Bob Bromley

Thanks for the Minister’s remarks there. Nunavut has obviously been very successful in developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy thanks to their approach of community participation. One big lesson was that community events such as the community-based review of a draft plan must be carried out with the support of locally hired conveners.

As plans are put in place to create the draft strategy and take it out for community review and NGO review, will the Minister assure us that wherever possible community members will be hired to help carry out the community participation?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the lead Minister on the Anti-Poverty Strategy, Mr. Abernethy, and I want to note that there are good things happening on the Anti-Poverty Strategy development. I’m told by my people, constituents and acquaintances, that good collaborative basis has been established in carrying the work forward. I’m also encouraged that there’s at least one roundtable, maybe a couple established to get together and discuss this as it develops.

The one thing that I am concerned about is that there is an inexplicable attachment to a December 2012 deadline. A...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as the fragile global economy goes, as the Minister has said, the record export of the valuation of diamonds last year, this is after the 2008 downturn, the financial, the fiscal reasons for that have not changed at all, as we know from JP Morgan and so on. It’s not a matter of fragility. It’s a matter of governments not taking their responsibility seriously. So my last question is: Again, given these resources, will the resource developments that we’re getting and evaluations, will the Minister commit to doing a complete resource rent review for the Northwest...

Thanks for the comments. That’s a very long-term prospect, obviously, the Heritage Fund, and I see absolutely no commitment in this budget for putting money in that, despite the fact that it’s there, and as the Minister said, the valuation of diamond export last year was a near record. Gold prices are at the highest they’ve ever been by a great deal, hundreds of percent. So I’m wondering, rather than wait, given our revenues in addition to that, our revenues are up $132 million this year, would the Minister commit to starting to capture some of that value right now, recognizing the lack of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize some constituents: Kyla Kakfwi-Scott, if she’s still up there, and is that her sister up there? Yup.

---Laughter

I’d also like to recognize Christine Windman of Weledeh and, of course, Lydia Bardak, city councillor. I don’t know if Mr. Whitford is still up there. Is he? Mr. Tony Whitford – everybody knows Tony – and any other members of the Weledeh riding that I might not be able to see here, given my eyes are getting old, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A review of resource rents is something that’s undertaken by many jurisdictions on a regular basis. There are lots of examples out there. My point is that we are not capturing an appropriate value from the non-renewable resources that we’re exporting from the NWT. We are talking about devolution and we are not acting as a responsible government already. With devolution, are we going to do that? I’d say the best way to start taking this more seriously is to develop a thorough review of how do we capture value from our resource development, what are the rates elsewhere –...

I do disagree with the Minister on that. If we waited until we don’t have debt to put money in the Heritage Fund, it’s never going to happen. This government has made decisions on tens, I would even say hundreds of millions of dollars in this budget, so that’s not an acceptable response. But I’d like to ask, is the Minister looking at any other sources of revenue or potential sources of revenue that we might be able to develop and at least start getting that in place late this year or next year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on the Finance Minister’s budget address earlier today, if I could, just with some general level questions. I know we’ll be getting into details here and I want to specifically target in on the revenue section. I have to say I wasn’t impressed with the revenue section. Obviously, it was 10 lines long and so not a lot of detail there.

I am pleased to see that our revenues are up $132 million, but there was mention of a Stabilization Fund and I was wondering if there’s any early thinking yet about how such a fund would work. I have no background in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Arctic Energy Alliance has announced the winners of this year’s Energy Action Awards. As we turn our attention this session to the ballooning cost of energy, I want to salute the accomplishments of our citizens and businesses who are showing us the way to a more secure energy future.

Doug Whiteman of Norman Wells won the Individual Energy Action Award. Starting with a biomass pellet space heater, Mr. Whiteman then converted this home to forced air pellet heating. His annual heating costs dropped 40 percent, paying off the cost of purchase and installation in less...

  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d say, to start off with, I’d like the Minister to remember his words about it’s a question of choices as he hears the repeated mention of common issues from this side of the House, and in that respect I have to say I’m very disappointed not to see any response in this budget from a massive amount of input that Members have had massive amount of work that both the Cabinet and the Regular Members had done in reviewing the draft budget and so on.

At the same time I do recognize that in post-election it’s a very different time frame, so I’m anticipating that the...