Bob Bromley

I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order and we have before us Tabled Document 4-16(5), Executive Summary of the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project. What is the wish of the committee? Mrs. Groenewegen.

I guess the word should be put out that if you’re not president of an association, don’t bother contacting the Minister on an opportunity for input

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Last year when the Minister was directed to go back to the drawing board on supp health, she promised to go back to the beginning and carry out consultations with no preconceptions such as a means test. Yet at her departmental community meetings, Mr. Dana Heide said he was directed to base the proposals on an income threshold model. Can the Minister explain how this could be a fulfilment of her promise, please?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are so many places to start here. I want to follow up on my colleagues’ questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to start with the last theme there. Groups and many of my constituents were opposed to the supplementary health benefits proposal. They’ve raised the issue of whether the changes will pass the test of a human rights complaint. The changes being proposed are unwise, in my mind, but implementation and administrative costs and the lost service to the sick would be a further waste if we go ahead without legal advice when indeed it...

Mr. Speaker, we must prove our talk with action on a fundamental shift to affordable, sustainable energy that protects us from world markets, with clear targets to cut carbon emissions. We must shift focus to support local and lasting business opportunities, especially biomass. Our greatest efforts must focus on meeting our citizens’ most basic needs. Cutting living and energy costs, sustaining our health programs and educating our next generation of citizens are our obvious greatest priorities.

As we turn now to the business of implementing policy and legislation that is good and responsive to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will reluctantly be supporting this supplementary appropriation bill. It’s really more expensive not to proceed with this than to proceed, which is a sad state of affairs. This situation speaks to some serious management questions that beg for investigation and for some attention to make sure that any corrections that are needed are realized. I think the political decisions that got us into this situation also require further investigation and an objective look, again with an eye to plugging any process gaps that exist, and we know they do.

Clearly, there...

I’d say one assumption that I think would be worthy of some probing is the assumption that, well, OVRL notes, Imperial Oil notes that natural gas production from shale gas in both Canada and the U.S. is going up. Of course, that’s what has depressed gas prices now. I think that’s a well-established fact. Yet they say that these economic conditions will still be favourable for the project. I would think that would be an obvious one to pursue.

Sort of fundamental to this is there was nothing confidential required to consider this question. Why did the government not come to the Regular MLAs and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of ITI and I want to refer to a couple of tabled documents from yesterday, a letter from Imperial Oil updating their economic feasibility to the Mackenzie Gas Project, a letter from Lawson Lundell in which the GNWT declines the opportunity to cross-examine Imperial Oil’s witness at a couple of hearings along with the rest of the public. The economic feasibility update notes that the start-up for the MGP would be 2018 at the earliest, about nine years from now. I am wondering why the government has decided not to participate in that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to speak yet again on the issue of developing new policies on supplementary health coverage in the NWT. I support the intent to begin delivering coverage to all people of the North. Unfortunately, I still do not know how many new people this involves or what the estimated costs are.

I support concerns raised about how the department is proceeding. First -- and on a point that is repeatedly being raised by public client groups, individuals, families, constituents, and committee -- is the expected expedited time frame that the Minister is insisting upon. We have an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won’t bother correcting the Minister again on the number of interveners we have. Given that 2018 is the earliest we can envision an operating pipeline and given the ridiculous degree to which this government has hitched its star to this project, what plan is there to proceed with economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable economic development that will benefit our people in the meantime?

That’s an interesting and complicated response. I’d like to explore that a little further, but I’m wondering if it does not serve us to examine the assumptions that are being made on the largest infrastructure project ever conceived for the Northwest Territories and become informed and probe those as this side of the House does for any assumptions that the government comes up with in order to be responsible to our public and to be able to make informed opinions. Obviously the timing of this, there are convolutions to it that are difficult to discuss in this format. I’m wondering how we will...