Bill Braden

Mr. Speaker, I very much look forward to the opportunity to take these issues on with our American friends. I do call them friends; our nations do have their differences, but we have so much in common. This is where I wanted to ask too of the potential that this web site has to engage in even greater trade and exchange. The American market is the world’s biggest consumer of energy and diamonds, we’ve got lots of that, and they are great consumers of our hunting and fishing products. Can we use this new link, Mr. Speaker, to further share in our interests with the Americans for those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Premier in his capacity as the Minister responsible for Intergovernmental Affairs. Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the visit to the Northwest Territories over the last couple of days of Naim Ahmed, the consulate general from the American consulate in Calgary to the Northwest Territories, and the initiative that the American government has taken to create virtual consulates on the web site for the Northwest Territories as well as Nunavut and the Yukon. As we have heard this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, sometimes we wonder...

Everybody have a great spring and we will see you back here in May. Thank you.

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I deserved that, but I will try to forge on here. Mr. Speaker, it has been a long four weeks here, a productive four weeks. We have all had a chance to deliver our messages and I would like to return to the one that I believe is very, very high and should stay way up there on the priority list of this Assembly and especially this Cabinet, it is about the theme of housing.

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I have a bit of a message here. Members might be familiar with the tune and they are more than welcome to join me in this.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, appreciate any Member's contention that there may be a point of process and an interference with the public's access to what we are doing here. In this case, I do not feel that we have breached that trust.

The purpose of the bill, when it was introduced last fall, was quite clear to me, Mr. Speaker, that it was designed to be a survey, if you will, or an inventory of all of our legislation to catch the areas and definitions regarding spouses or references to particular genders that would not be consistent with Canadian law, and we are compelled to follow that....

Thank you, Madam Chair. The timing was indeed the topic that committee spent the most time exploring. In listening to Mr. Zoe’s point about more public consultation, I think that, with the efforts that were made, I don’t know that we would generate a lot more. I think there is a very broad acceptance of a fixed election date. Now, I think people are expecting us to work out the one that is the best for the most situations. Madam Chair, I would speak in favour of the motion, personally.

As Mr. Roland and I have had two elections now in the front end of winter, I don’t relish the thought of...

I am very confident, Mr. Speaker, that what we will find out through the investigation here will only benefit workers from Nunavut.

The Minister does make a very valid point in that we do have a hard-won agreement with our sister territory, Nunavut, to share the resources and the responsibilities of running this WCB that we can share. I think that is a good arrangement. He also made the point that when we proceed on legislation, we have to be careful to proceed in tandem so that both territories can accommodate the legislative process and the changes that we see as required. But, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The initiative that I have proposed, and my colleague from Nunakput is seconding, is not a small or a lightly undertaken initiative. The function of the WCB is one that is essential to the success and the stability of our workers and our workforce in virtually every endeavour here in the NWT, in our communities, in our governments, in our small businesses and big businesses too. Mr. Speaker, over my time here as a Member of this Legislative Assembly, I have had frequent traffic with a number of workers who have come to me with what really is a common story of in some...

Mr. Speaker, the on-line chat sites and dialogues that go on serve a certain purpose. I am wondering, in light of the fact that His Excellency Mr. Cellucci is, I understand, soon going to be retiring as the ambassador to Canada, we will have a new American ambassador. Would the Premier consider being among the first in Canada to extend an invitation for the new American ambassador to visit the Northwest Territories in person? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Premier’s inclusion of a number of areas of international concern and interest that we share. I wanted to ask the Premier if he would undertake to create a dialogue that we could have directly, as people of the Northwest Territories, with the American people and their officials on these significant associations. Certainly I would put caribou, missile defence and, in the not-too-distant future, Mr. Speaker, what will be a contentious issue; that of fresh water. Can the Premier help us get together with the Americans and talk about these issues?...