Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Later today I will be tabling information on the gap in household incomes in the Northwest Territories. The information is startling. It shows that the average annual household income of the bottom 20 percent of NWT earners is just $16,000, with the highest 20 percent of earners’ annual household income is $206,000. That is a gap of $189,000, the highest spread between wealthy and poor in all of Canada. The wealthiest 20 percent of NWT families make 13 times as much a year as the poorest 20 percent of families, on average. The disparity is growing.

Recent reports from...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the motion before us today. I want to start by just noting that a revved up and healthy economy does not equate directly to reducing poverty unless there is a clear strategy in place to ensure that benefits and opportunities trickle through to all people that need it. Again, we can have a revved up economy, we have had a revved up economy, and yet we are still struggling with these issues.

We are looking today for a clear commitment to put together a strategy to address that. The income gap is growing. The disparity is growing steadily and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to present a petition dealing with the matter of creating an Anti-Poverty Strategy for the Northwest Territories.

The petition contains 309 signatures of Northwest Territories residents. The petitioners request that the Government of the Northwest Territories get to work immediately on creating an Anti-Poverty Strategy for the Northwest Territories and that the government work collaboratively with community groups, labour, business and others who want to eliminate poverty in the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.

Again, I appreciate the response from the Minister. Obviously the motion and the discussions – I think this was brought up in our motion on Bill C-10 as well – was specifically to deal with the mental health issues. Can the Minister assure me that there will be a focus of the… Obviously I am hoping for broader and other areas of prevention and diversion, but in this particular case I am hoping we can focus on the mental health issues that the Northwest Territories is challenged with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister of Justice. The rate of mental health issues in the Northwest Territories is the highest in Canada. Health and Social Services is in the process of reorganizing our mental health services. A motion in the 16th Assembly calling for a mental health court was overwhelmingly endorsed by front-line, non-government organizations, and Bill C-10, obviously, elevates dramatically the need for prevention and diversion programs to keep people, especially those with mental health issues, out of the costly justice process. What is the Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one brief comment, really. I’m sad to see the wildlife division going the way of other government departments with the high expenditures on IT, and I suspect this is just the beginning. There has been a long tradition of scientists within that division being able to handle their data and I’m afraid now this is the start of a tract that will be costly and go well, into the future, into the millions of dollars. Just a note of sadness, Mr. Chair. I’ll leave it at that.

I had asked specifically what systematic protocols are in place to capture the impacts of climate change on our infrastructure so that we can build our knowledge on that. I understand that we do have research dollars that we haven’t spent for many years that we keep forwarding on to future years, and I’m looking forward to some research eventually being done. I appreciate that information, but right now I’m asking what systematic protocols do we have? We have a lot of workers out there. We have a lot of assessments of our infrastructure, I am sure, that we need to do in order to do maintenance...

I do point out that this government spends tens of millions of dollars on areas that we have no mandate in. In terms of exploiting resources, I’m hoping we would do the same for protecting our citizens.

So my final question to the Minister is: How is it that fracking can happen in the NWT without going through the environmental assessment process? I think that’s a valid question for a government to be asking on behalf of its citizens. Thank you.

This Legislature needs to be informed, but our citizens also need to be prepared to participate effectively in any reviews and assessments. We need that information early on so citizens can digest and debate to be ready for public reviews. Will the Minister commit to getting information materials out to our public, perhaps in partnership with non-government organizations, presenting the variety of views that exist out there so that good debate and wise decisions can be made? Thank you.

I appreciate the comments from the Minister and his deputy minister here. I guess I would like to take the Minister up on that offer and ask if he will commit to bringing this subject to committee with their best efforts. I will urge committee to do our best efforts to come up with ways. There are a number of ways that come to mind immediately. Ultimately, of course, we could purchase offsets so that there is no net increase, but I think we could do a little better.

The Minister mentioned balancing and so on. That is what I am talking about here. If we just allow this to continue to increase, I...