Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may, just to conclude that discussion; I appreciate this opportunity. Obviously, that is exactly the concern. It is a very well designed process to be totally non-transparent and try and reduce the communications and transparency. I am glad to hear the work the Minister is doing on this with the municipalities. I hope he will take these concerns to those meetings. I hope he also expresses concern about the lack of transparency, such as not being able to talk to our sister territories because of concerns about confidentiality. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that this page also falls under the offices of the summary on page 13-17. I am looking for your guidance here. If necessary, since this deals with the same thing, if it is simply details of the energy management I would introduce the same motion if the Chair felt it was necessary. Otherwise, I am happy to roll forward. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, thanks to the deputy minister for that explanation. I am just trying to get my finger on the pulse here. Were these dollars not available for work last year and in the past several years? Is this a new level of work being planned? I am just wondering. It seems like if we had staff, we should have been funding them. I am wondering where this is in the context of the last few years. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s response there. Again, I hope that at some point in time there will be somebody who could turn their attention to that a little bit and see if we can’t be a little better to our people in terms of getting them to drink milk and not expect higher costs. I still think that’s an interest of the House.

On the other hand, I really do support the moving into the e-waste side. I’ll just note we now have an accumulated surplus, apparently, of $1.2 million in this area, so it’s not a question of affordability, which I think was one of the aspects that the Minister had raised...

Excellent. Thank you for that comment. What is the situation with Nunavut? Does the Minister know what Nunavut’s stance is on this Free Trade Agreement? Thank you.

At this time I would like to recognize constituents in the gallery. I’ve got Ms. Katrina Deneron out of Trout Lake, who won the safety poster contest, as well as Ms. Bertha Deneron with her, her sister Faith Deneron, and Bernice Hardisty, who was the organizer from Health and Social Services, Fort Simpson. Mahsi cho.

That’s all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

That’s fine, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that information.

Mr. Chair, thanks for that confirmation. Thanks for the Minister’s assurances there on protection of local businesses in the Northwest Territories.

The other one we know is that the Minister is spending time in Ottawa with the federal government and other provincial-territorial governments negotiating the European and Free Trade Agreement, so-called free trade. There is no such thing but that is what they seem to call it, and negotiating on behalf of our municipalities because, in this particular so-called Free Trade Agreement, corporations are always digging to get access further and further...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I seem to detect a shifting of responsibility onto communities and a possible shrinking from responsibilities at the territorial level. I hope that’s not true. Does the Minister agree that this is indeed partly a community problem, but that the territorial government has a real responsibility to be in place providing programs on this issue? Mahsi.