Bob Bromley

Thank you. I appreciate the comments from the Minister. I’m simply responding to what’s in here and I’m also of the opinion that those are parallel processes. We could, you know, wait until the cows come home and do things one after the other and take forever to get this going, but I think there’s a desire to get it going quickly and effectively. So I hope we can have that discussion in parallel.

Would the Minister agree that certainly there are corporations that are typically taxed in a number of ways and that in fact a resource tax could be designed to tax the excess profit? So in other words...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the comments of the Premier. Premier, and I crystallize what I hope I made clear yesterday, it’s the frontend thinking that hasn’t been done. We’ve jumped right into this project instead of thinking about what we really need to do in the long term. The GNWT is a majority shareholder of the NWT hydro and Energy corporations and yet based on the response to earlier questions from last fall, the GNWT has never issued specific direction to guide NWT hydro corporation operations and hasn’t given specific direction to the NTPC since 2002. Can the Premier explain...

Thank you. Last week we read that the Power Corporation chair dismissed this government’s aspirations to attract Avalon Minerals secondary processing with a competitive NWT electricity source, such as the Taltson. The Premier promised that the corporation would eat those words, but it’s clear to see this corporation thinks it’s a law unto itself. Will this Minister direct that the Energy Corporation’s chair appear before standing committee to report on his strategic plan? Thank you.

Our executive must make a much greater commitment to the principles and practice of consensus government. I spend too much time calling this government to task for its habits of unilateral action, as we all do, and then trying to clean up the mess later. Work with us and we will work with you. It can’t, it obviously doesn’t, work any other way.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my constituent departing from the gallery, Dr. Beverly Wilson. I’d also like to recognize the board members that are there from the Centre for Northern Families: Brea Denning, Jessica Mace and Arlene Hache and possibly the youngest member I have seen in our gallery so far. Also, I’d like to recognize Craig Yeo, my constituency assistant. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Very briefly, I’m in total support of this motion. Adult diagnosis is a gap we’ve overlooked and are seeking, through the good work of my colleagues here, to fill. We’re missing an opportunity to help people in many ways that, really, we are responsible for as a government.

This is a huge issue for the Northwest Territories. We learned during our visit to Alberta, the ministry down there, that there are great strides being made in assessment and working with the people with FASD, and particularly with adults, new research going on there. So with proper diagnosis...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s Nutrition Month and I think it’s a good idea to piggyback a boost to nutrition onto a great new green initiative and I want to start by saying I really appreciate adding milk containers to the Waste Reduction Program. It’s something that’s been called for by our public and this is good of the government to respond.

The unintended side effect, though, Mr. Speaker, is to tax nutrition and that is one unintended result, because there is a price spread between the amount of deposits paid on milk containers and the amount refunded. Milk or equivalent...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure it will be profitable to our partners. What I’m talking about is public interest. So, yes, I would like the Premier to commit to a re-examination of the more costly alternatives, but the one that actually goes forward with the public interest addresses multiple goals rather than services a single provider that we hope is going to be there long enough to help pay for the system and put it around the west side where we know there are permanent customers waiting to use that power in a responsible way over the long haul. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is still no real plan in place and what have we got to show for the work that’s been done so far? The Hydro Corporation has promised feasibility, analysis and design for a potential electrical grid. Where is that? What is the status of its development? Why is this majority shareholder permitting its corporation to concoct multimillion dollar schemes without a business plan for the development of our electrical system?

So, Mr. Speaker, we’ve talked about hydro strategies and so on, but we have never seen any work come forward. When we have asked questions, it’s been written off out of hand...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do not need another Deh Cho Bridge financial boondoggle, yet we have already sunk more than $13 million in public money into the Taltson Hydro Project. I want to know how the public interest is being represented in the controversial and ephemeral proposed routing of the Taltson hydro transmission line to serve a single customer goal: the diamond mines. Where is the strategic thinking?

Restricting a transmission line to the east side of the lake may serve our project partners in their search for returns, but I don’t see a serious consideration of public...