Bob Bromley

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.

Thanks to the Premier. Our Aboriginal partners are talking about a court challenge to Bill C-15. Clearly, we’re not being effective if that’s the case. So, devolution is one thing and, again, what we’re talking about here are amendments to the MVRMA which the federal government has included in Bill C-15. I’m sure the Premier agrees that this will bring uncertainty to the future of devolution, this legal action in the courts itself, as well to future mineral extraction applications.

Is there anything we, with our newly developed authority, can do to alleviate the concerns of our regional...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions to the Premier today. I would like to start by noting that Bill C-15 is making its way through Parliament in Ottawa. Our Member of Parliament is working hard, but without our support he is having a hard time convincing the federal government to separate the changes to the MVRMA from the devolution part of the bill.

I’m sure the Premier has had some time to think about this. What steps does he propose that he could take to limit the damage that will be done by forcing the closure of the regional boards...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier again. I don’t question the right of the federal government to do their legislation, but our Aboriginal partners, the mass are speaking against this. So what I’m talking about here is mitigating the impacts of this. It’s going to happen. The Devolution Agreement commits us to stick with the MVRMA for at least five years, but the current federal government only has a mandate until 2015.

Will the Premier show some leadership and begin working with our partners on a strategy for re-establishing regional boards when a new federal government is in place...

Thanks to the Premier. The Premier has done a very good job of getting our Aboriginal groups to the table with devolution but, of course, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about amendments to the MVRMA and they’re speaking with one voice and the Premier has been silent on this.

Again, I mentioned the idea of meeting with our Aboriginal partners to discuss what can be done on this specific issue to get that regional voice in there, which has been silenced and not supported by our Premier so far.

Has the Premier had any discussions with our Aboriginal partners on how we can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, I attended the only northern public hearing on Bill C-15 here in Yellowknife. Bill C-15 implements our devolution deal with Canada, but it also includes big changes to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. All our Aboriginal government partners and public interest groups said the same thing, “The changes to the MVRMA have nothing to do with devolution so remove them from this bill.” They also said, “Do not collapse the regional land and water boards into one super-board.” But not our Premier, who seemingly accepts losing our voice as an acceptable cost...