Bob Bromley

The Building Canada Fund may be a one-time fund, but we know it’s a one-time fund for seven years. We have a pretty clear record of establishing surpluses greater than $19 million over what was estimated every year for the past number of years. This year we’ve surpassed that yet again. So I don’t think these can be categorized as one-time situations. Looking at our estimated revenues last year, it was about $60 million or $70 million less than turned out to be the case. We’re at the same estimate for the Mains this year.

I’d like the Minister to commit to requiring every department to come up with its own plan — and this is on both the climate change and the cost of fuel end of things. As a responsible government, we really need to respond to the cost of fuel as well as the climate change issue, which are closely related. So will this Minister commit to get each department to aggressively develop, in the very short term here, plans to deal with those issues that are concrete — again, that result in net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of a significant level?

Thank you for those remarks. I acknowledge that we have a number of programs that are getting off the ground, and I’m encouraged that we are going to be learning from that and that we’re starting to pay attention to the public here and the evidence that is strongly before us. Our Greenhouse Gas Strategy, if you would call it that, which commits itself to a 10 per cent reduction from 2001 levels by a certain date, is hardly significant when we are well on our way to or past doubling and are now on our way to tripling our greenhouse gas emissions. What we need is an absolute decrease in that...

I’d like to recognize Ms. Amanda Mallon, outgoing president of the NWT Teachers’ Association, and Mr. Jean-Francois Des Lauriers of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Unanimous consent granted.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for those comments, Mr. Minister. I don’t really disagree with any of them, except that I wouldn’t throw out history like that. I think we need to make use of the information we’ve got in the past.

I’d also like to point out we’ve done things in a rush here. We’ve got to get in gear. I disagree that we have to rush things, given that we have this $25 million unexpected surplus, which is about what we had anticipated in the reductions this year. So I don’t quite see the hurry that the Premier’s in.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. Given that our estimate of operating surplus at $44 million has risen now to $69 million — that’s a $25 million difference — and we’ve firmed up the Building Canada Fund…. I think we’re $12 million to $15 million this year and then $35 million per year. Given that our intent, laid out before that, was to have a net savings of $30 million a year, considerably less than the sum of these, do these affect the budget? Do these affect the perspectives? Is there a little more opportunity for doing things a little differently?

I understood the Premier’s...

Again, thank you for those remarks, and I appreciate hearing those things are happening. Again, we need a really comprehensive response. What authority does the Minister have? As Ms. Bisaro pointed out, this response is required from every department and agency in the Northwest Territories, and in fact, we need the help of industry and residents as well. What authority does this Minister have, over at least those other government departments, to get some mandatory action on this issue, for a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement this afternoon and ask the Minister of ENR, who I believe is responsible for a response to climate change, what exactly he is doing to address climate change given that we are recognizing increasingly that there is a strong element of time and the need for immediate and comprehensive response.

Mr. Speaker, again I’m talking local here. It would be great to see the federal government involved, but I’m talking the Northwest Territories communities; I’m talking about our own people. We need to be doing this ourselves. We need to provide the leadership. We have small communities; these are not huge bunches of people out there. We have demonstrated productivity of our land back in the ’60s and ’50s and ’40s.

Will the Minister and Cabinet commit to putting together comprehensive plans to meet our basic needs like the food situation? Let’s start with this Minister and food.