Bob Bromley

I will leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the Minister’s comments and commitments there. I appreciate that. I agree; there are some exciting opportunities coming up with the Stanton building and so on.

I guess maybe just to confirm, I believe I heard the Minister say he was committing to meet with the Detah District Education Authority about the possibility of a new school and the process that will be required to achieve that. So if I can just get confirmation that he will be setting up that meeting, and if it’s possible to do that during the life of this Assembly by October 23rd, that would be great. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I welcome the Minister and his staff. I appreciate this opportunity. I think I support many of the comments I heard from my colleague Ms. Bisaro. I’m happy to see some of the work going on in our schools in the smaller communities, Lutselk’e certainly and some of the others that have been mentioned already. I am very glad to see the sewer line finally being fixed at Sir John Franklin. That’s something that’s been there for years and I know has been an issue.

Again, I appreciate the Minister putting forward some planning money for a couple of Yellowknife schools that are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I’ve heard the expression that work is going on. I have been asking, what work? But given that there is work going on and I’ve heard the Minister on the radio about the situation in Nunavut relative to harvesting and even commercial harvesting, given all these things, what does the Minister see, given our current, recent and continuing declines? What are the current priority management actions that are required and when will we be putting these into place to ensure the return of these critical populations? Mahsi.

I appreciate the response. I didn’t hear, really, whether the Minister feels the hunting restriction has had a measurable effect, but one area that has been suggested and the Minister mentioned as a stressor on the caribou population is industrial development.

I am wondering what research is government doing into the effect of the impact of increased industrial development on the caribou and what actions are being undertaken to ensure the recovery with respect to those factors. Mahsi.

The policy gap has been identified, the cost calculated to be minimal, while the positive effects on those in need can be huge. I urge the Minister of Health and Social Services to find 20 or 30 K in his annual budget of over $300 million to address this developmental necessity. Dealing with issues identified in early childhood must be a priority, and providing hearing aids for all of the children in need of them is certainly one that we can and must achieve. I say to the Minister, get this shameful gap filled now within the life of this Assembly. Mahsi.

I know Minister was out earlier today, I believe, or perhaps that’s coming up that he’s doing a presentation at the school. So I’m hoping he will have an opportunity to look directly at the school himself. I know he’s familiar with it.

I guess I would ask when we might expect to see some of those things happen that are under discussion and if the Minister will commit to getting a new school on the capital plan for Detah. Partly the situation is that without having a proper facility there, parents are having to bus their children into Yellowknife. As an example, I met, at a constituency meeting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table a copy of the resolutions adopted at the 148th annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association this fall, including Resolution 49, Recognizing the Health Benefits of a Strong Predictable Price on Carbon Emissions; Resolution 82, Committing the Canadian Medical Association to Divesting Itself of Investments in Fossil Fuels; and Resolution 83, Calling on the Canadian Medical Association to Explore Investments in Renewable Energy Solutions.

…(inaudible)…what is this government doing on its own or with its partners to address or at least understand these factors so we can then address them? What research has been or is being done by this government or our partners on the role that our changing climate is playing in the decline of our caribou herds? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for Minister Miltenberger and it’s about caribou. Recent ENR surveys indicate that most caribou populations in the Northwest Territories continue to plummet. One vivid comparison states that if the population of the Bathurst herd was compared to the population of Yellowknife, the Yellowknife population would now be smaller than Deline or Fort Resolution. This is disastrous with human and ecological impacts. We know what the numbers are, but what are the causes? We’ve had severe restrictions on harvesting caribou for several years now, with the...