Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize several constituents today. I’m very pleased to see Miranda Currie in the House. I will be chatting about Miranda later and recognizing her again. Also Jacob Kass is here, and on the other side of Miranda there is my CA, Craig Yeo.
Also in the House today we have David Connelly, a resident of Weledeh. I’d also like to welcome the Avalon team. Avalon is very involved in the Weledeh riding.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Do we know yet what proportion of that will be recovered? I’m assuming that the total in Nahanni Butte now is the $1.964 million, if I’m reading that right, which usually I’m not. If I can get confirmation on what the total is, recognizing that we’re dealing here with the $349,000, and maybe get some sense about if we any idea on what we will be recovering…
I just want to say that I think this is a responsibility of the government, and particularly in this situation where the Northwest Territories split in half – half of ourselves became Nunavut – I think there’s a real responsibility to look after artifacts until such time as Nunavut is able to take that on. I appreciate the work that’s been done to secure that million dollars and help us with that responsibility.
Thank you for that explanation there. Returning to my original question, the first point and the last point show that due to increasing costs, which are accruing as electricity bills, these new costs are accruing because we are no longer subsidizing. As each year goes by we spend less money subsidizing, and what happens is it disappears from the obvious expenditure and becomes part of our utility costs. My question is: What proportion of the millions that we’re now spending to subsidize beyond the annual Territorial Power Subsidy Program to help with electricity costs are we absorbing into...
I appreciate the Minister’s comments there. I just would observe that many of the recommendations were of a systemic nature and totally in line with the prevention side the Minister had mentioned. I hope the Minister will take account for that and put some of his effort into implementation.
I guess maybe we can take this up another time because it does get complicated, but let me ask, what is our access for Canada’s disaster relief here. I see that referred to in the material in helping recover costs, these costs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments were actually made to me, so I would accept the Minister’s apology too.
Just on the fibre optic line, if I can pick up where we left off there. Obviously it doesn’t need a road. If this project goes ahead, it will obviously soak up a lot of infrastructure dollars for, as we know, very little economic gain. I believe the 400 seasonal jobs for each of five years and, according to the economic study done by the department, 42 long-term jobs over 45 years. I don’t know if the tenure might be a long-term job. I’m not sure of the definition there.
With the loss...
I think obviously we have been throwing a lot of money out on this project into last minute year-end activities on good faith, and obviously we haven’t had the questions that resolved or that they were meant to resolve. Is the intent to keep nickel and diming here, or is this essentially part of a go/no go decision that we’re discussing? Thank you.
I appreciate that additional information. This is a zone of a lot of thaw slumping. Is this area flat? Is it, fortunately, flat, or is it a bit rough that we’re going through and what’s the susceptibility to the thaw slumping?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just literally a few minutes ago, this House was resounding with the news of devolution. I would like to offer my congratulations to the Premier and his staff, our government and previous governments that have led to this devolution deal as well as, of course, Aboriginal leaders.
It’s great to see that all of the Aboriginal governments with settled land claims are at the table. We will apparently have considerable new authority with this devolution deal, but I also noticed, as I’m sure others did, that there were some binders on the words that we heard earlier today, one...