Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is – really I don’t know if this belongs in this section or division or not – the Premier mentioned, in his opening remarks, coordinating the activities of the Intergovernmental Council on Land and Resource Management as part of the rationale for the increased budget.

I guess, to start off, would it be appropriate to ask questions here on that subject within this section or division? Is that the right division for this?

We have roughly 10,000 households in the Northwest Territories and at least 4,000 GNWT employees at any one time given our 10 percent vacancy. This means that potentially almost 40 percent of households could include a person directly employed by GNWT.

Would the Premier agree that GNWT employees and their families make up a significant portion of informed citizens of the NWT?

Thanks for that explanation. That was my impression, and I was perplexed as to why I wasn’t seeing that drop here, and I wonder whether I’ll see an increase in Finance or whether they will just assume that it’s always been there as well. As long as we have some clarity at some point here on the shifts that are happening, but perhaps that’s a Department of Finance question. That’s all I had.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to follow up from my earlier questions with the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I understand there is a report coming out on the cost-effectiveness of our respective program for greenhouse gas reductions. The Minister has obviously got the results as a result of the analysis he did in response to my questions.

What sort of contemplations are in place, are happening towards now responding to that information we have so that we can increase our cost-effectiveness on the basis of these analyses? Thank you.

I don’t know whether it’s in your purview to direct a Minister to answer a question, but that certainly did not answer the question.

The Diavik Diamond Mine has done some great work in reducing their emissions by installing wind turbines up at their mine site and they deserve full credit for this. Yet, in his response, the Minister claims the emission reductions from the Diavik wind program go to GNWT.

Did the Minister get permission from Diavik to claim credits – and these are very valuable credits – for their actions? Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before Christmas I asked the Minister of Environment a written question on the cost-effectiveness of the various initiatives his department is funding as part of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy. At the time, I got the impression that the Minister was surprised by the question, which was not my intent. So I wanted to check, was the Minister surprised to be asked about the cost-effectiveness of his department’s greenhouse gas reduction initiatives? Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. The other side of that was, do we know where we fit in the larger scale looking at other jurisdictions?

Thanks for that, Madam Speaker. Again the Minister didn’t answer my question. There’s a whole toolbox out there of regulatory and legislative means that actually present systemic solutions to the greenhouse gas reduction challenge.

Does the Minister agree and is he willing to look into that toolbox to see what might be apt to flow in the Northwest Territories, and that would go beyond our very specific programs that we have in place to replace this boiler and building with that boiler? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. Will the Minister also be incorporating into that some other ways of urging this to happen in a systemic way? Right now we have lots of one-off actions where we’ll replace a boiler here or subsidize somebody to do something, but we obviously need systemic actions that work across the public and private and government sector.

Will the Minister be considering some new initiatives there that, rather than nickel and diming here, actually goes towards the degree of action that we need? Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thanks to the Minister. If I had wanted the private emissions reductions cost efficiency, which I suspect would be a lot higher than GNWT, then I would have asked of that, but in fact, I asked for the government data.

I want to be sure that I do not surprise any other Ministers when I ask about the cost-effectiveness of their greenhouse gas reducing initiatives. We need to be sure that we are getting the best bang for the rare dollar that is allocated to this programming.

Will the Minister commit to working with his colleagues in ITI, Public Works and Services...