Bill Braden

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Honourable Brendan Bell, the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and the caretaker of our environment. Mr. Speaker, as I referred in my statement, we are engaged in two processes regarding the cleanup of the two mines in Yellowknife. Both of them are underway under quite different circumstances. I would ask my first question, Mr. Speaker, in relation to the Giant Mine situation and what I understand to be a jurisdictional dispute between ourselves and the federal government over who has responsibility and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll pick up where I left off a few minutes ago, and that was to explore the negotiation that we undertook with CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. Minister McLeod assures us that his officials negotiated aggressively and we got the best deal, but that doesn't answer my question. How do we know we've got a deal that's at least comparative with other similar sized airports? Have you done the analysis? Have you got the comparisons to show that Yellowknife is at least being treated on an equitable basis for the investment that we're going to get in...

Mr. Chairman, this sounds good. How much then is actually being spent for the detection system in billing requirements itself and then how much for these additional up-fits, I think is the word of the day? Thank you.

Okay, so $11.2 million. I'm just doing the math on the fly here, Mr. Chairman. We're going to get $6.6 million from the travelling public, we've been asked to approve $3.4 million, that makes $10 million. Where's the other $1.2 million coming from? Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Dent have covered some of the ground on this project. I should state from the outset that I, too, have some big concerns about this. On one hand, I appreciate the need to be part of a secure and responsible screening and security network of Canada, and the government and the travelling public in the Northwest Territories should accept some of the inconvenience and the cost of doing so. However, the scope of this project and the urgency in which it is being implemented speaks to some shortcomings in our system. I'd like to start with just getting...

Mr. Speaker, there was a news account a few weeks ago now, about I believe it was in one of the South Slave communities that a teacher who should have been one of the target tenants had to decline the unit because he found it unaffordable by the time it was installed and in place in that given community. This is the kind of thing that indicates to me that the Housing Corporation perhaps hadn’t done its homework. This is what I’m trying to determine, Mr. Speaker, is that so far we don’t have too much of an indication that the initial part of the program is working. Why should we continue...

Saying no sounds like an easy way about it, but we cannot easily accept this and roll along. I also have some real concerns about the design/build approach, we’re not very good at it, we lost control of the North Slave Correctional Centre through this stage. We have a hospital in Inuvik that is costing an extra $1.8 million more over two years to run the utilities for than anybody could suggest. We’re not very good at these big projects, and I must say that I don’t have a lot of confidence in starting something like this and believing that we are going to get away with $11.2 when we haven’t...

Mr. Speaker, the resources of the Northwest Territories and the value of those resources are leaving our territory at unprecedented and increasing rates as we continue to negotiate. Does the negotiating framework have any trigger mechanisms or ways in which we can force a conclusion in the event that our regular or agreed-to or hoped-for timelines are not met?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can appreciate that and certainly, in general, I support the protection of a mandate when there is a negotiation going on. That will certainly be something that committee can consider is the opportunity or the offer made by the Premier to have a look at this mandate, but I would like to explore it a little bit more. I’m wondering if the Premier could talk a bit about what are the principles that have gone into the mandate. What are the criteria by which the mandate has been set? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to today echo and endorse the comments of my colleague from Range Lake regarding the Workers' Compensation Board of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Indeed to compliment them on hosting the National Youth Conference that's about to get underway, but also to the point of the mandate that the WCB has to assist and look after those workers who, for whatever circumstance, have experienced injury and now have to go through a process of adjusting their life and coping with whatever the conditions that may have resulted from their accident or their workplace...