Great Slave

Statements in Debates

Debates of , (day 15)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly, I speak in support of the bill. One of the important functions that every Legislature has is to enable professional organizations such as here, geologists and engineers, to set up organizations by which they can govern themselves and hold themselves accountable. We do this in many areas, Mr. Chair, nurses, lawyers, many professions. So this is just the kind of good housekeeping that a Legislature should do and I compliment the people engaged in this profession here in the North. I commend this bill to our colleagues in the Nunavut Legislature and hope...

Debates of , (day 15)

Merci, Mr. Speaker. During yesterday’s debate, Mr. Speaker, on the electoral boundaries issue, I quoted from a letter circulated to all Members of the Legislative Assembly by Craig Yeo, a Yellowknife resident. It is a letter dated October 18th. I would like to table this for the record.

Debates of , (day 15)

Mr. Speaker, is our government directly, or perhaps through the health authority, involved in any way with the negotiations or the framework for negotiations with the workers?

Debates of , (day 15)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for Mr. Roland, the Minister of Health and Social Services, and it concerns the stoppage of addictions treatment at Nats'ejee K'eh which ended Monday afternoon, I understand, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to confirm or find out, Mr. Speaker, who exactly is the employer of the 22 people involved in the Nats'ejee K'eh Treatment Centre, Mr. Speaker?

Debates of , (day 15)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re close and perhaps getting closer to some answers. To paraphrase what’s been said here a bit earlier today, does the Premier have the concurrence, the agreement, the cooperation, along with the aboriginal leaders in the NWT, Mr. Speaker, to achieve this AIP within that time frame? Are we all at least agreed on that time frame to get this deal done?

Debates of , (day 15)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to direct some questions to the Premier as our point man, our lead on devolution and resource revenue negotiations. Mr. Speaker, a little bit earlier today the Premier said we have to find a way to work together with aboriginal leaders. I think that was the context and the whole theme. One of the big themes today is northern unity.

You know, Mr. Speaker, as a number of my colleagues have already said, we’ve been trying to do that. This has been our goal for 20 years, yet we still keep saying the same thing. We have to find a way to work together. So we’re...

Debates of , (day 14)

Mr. Speaker, the Minister yesterday advised that in relation to Mr. Valic’s long and valiant struggle to get to the court-ordered appeal, newly constituted Appeal Tribunal, that "the WCB has not applied to take an adversarial point of view at all in the Appeals Tribunal hearing." I’m quoting from unedited Hansard of yesterday. Mr. Speaker, I understand that the board has indeed applied for standing at Mr. Valic’s tribunal. I wanted to ask the Minister, if indeed he said yesterday that the WCB has not applied to take an adversarial point of view, why has it applied for standing in Mr. Valic’s...

Debates of , (day 14)

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to welcome and reflect on the presence of so many people of the Armed Forces of various countries in the world who are touring the North on an extended training mission. Mr. Speaker, the military has had a long and very valued tradition of involvement and contribution and participation in this community, not only for the duty they have in Canada’s Arctic protecting the nation but with the very life and fabric of Yellowknife. I remember the establishment of what some might fondly recall as the “Yellow Submarine;" the first base here for the...

Debates of , (day 14)

Thank you, Madam Chair. This whole process has been very interesting. I'm sure that anyone who is watching us perhaps via some of the communication, or will take the time to look at Hansard and the record of the debate this afternoon, will tell that there has been a lot of strategy and a lot of different options looked at to arrive at where we are going today. Part of that for me, Madam Chair, was working with Mr. Lafferty to see where potentially our two communities could work together or support each other in achieving the recommendation from the boundaries commission. As Mr. Lafferty...

Debates of , (day 14)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Along with myself, I think there were five MLAs altogether who made presentations to Justice Vertes and the other two members of the Electoral Boundaries Commission earlier this year. Madam Chair, there were two points that I put to the commission at the time. The first one was that, indeed, there was no need to grow the size of the Assembly. The 19 Members provided for in the NWT Assembly were enough to do the work, perform the tasks that we're required to do, and so that maintaining the 19 was, at least from the point of view of the capacity and the number of MLAs...