Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to follow up on my colleague Mr. Ramsay’s discovery that this scour rock was inappropriate and apparently this has been recognized. I’m wondering who put it there and if there is a claim against them. This is the first I’ve heard of it.

I guess while I’m at it, what other things haven’t we heard about in terms of deficiencies? This would be a good time to bring that forward rather than using a crowbar or blunt-handled axe handle to try and get it out of the Ministers. This would be a good time to hear about the things we haven’t heard about it terms of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the risk of repeating some of what I’ve heard, I think for many aspects of this project many Members are on the same wavelength. I can’t believe even our government members here are feeling particularly good about this situation.

I think our first failure, in my mind, was the inability or lack of success at getting the government to determine what it would cost us to buy our way out of this project in the early days of the Assembly, as many of us explicitly and repeatedly requested. Nevertheless, we didn’t do that. We went forward and sure enough we’re where many...

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Premier appreciates or is a little more to it than he inferred in his first response there. I think there is a huge implication of carrying this much debt through messing up as we have done.

I have heard the government say, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to service this debt no problem, with less than 1 percent of our revenues and so on. Does that mean that we are going to continue to pay this debt down that we are now carrying on our books at this low rate so that we are going to be carrying the debt for 35 years as we slowly pay it down and be restricted in what we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS Tabled Document 4-16(5) has been tabled in this House;

AND WHEREAS the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project requires detailed consideration;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that Tabled Document 4-16(5), Executive Summary of the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project, be referred to Committee of the Whole for consideration.

Thank you again to the Minister for those comments. I think there has been interest, as the Minister has reflected, and my interest here is really how can we start to fill this fund up. So I appreciate his discussion.

The Minister goes on in the report to suggest that there’s possible consideration for the introduction of other taxes. To me, I can think of a capital tax as a possibility there. I’m just wondering if the Minister had any other things in mind or his advisors had provided ideas on what those other taxes might be. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance and are in relation to the recently released public consultation paper on an NWT Heritage Fund. I want to start by saying it’s really great to see this out. It’s something Members of this House have been pushing for and I’m happy to see it finally happening.

One of the things we’re dealing with is with exceptionally low royalty rates in the Northwest Territories. Our resources are tending to leave faster and faster and our diamond mines are a good example of that. So how can we collect revenue to fill up a Heritage Fund? The...

Thank you. Another bit of misconfusion or misinformation that the Premier said yesterday I’d like to get cleared up, and according to unedited Hansard he said the thinking on this is “the thinking about building capacity with our aboriginal partners across the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, the Member doesn’t put more weight and bearing on that piece of it.” I want to assure the Premier that’s not the case. In fact, Deze Energy could just as easily partner in a west-side grid project. The fact is that Deze Energy and this government will develop nothing if this project degenerates in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my statement and questions to the Premier through you yesterday on the Taltson Hydro routing and east side versus west side. Yesterday the Premier noted that we needed a client to sell power to and that’s why we went the east side. This sounds odd to me, because does the Premier not think that Avalon secondary processing at Avalon Mine, Tyhee Mine, Nico Mine, Yellowknife, Behchoko and expanded growth from a connected Taltson and Snare Hydro grids are not much better long-term and permanent clients for that power? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s the end of our longest annual session and we’ve debated many critical issues facing our citizens today. Now it’s time for action. I want to briefly restate my priorities on how we need to act.

The Mackenzie Gas Project can only be supported if it is made to provide sustainable social and economic benefits to NWT residents and mitigation of its social and environmental impacts. We need the input of all MLAs in developing a response to the JRP report and I am calling on the government to honour the principles of consensus government by obtaining full Assembly and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that response. I didn’t have anything specific in mind. It was a wide open question.

Finally, I know there is a lot of interest in this and I assume that the Minister will have some sort of consultation strategy laid out. Is the Minister meeting with groups or is that an open invitation to meet with groups and what is the best way the public can participate in this discussion?