answer. Also in this sessional statement, the Premier made further reference to this project very optimistically and enthusiastically when he said the schedule is to complete all necessary documentation soon. This construction is anticipated in summer. Now I won’t read a commitment into that, Mr. Speaker, but, as I say, it’s very enthusiastic and optimistic. I am kind of curious now with the information that Mr. Menicoche has provided, just how advanced is this proposal, Mr. Speaker. Summer is not that far off. If we are going to get construction...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Friday, March 16, 2007, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Rule 36 (3) and (4) be deleted in their entirety and the following be substituted:

36

(3)

Statements made under Rule 36(1):

in the case of a Member speaking in one official language, shall not exceed two and one half minutes;

in the case of a Member speaking in more than one official language, shall not exceed three minutes, and that the Member shall speak at least thirty...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to report on the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight’s Report of the Review of the Human Rights Commission 2005-2006 Annual Report.

The Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight met on February 14, 2007, to review the 2005-2006 Annual Report of the NWT Human Rights Commission. The committee would like to thank Ms. Mary Pat Short, chair of the Human Rights Commission, and Ms. Thérèse Boullard, director of human rights, for appearing before us.

The 2005-2006 annual report does not include any recommendations, however, the committee...

Mr. Speaker, there was consternation across the land in the last few months with cuts to many front-line social service organizations, Mr. Speaker. Especially of concern here in the North were cuts to those agencies involved in literacy and volunteerism. Mr. Speaker, this government chose to do some backfilling there and they’re to be complimented for that. But it is intolerable, unacceptable, that this should be a download from Ottawa onto the provinces and the territories. Mr. Speaker, has the Minister taken these cuts and our objection to them directly to Ottawa to ask for the federal...