Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s comments again. I certainly hope that the 17th Assembly will be standing firm and be prepared to do that work. However, I understand the Prime Minister will be in town this week to demonstrate his devotion to northern interests and will be meeting with the Premier. Can the Minister assure me that our dismay at any erosion of Environment Canada monitoring programming in the NWT will be brought forcefully to the attention of the Prime Minister?

Thanks for the bad news that the Minister has provided there. It sounds pretty grim. Many of the environmental monitoring functions performed by Environment Canada are referred to as mandated requirements. Meaning if the federal Minister issues a licence or authority with conditions requiring regulatory agencies to monitor compliance, the federal government is legally obligated to provide the resource necessary to carry out the monitoring. This legal compulsion would presumably govern the monitoring requirements arising out of authorities granted for the operation of our mines, the Mackenzie...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure to recognize Chief Edward Sangris of Dettah and chief of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. I’d also welcome Chief Tsetta if he’s here too.

Thank you, committee. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Committee would like to deal with Bill 9 and Committee Report 7-16(6). We have Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank my colleagues for their efforts to bring this motion forward. I did indicate to them during the early discussions some of the difficulties I did have with the motion. Unfortunately, I don’t see changes to reflect that.

I do want to refer to my statement today and my record of speaking out clearly, loudly, consistently, often lonely, on the absolute need to get our Aboriginal partners to the table participating in our Devolution Agreement-in-Principle. This is not a time, really, to be creating new structures. I think of a couple of reasons for that. One...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for the most recent remarks and follow up on his advice and ask the Premier if indeed this issue will be brought forcefully to the Prime Minister’s attention when he has the opportunity to meet with him this week.

I appreciate the Minister’s remarks. The recent Hill Times I think was the 8th of August item quotes a federal spokesman as saying that the department will ensure the department is spending its resources on priorities like improving air quality and cleaner water. Those are nice words. Our Minister of Environment, though modest in stature, clearly throws a big shadow. Will the Minister be holding the federal government to task if their gutting of the department doesn’t live up to this dialogue?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The recent news has been replete with stories detailing federal plans to cut 776 Environment Canada jobs and slash the department’s budget from $1.1 billion to $883 million by 2014. This was preceded by years of declining support for Environment Canada, and Minister Flaherty assures us this is just the beginning of the cuts. I’d like to ask the Minister of the Environment how these cuts will affect Environment Canada’s operations in the Northwest Territories.

I appreciate those comments from the Minister. It’s good to get some of that history. I guess and I suspect others have tried to get a good discussion going on a resource tax during this term and I regard that to mean some research done and some considerations presented to us by Cabinet on what would be involved, what the difficulties are and so on. I’m wondering if the Minister is planning to raise this in the transition document, and resource taxes are just my sort of pet idea, but how is the Minister going to profile this in the transition document of the idea of getting some dollars into...