Bob Bromley

I’m glad to hear there’s a coordinator being supplied. I wasn’t sure I heard a figure on the dollars that are being supplied. One of the major issues is the overlap with the Tlicho Agreement. I’m wondering how this has been handled and how it’s being handled in a final sense until such time as the Yellowknives Dene complete their land claim agreement, given that the Tlicho have already finished theirs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The agreement reached between the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and the GNWT for the management and preservation of the Bathurst caribou herd is momentous. We’ve come a long way since last year when confrontation, emergency, shock, and perhaps even fear were the words most associated with the Bathurst caribou management. Today the words are partnership, commitment and respect between government and aboriginal partners like the YKDFN.

The agreement provides a two-year interim management regime featuring joint harvesting monitoring, shared population monitoring that...

I appreciate that. This is a public process, but we need lots of public processes on this, as I mentioned. There’s a highly traumatized public awaiting some relief here.

In terms of next steps, I think this decision and this work between Cabinet and this side of the House is an additional step towards resolving some of these issues. We have made some agreement on the principles that are detailed in the report and this is important progress. But it’s not a simple measure. Even our next actions still require, as the Minister has profiled and this side of the House has profiled, some back and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Mr. Murray McMahon, who has a home out at Cassidy Point and spends a lot of time in the Weledeh riding. Thank you.

My second question is: Is there a destination determined yet for this equipment?

I recognize that we’re dealing with a real specific here, but in asking for approval of specifics, of course, we need to do that within the context of the larger questions. I appreciate the Minister’s commitments here. I guess I would like to point out that committee has been promised a number of times for a human resources plan in association with this transfer back, and yet here we are approving something without this plan in hand so that we can have the important context with which to approve or deny these expenditures. I will leave it at that and just ask that the Minister does pursue this...

That helps the explanation. So will there be feedback, then, to retailers of goods and services that indicates the government’s perspectives based on those price surveys?

I move that consideration of Tabled Document 98-16(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 2009-2010, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 98-16(5) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This section deals with the increased costs incurred by the Department of Human Resources to address the backlog and that has been a long-standing concern of the House. I’m wondering where are we at in addressing the backlog in the Department of Human Resources and can we anticipate further costs and further our actions in place to prevent a similar huge backlog accumulating again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the mover of the motion, I will offer remarks on the need to make this call on the federal government for preservation of the full, long-form census data collection.

Accurate, reliable and detailed data is essential to this government’s ability to develop policies and programs and, very importantly, to evaluate whether our programs are having the best results. Long-form data is essential to the continuing improvement of our services. The information obtained through the long-form census is essential to the well-being of our citizens.

As the motion points out, the...