Bob Bromley
Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for that response. There’s also the tragic side to this, obviously, as the power outage may have been directly related to a serious workplace incident at the airport. I offer my sympathies to the family of the injured man in hopes of his recovery and I know we all do. There have also been road accidents that could have been more serious. This government needs to strenuously state to the Department of National Defence that safety comes first and exercise objectives come second. Should be obvious but maybe it isn’t. Will the Minister take that on?
I appreciate that answer. We need to know the total bill resulting from this incident. Will the Minister document these new costs, including replacement of materials, generating fuel, staff time, additional equipment charges, travel, charter, and so on – everything, basically – and report this total cost to the Assembly?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for that response from the Minister. There are two main keys to achieving a reduction of greenhouse gas output and both of them also provide many opportunities for economic development reducing cost of living and so on. One is getting this government and our communities off carbon-intensive fuels and onto renewables. Another is requiring all future major industrial development to achieve carbon neutrality as a condition of approval. When will the Minister table a plan for achieving these crucial objectives?
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Will the Speaker request the Minister to respond to my questions, to answer my questions?
I guess we have a new protocol here. The Minister is asking me questions. I’m happy to take some time to answer those questions, as long as the Speaker will allow me. The first thing I would do is I would immediately get rid of the policy that says that we will allow our emissions to increase 100 percent by 2020 from some much earlier level when we were much lower when we know, and the Minister agrees, that the science says we need a 25 to 40 percent reduction in emissions by that time. It’s behaviour such as this government…
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize Carolyn and wish her a Happy Valentine’s Day.
I’d also like to recognize my constituency assistant, the hardworking Mr. Craig Yeo, whose birthday is actually today. A proud member of Weledeh.
That concludes my comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I’m not as excitable, perhaps, as my colleague Ms. Bisaro, I still do have my standards and I’d like to start by asking the Minister, who withdrew his remarks specifically for Ms. Bisaro alone, in relation to his statement that if I was, if this was Yellowknife I’d be supportive in putting a motion of non-support, which I have not expressed. My expression has been non-support of this $2.5 million for this year specifically, for this project. I’d happily look for a good way to spend those dollars, in my mind. If he’d care to broaden his withdrawal of the...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Repetition, they say, is good, so you will hear some repetition to my remarks. I did keep my remarks brief in general comments on purpose, so I will lay out some of my concerns.
I think there have been a lot of good points made and the fundamental one doesn’t seem to be getting through, and that is, of course, the process and the unrealistic timing that’s available at this very late stage of the game, six weeks today before the end of the fiscal year to mount this piece of work during what I suspect is the warmest winter on record and will present all kinds of challenges...
Thank you. Pretty much in line with the comments we’ve heard to date, Madam Chair, or to this moment. So I’ll just say that certainly the big item here, the Inuvik-Tuk highway proposed expenditure of $2.5 million, the big thing for me here is process. Although I have other fundamental concerns, which I’ll get into in the detail, this is clearly fundamental work that needs to be done, and we must have known about it for some time now and to be brought forward at the last minute and expect it to take priority when we have, in our current fiscal situation, so many priorities that are already...